Yep, and now we have a 'major offensive.' LOL. Indeed.
Long update here, just a small sampling/fair use of the news overnight, comrades:
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But, judging by today's results, that syzygy is more a zugzwang. Russian forces dealt a crushing blow to AFU's meat-vanguard. Let's break down how it happened in detail; however, before that, first let's update a few things about the last advance over the past couple days on Zaporozhye's eastern flank.
I reported last time how Russia managed to retake Novodonetsk under Velyka Novosilka. But I just wanted to add some of the official numbers to contextualize things. In a somewhat uncommon gesture, Shoigu himself actually gave the exact figures of Russian losses during this assault. They were:
71 Russian servicemen killed, 210 wounded.
So as one can see, Russian forces do take losses in these meat assaults by Ukraine. However, Shoigu's listed losses for Ukraine for the period were:
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Ukraine's losses from June 4 to June 6 were 3,715 soldiers, 52 tanks, 207 armored vehicles, 134 vehicles, 5 aircraft, 2 helicopters, 48 artillery systems and 53 drones, Mr. Shoigu announced.
Many have scoffed at his figure of 3700 casualties, some saying that you can divide this by 10 and it's still a lot. We must remember this includes wounded, so the KIA is likely much lower. The above figure is for major assaults over the course of three days. If you break down the 3,700 as probably 1000+ killed and 2700 wounded (give or take), how is that an unrealistic number for three days' time of June 4, 5, and 6? That would mean 300 killed per day. That's a light day for AFU even in Bakhmut when they were on defense. Now imagine them on offense, exposed and easy to hit.
Another thing, you see those figures like 52 tanks, 200+ armored vehicleswhich too sounds like a lot. Once again that's over three days. But interestingly, just in today's new assault in west Zaporozhye, we have visual confirmation of 42 pieces of armor destroyed. That's just from a couple videos from one unit out of dozens/hundreds of units on these lines. And this is just the videos of mass armor knockouts, there are dozens of videos showing individual pieces being knocked out like Lancets taking out artillery, of which there were at least 5-7 new videos today alone. So imagine what the total destroyed figures are when you extrapolate this out?
Even Uke war fanboys are mystified by the senseless slaughter they are providing for their own cannon fodder in broad daylight:
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Recall that, as large as those numbers above sounda 30,000 man breakthrough force followed by a 50,000 man reserve to expand the breakthrough once it's unleashedI've noted previously that some sources estimate Russia has close to 200k men on this front waiting for these advances. Most of them would likely be way in the rear, or not even injected into the actual theater yet (i.e. could be in Crimea, etc.) but that is the totality of what they can bring to bear there in a short amount of time to plug holes on any 'breakthroughs'.
And…the uke's apparently have now been confirmed to have worked to flood the dam before blowing it. The escalation strategy unfortunately seems to have worked;
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Patrushev: Kyiv released water to Dnipropetrovsk HPP a day before the attack on Kakhovka Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolay Patrushev said today that, on the order of Kiev, water was released in the Dnipropetrovsk hydroelectric power plant, a day before the attack on the Kahovka HPP. "On the orders of Kyiv, 24 hours earlier there was a massive water release at the Dnipropetrovsk HPP, and then there was an attack on the Kahovka HPP, which led to terrible consequences," said Patrushev, TASS reports.
One very ominous development is that the Kakhovka dam situation has markedly shifted the rhetoric from topic Russian leadership. The above-mentioned Patrushev, who is said to be in the innermost circle of Putin, and who not only used to be the director of the FSB but once considered as the leading candidate for the future presidency of Russia, stated in a new interview that the Kiev regime needs to be "replaced" and Ukraine itself must become a neutral state:
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The new goal of the SMO is the demolition of the Nazi regime in Kiev.
It seems that new specifics have been added to the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine as the goals of the SMO.
"Washington and London created the Kiev Nazi regime, which must be replaced, giving Ukraine the status of a neutral state in practice," said Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev (pictured) in an interview with Belarusian Security Council Secretary Alexander Volfovich.
However, Russian state Duma deputy Elena Panina went even further stating that the only way to ensure Russia's security is for the entirety of Ukraine to be incorporated into Russia as a federal district, i.e. total absorption of the state of Ukraine: