29 Sep: Confused Russians Shot down own jets instead of Ukrainian missiles - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 583: Sep 29

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

First of all, after several days of relentless shaping operations, Ukrainians increased the physical pressure on the southern line and started pushing Russians further south. However, the intensity of ground attacks is still not at its peak. As reported by Ukrainian fighters on the ground, one of the goals is to ensure the preservation of the personnel – otherwise, the storming operation cannot last for long. Another reason why Ukrainians are utilizing careful tactics here lies in the topography of the region. If we look at the topographic map, we can see that Ukrainians are controlling the tactical heights above the settlement. Operating at a higher elevation allows Ukrainians to find and establish greater and greater fire control over the lowlands, slowly driving the enemy out of the outskirts of the village.

Ukrainian drone operators from the 46th Assault Brigade released a video showing how they are attacking Russian positions in the northern part of the settlement. By the way, this is exactly where the 2 Ukrainian soldiers died when they moved around the Russian defense and opened fire at the exposed Russian flanks. The fact that Ukrainians have released not a lot of videos with clearing operations suggests that Ukrainians learned their mistakes and are paying much more attention to this area than previously – annihilating all Russian troops that try to move into the region.

Russian military analysts, however, claimed that Ukrainian assault units exhausted their offensive capabilities during the previous series of attacks when Ukrainians entered the village from the north and northeast. In particular, it was reported that the Ukrainian 47th Mechanized Brigade lost its combat capability and was completely moved out of the region.

Ukrainian fighters from multiple detachments that are operating in the region promptly disproved such claims and reported that not only does the 47th Mechanized Brigade continue conducting its operation but also that today was actually one of the most successful days in the week because they managed to push Russians further south.

And the fighters from the 47th Mechanized Brigade itself released the footage of the recent storming operation north of Novoprokopivka. As can be seen, the assault units were successfully delivered to the contact line with Bradleys, after which they quickly assumed positions in the trenches. The landing operation was conducted with the fire support of tanks in the back that unleashed fire on the Russian strong points, suppressing the enemy fire. As noted by many analysts, the Ukrainian crew inside the tank is also purposefully leveraging the folds in terrain and the tree line to complicate the aiming of the Russian ATGM crews.

As of now, the immediate tactical goal of the Ukrainian assault units is to establish total control over the northern part of the village. This will automatically drive Russians out of the central part of the village because it is located in the lowlands and split the control over the village equally. This is precisely the same tactic the Ukrainians used when they pushed Russians out of Robotyne.

In order to complicate Ukrainian advances, Russian forces continue conducting airstrikes, predominantly using FAB-500 air bombs. Under such conditions, Ukrainian fighters once again underscored the necessity of operating in small units. This way, Russians simply cannot inflict a lot of losses at a time and have to raise their aviation and use such powerful weapons in trying to hit 3 or 4 troops in a trench line, which is also hard to hit precisely.

Unfortunately for Russians, there are even bigger problems with conducting these low-efficiency strikes. Today, Russian sources confirmed that Russian forces accidentally shot down their own fighter jet that was on a mission to conduct an air strike. The pilots did not survive. Later, released footage showed how the intercepted jet fell on the ground. Russian analysts concluded that the “Identification, Friend or Foe” once again malfunctioned, and Russians thought that it was a Strom Shadow missile. And this explanation is quite plausible because today, Ukrainians indeed launched Storm Shadow missiles on the Russian military bases in Berdyansk. In any case, friendly fire remains one of the leading causes of death, according to Russian statistics.