Gabriel B
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Ukraine - July 28, 2024

Ukraine - July 28, 2024

Jul 29, 2024

Russia has over the past week or so averaged around a kilometer a day pace with their push towards Pokrovsk, and that has shown no signs of slowing down today. Russian troops are still for now largely sidestepping the villages in the area, though they have full on assaulted Vesele. Sitting on the road to Hrodivka, it isn't optionally for Russia to ignore if they intend to continue their direct path to Pokrovsk. Reportedly, Russian troops have captured around half of Vesele. Based on their overall rate of advancement, I expect they'll be in control of most of the village tomorrow and pushing beyond it the day after.

Russia is also making rapid advances by Kostyantynivka after weeks of stalling. Here too, they are mostly avoiding the town itself. Instead, they are trying to push across the highway le as ding through Kostyantynivka, both to its south and north. Russia likely has the manpower advantage to simply overwhelm the Ukrainain positions and envelop the town. They are probably hoping that they can still inflict large casualties on Ukraine while avoiding costly battles for the town itself; Russia suffered from hundreds of armored losses from frontal assaults on nearby Novomykhailivka, so it seems as if they may have learned.

F-16s, said some time ago to be en route to Ukraine, are now expected to arrive within "weeks". Russia has had adequate time to adapt to their eventual arrival, and Ukraine has been put enough on their back foot that they are likely to lead to a Ukrainian offensive. Furthermore, Ukraine is expected to only receive a few initially. As a result, they will likely be used mostly to shoot down Russian missiles and to keep Russian warplanes a bit more reluctant to approach the front buying more time for Ukrainians air defenses to track and engage incoming missiles.

Poland, formerly aligned with Hungary as one of the main countries in the EU and NATO which constantly acted as a source of frustration, swung hard against Hungary today. Polish officials questioned why Hungary was even still in both organizations, given all the griping that the Hungarian government does. Poland accused Hungary of being against both, as well as being against both Ukraine and Poland. Ukraine and Poland certainly don't always see eye to eye, so Ukraine specifically being name dropped was notable. What seems to have prompted these statements was Orbán accusing Poland of being "hypocritical and sanctimonious", alleging that Poland secretly did business with Russia. Given the overt financial ties and purposeful cultivation of them that Hungary has done with Russia, Orbán's statement seems to have been nothing but pure projection. Meanwhile, Slovakia has warned that they and Hungary may face fuel shortages as soon as September as a result of Ukraine to adhere to their previously announced decision to halt the flow of Russian gas by the company Lukoil; other companies are exempt. Slovakia has stated that they are trying to put together a plan which would guarantee that they and Hungary won't face shortages.

Bad news continues to come out of Mali for Russia; more specifically, the Wagner Group. Anton Elizarov is the commander who led the assault on Soledar, the fall of which in turn led to the fall of Bakhmut; he was reportedly either captured or killed in Mali. He was one of the higher ranking members of Wagner, and played a key role in overseeing their operations in Mali after Prigozhin's mutiny resulted in Wagner largely being evicted from Russia and Ukraine. Furthermore, one of the insurgent groups in Mali has extended an offer to Ukraine to transfer the captured Wagner soldiers to Ukraine; they in turn would likely eventually be returned to Russia as part of a prisoner swap. The details of such a deal, such as the logistics of getting captured troops from rebel held desert in Mali to Ukraine has not been expanded upon, nor has Ukraine officially accepted the offer either. Russian milbloggers have stated that Russia is trying to negotiate some sort of deal which would see the release of the captured Wagner forced to Russian to custody. With another day having passed, the casualty toll that Wagner suffered from the battle here has become much more clear; approximately eighty erre killed, with another fifteen or so believed to have been taken captive, out of a full force of around a thousand people in all of Mali. Such a defeat is a major embarrassment for Wagner and by extension, Russia, which now has to expend geopolitical clout in an effort to free their captured men and to do damage control to their image.

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