Ukraine’s New Offensive Threatens Moscow’s Control of Lands It Seeks to Annex; ‘Gross incompetence’: Russian bid to control Ukrainian airspace fails spectacularly; Ukrainian Armed Forces liberate 454 settlements in Kharkiv Oblast; 10 repelled attacks and mass flights of Iranian-made Shahed drones, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

By admin On Sep 29, 2022

Ukraine’s New Offensive Threatens Moscow’s Control of Lands It Seeks to Annex:

Wrecked Russian armor and corpses of Russian troops line the roads in northern Donetsk as Ukraine pushes deeper into Donbas

The Ukrainian military offensive that ousted Russian troops from the Kharkiv region early this month has now crossed deep into the northern part of the nearby Donetsk region, increasingly threatening Russian control over lands that Moscow seeks to annex as sovereign territory in coming days.

Here in Rubtsy, a village in Donetsk that Russia captured in late April, advancing Ukrainian forces stream east past burned-out carcasses of Russian tanks and the bloated bodies of Russian soldiers that remain on roadsides. Trophy pieces of Russian armor are being towed in the opposite direction, to be repaired and reused.

The Ukrainian push here, east of the Oskil River, aims to encircle the strategic town of Lyman, where street battles have begun, and ultimately target the northern parts of the nearby Luhansk region. Russia is wrapping up sham referendums it is staging in Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as Donbas, and two occupied regions of southern Ukraine, aiming to formally incorporate them into Russia as soon as this week.

Demoralized by recent defeats in Kharkiv, Russian soldiers on this front line continue to retreat, despite arriving reinforcements. On Sunday, Ukrainian forces took several prisoners in a nearby village because many of the Russian soldiers were drunk, said a Ukrainian soldier. “The ones who were sober ran away, and the ones who were drunk didn’t even realize that the village was being attacked, and got caught,” he said.

The soldier showed off two recently captured Russian T-80 tanks that had been towed to his position, the Russian tactical sign Z on their armor painted over with the white cross marking Ukrainian armor on this front. One only needed a battery change, he said. The other would require more intensive repairs because the retreating Russian crew had thrown a hand grenade into the barrel. “We’ll fix them and use them against the Russians,” he said. —>READ MORE HERE

‘Gross incompetence’: Russian bid to control Ukrainian airspace fails spectacularly, strategists say:

Russian and Ukrainian troops appear poised for a war of attrition that could drag on for years on the ground.

In the air, Moscow may have already lost.

Virtually all military observers expected Russia to dominate the Ukrainian skies within days of its Feb. 24 invasion, given its massive numerical edge in fighter jets, attack helicopters and a host of other metrics. Instead, Ukrainian airspace remains contested, thanks largely to a steady stream of anti-aircraft weapons from the U.S. and Europe and major strategic blunders from Russian commanders.

Airpower strategists and military insiders say Russia’s failure to achieve air superiority over Ukraine has been one of the biggest shocks of the war so far and has contributed greatly to Moscow’s broader battlefield failures. Russia‘s missteps in the air, they say, helped doom its ground assault on Kyiv in the early days of fighting. More recently, the lack of air dominance allowed a Ukrainian counteroffensive to push Russian ground troops out of Kharkiv and other key cities.

There is little sign things will turn around soon.

“I would say Russia has almost no chance to establish air superiority over the next several months,” one U.S. airpower strategist told The Washington Times recently, offering a blunt assessment that highlights how Russian troops have failed spectacularly in their push to use air superiority to pave the way for ground maneuvers.