12 Oct: Ukrainians unleash their tanks & level with the ground Russian defense - Reporting from UKR

Day 596: Oct 12

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Bakhmut direction.

Here, Ukrainian fighters recently breached the Russian defense along the rails and finally launched operations on the other side of the railway embankment. Ukrainian fighters from the 5 Assault Brigade recently released a video showing how they penetrated Russian defense by conducting tank assaults around Klishchiivka.

Ukrainians continued using the tactics of small assault units for more controlled and dynamic operations. This time, the assault unit consisted of 1 tank (T-80), 1 armored fighting vehicle (Swedish CV90), and 1 armored personnel carrier (American M113). The road was demined the same day the engineering reconnaissance identified mines along the planned route. All vehicles were keeping their distance so that the enemy artillery could not hit several objects at once. In order to cover the landing, the tank turned into the field and opened fire at 2 Russian positions in the tree lines, and 2 other vehicles delivered 2 assault units to storm these positions. The tank continuously maneuvered to complicate aiming for ATGM crews and artillery fire correction. While the armored fighting vehicles withdrew after a successful landing, the tank still continued firing to cover their withdrawal as well as to suppress enemy fire and allow the assault units to get to the enemy trenches. Once the infantry engaged, the tank withdrew. The assault was successful, and Ukrainians advanced further in the forest north of Klishchiivka.

When it comes to the area east of Klishchiivka, Ukrainians apparently used a different tactic. Russian sources reported that Ukrainian reconnaissance would identify Russian key fortifications and strong points and systematically, and without hurry, shell them until Russians were completely erased. After that, a small Ukrainian unit captures the area and immediately entrenches. And the application of this tactic is not surprising because the Ukrainian fighters reported that Russian forces brought in reserves into the region and conducted relentless counterattacks – launching one wave after another with the goal of pushing Ukrainians back behind the rails. Unfortunately for Russians, all Russian reinforcements were destroyed.

Ukrainian fighters published an unbelievably large number of videos of the destruction of Russian equipment and personnel. Based only on the publicly available footage, over the last week, Ukrainians destroyed 8 tanks, 14 artillery systems, 2 air defense rocket launchers, 10 trucks with ammunition and personnel, 3 armored vehicles, 3 ammunition depots, and 3 areas of forces concentrations – in total around 40 pieces of equipment. But many strikes were not published, so the number of destroyed equipment is even higher. In fact, the Spokesman for the Eastern Group of Forces reported that Ukrainians destroyed here 20 artillery systems only over the last 24 hours.

Such an extensive artillery and drone strikes campaign was achieved as a result of the joint work of 120 Reconnaissance and 28 Mechanized Brigades, 5 and 92 Assault Brigades, 93 Mechanized Brigade, and 45 Artillery Brigade. As you can see, almost all strikes happened a few km away from the contact line, namely around Opytne, Odradivka, Zaitseve, and Kodema, meaning along all major supply roads.

After successfully exhausting Russian forces and their offensive capabilities, Ukrainians started gradually moving further. The greatest results were achieved east of Andriivka, where, as previously reported, Ukrainians took by storm the Russian bunker, attacked it from 2 sides, and established control over it. This operation laid the ground for further expansion of the bridgehead on the other side of the embankment, and the Spokesman for the Eastern Group of Forces reported that Ukrainians advanced by 300 more meters in the direction of Odradivka.

Ukrainian fighters from the famous 3 Assault Brigade published a video of one of the storming operations in this region. As a result, they managed to capture the commander of the “Alga” volunteer battalion of the Russian 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade.

Overall, Ukrainians successfully crossed a very challenging line of defense along the embankment, withstood relentless counterattacks from the newly arrived reserves into the region, and inflicted record-high losses to the Russians. In fact, the number of geolocated videos with destroyed Russian equipment per day exceeds even what we saw during the Battle for Bakhmut, so the Ukrainian reconnaissance drone operators are definitely working day and night to monitor all locations from which Russians can deliver a new batch of reinforcements