UKRaine Breaks Through Enemy Lines in RUssia-Controlled South; UKR Targets RU’s Big Guns to Blast a Path Forward; UKR Forces Make Advances in Kherson Oblast; UKR and RU Forces Clashed 68 Times Today; UKR Forces Hold Firm on Avdiyivka Frontline, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

NY POST: Ukraine breaks through enemy lines in Russia-controlled south: ‘Russian losses are really staggering’:

Ukrainian forces ramped up their attacks on Russian-held territory in the south while holding off Moscow’s assaults on the eastern town of Avdiivka, according to military experts and officials.

The Ukrainian military broke through the enemy lines after intensified assaults across the Dnipro River, near the southern city of Kherson.

“Ukrainian actions appear to be larger than previously observed tactical raids,” the think tank Institute for the Study of War said in a report.

In the town of Avdiivka, just nine miles from the Moscow-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces managed to repel and hold their ground against Russia, which launched relentless assaults there earlier this month, President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed.

“Thanks to all our boys, who powerfully hold the defense and destroy the occupier day after day,” Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram.

“These days, the Russian losses are really staggering, and it is precisely losses by the occupier that Ukraine needs.”

Ukraine received new support from the United States in the form of long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, which were deployed for the first time this week.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba confirmed to reporters the U.S. would continue to supply Kyiv with the advanced missiles, The Telegraph reported.

Officials have said the ATACMS could help reshape the course of the war by allowing Ukraine’s troops to attack previously unreachable supply lines, air bases and rail networks used by Russia in occupied territories. —>READ MORE HERE

WSJ: Ukraine Targets Russia’s Big Guns to Blast a Path Forward:

At a Ukrainian control room, notifications ping onto a screen as a U.S.-supplied radar locates Russian artillery guns firing on Ukrainian positions.

A Ukrainian team plots the coordinates on a tablet map, sharing them online with drone units tasked with confirming targets and gunners tasked with destroying them.

The operation is an example of how Ukraine has honed its system of identifying and destroying Russian artillery, giving its armed forces an important advantage as they try to push forward and retake occupied land.

The work of the small group from Ukraine’s 45th Artillery Brigade is part of a largely unseen battle taking place far from the trenches. With front lines hardening after nearly 20 months of war, progress for either side depends on being able to silence, or at least quieten, the enemy’s guns so that infantry and vehicles can advance.

With some 70% of Ukrainian combat casualties resulting from artillery strikes, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, taking Russian guns out of the fight saves Ukrainian lives.

In this contest, Ukraine has an advantage in the accuracy of its artillery, aided by Western equipment and Ukrainian ingenuity. That has helped Kyiv’s forces to gain near-parity in a field where Russia previously had an edge, according to soldiers on the front line. Russia is also improving, Ukrainian soldiers say, by using drones to guide its big guns.

“This is one of the key tactical contests,” said Michael Kofman, a defense analyst and expert on Russian and Ukrainian militaries at the Carnegie Endowment. “And since the war is heavily driven by effective employment of artillery, it is one of the principal battles that play out.”

With the war dragging on, Ukraine and its partners are struggling to boost the production of artillery shells, leading to rationing and increasing the importance of accuracy. Russia is also suffering from shortages, and relentless Ukrainian strikes have forced it to relocate ammunition stocks further from the front lines.

“It’s not just your ability to successfully engage a target,” Kofman said. “It also matters how many artillery shells it takes you to be able to conduct these missions.”

WarSpotting, an independent group tracking losses in the war, says Ukraine has destroyed 177 Russian guns including multiple-launch rocket systems since its counteroffensive began in June. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the focus of the counteroffensive, its analysts say Russia has had 92 guns destroyed while Ukraine has lost 19. —>READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:

+++++Russia-Ukraine News LATEST UPDATES: (REUTERS) (AP) (NY POST) and (WSJ)+++++

+++++Ukrainian forces make strategic advances in Kherson Oblast, ISW reports+++++

+++++Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed 68 times today – General Staff report+++++

+++++Ukrainian forces hold firm as Russian activity declines on Avdiyivka frontline+++++

More than 100 combat clashes along front line in past day – General Staff



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