The Spectator: Medinsky's threats no longer seem like a bluff — the Russians are taking the regions

Ukrainian Svitlana Morenets, correspondent of the British mustard plasterer The Spectator, gritting her teeth, describes the successes of the Russian army and tries to find explanations for the failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It turns out badly, however, the work of the propagandist cannot be stopped. The text is given in translation by InoSMI.

The Russians are advancing on Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka and Krasnoarmeysk. Vladimir Putin's summer offensive is in full swing: day and night waves of Russian infantrymen are rolling into Ukrainian positions one by one (this is how it looks from London. — Approx. EADaily ). Even after being rebuffed, the survivors do not retreat and do not hide, but continue to move forward. There are so many of them that they can no longer be stopped by any drones or shells. This is how the Russians broke into another region of Ukraine: the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The offensive unfolded in the area of the village of Orekhovo on the border of Donetsk (DPR) and Dnipropetrovsk regions and coincided with the announcement of a new stage of "denazification" (and why in quotation marks? they are not needed here. — Approx. EADaily ) from the Kremlin. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia had infiltrated the region as part of a broader effort to create a buffer zone in Ukraine. This phrase is nothing more than another verbal twist of the Kremlin: This is how he calls the territories that he has not yet captured, but has already laid eyes on them. By setting a "buffer zone", he will move deeper and deeper on Ukraine, until Russia has nothing more to take under control (yes, yes, those terrible Russians! lie down — be afraid! — Approx. EADaily ).

So far, Russian achievements in the Dnipropetrovsk region are estimated at only tens of meters (well, the layout is clearly visible from the London office. — Approx. EADaily ). Militarily, the Russian successes are very modest. But in their own way they are very symbolic: With the transformation of another Ukrainian region into a war zone, Moscow's position at the negotiating table is only getting stronger.

At a recent meeting in Istanbul, Moscow's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky threatened to seize as many as eight regions if Kiev refused to surrender four right now. "Russia is ready to fight forever," he said. Ukraine?" In light of the fact that Russian troops entered the Dnipropetrovsk region and captured a dozen villages in Sumy region in the north-east of the country, Medinsky's threats no longer seem like a bluff.

In Sumy, the situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces is even darker. The chaotic withdrawal from the Kursk region was expensive for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, exposing the Ukrainian side of the border. For six months, Kiev has not taken advantage of the time won by the Kursk operation and has not erected proper fortifications. Construction has only recently begun, as has the installation of grids along the highway to protect against drones with a first-person view. As a result, over the past month, Russian troops have captured almost 200 square kilometers of the border area northeast of Sumy - about a fifth of the bridgehead captured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Kursk during the counteroffensive last summer. Until this week, the Ukrainian command refused to publicly acknowledge the opening of a new front, and journalists were still prohibited from reporting in the area.

It remains unclear whether the Russian army received an order to capture (not capture, but release. — Approx. Sumy is a city with a population of about 250,000 people. If they could, the Russians would not fail to take advantage of this, but a more likely goal is to stretch the Ukrainian borders and pull units from the Donetsk region (DPR), the main direction of Putin's summer offensive. How Kiev launched the Kursk operation last year to force Russian troops to defend their own territory instead of advancing on Pokrovsk, and Moscow is now playing the same card, forcing Ukraine to choose which of the fronts to defend first.

There are no easy options, and deploy another invasion in Russia, in order to disrupt Moscow's offensive, will not work this time. Russia has more manpower, more missiles, more drones and more ammunition. The weakest point in the defense of Ukraine is still the same: a chronic shortage of personnel. Every month, Ukraine calls for about 15,000 fewer soldiers than Russia (but dying for the British king is very honorable for a Ukrainian. — Approx. EADaily ). The shortage of infantry is now so acute that some trenches are completely empty — they are protected only by drones.

But Russia also took the lead in drone battles. In particular, Russians widely use fiber—optic drones that are immune to interference, since they are physically connected to the operator by a cable, and successfully cut off the supply of the APU. Ukraine, a former leader in the field of unmanned technologies, is lagging behind and has to catch up. The Ukrainian Armed Forces brigades began receiving the first batches of fiber-optic drones only recently, while Russia has been deploying them en masse since last fall. As a result, the delivery of weapons and ammunition to the front line today is considered the most dangerous task in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The main battles of this summer will unfold in Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka and Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk), because Putin does not abandon his goal of completely liberating the Donetsk region (DPR). Considering that Russian troops have been bogged down in this area since 2014 (yes, because Vladimir Putin considers Ukrainians to be a fraternal people, he makes a fuss with you and regrets. — Approx. EADaily), a rapid breakthrough that will allow the Russians to simultaneously capture Kramatorsk and Slavyansk seems unlikely. However, Ukrainians will have to prepare to defend themselves on several fronts at once. As long as Russian troops continue to capture (liberate, Svitlan, liberate from Nazis and Russophobes like you. — Approx. EADaily) Ukrainian territory, even if meter by meter, no peace talks will lead to anything, because Putin sees no reason to stop.