It’s important to mention that this offensive started on Sunday 4th June 2023, but no reference to this was made by either Ukraine or their main allies, Britain and the USA, nor by the Mainstream Media (MSM) until Thursday 8th June 23 by various news outlets in the USA and the UK. This is rather late in the day, probably because these MSM outlets, who are working complicitly with the political establishment, knew that it was going extremely badly for Ukraine.
13 out of 60 Leopard 2 Tanks destroyed/disabled by either Russian artillery or Russian Land mines. Could Ukraine rescue these Tanks? If so, it depends how far into the battle lines they were taken out and how many are actually worth rescuing. Those that could be rescued may need to be taken by rail, presumably to Poland or maybe further afield to Germany, to be fully repaired, but it seems many are also a ‘write-off’. Alternatively those closer to the Russian lines could be salvaged by the Russians for analysis and maybe even shown off in Moscow as a propaganda event.
Two Bradley tracked fighting vehicles were destroyed on the first day, Sunday 4th June 23 and several more since. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle.
At least one elite Swedish Infantry fighting vehicle has also been destroyed on the battle front.
Up to 7000 Ukrainians have been killed or wounded from the 4th June to the 8th June 23. None of the fighting has reached the Russian main fortification lines, so far all the fighting by the Ukrainians is to attempt to actually reach those specific Russian main fortified lines. No progress so far up to 8th June 23 on reaching them, just empty fields and the odd hill have been taken by the Ukrainians, this is all in the Zaporizhia region to date.
Bakhmut was taken by the Russians on the 25th May 23 by the Wagner organisation after many gruelling months. It was then vacated by the Wagner organisation and they were replaced by regular Russian regiments. These fresh Russian regiments have also come under attack in this Ukrainian offensive in the last few days, but as in the Zaporizhia region, the Ukrainians have just occupied some empty fields after attempting to take three villages outside of Bakhmut occupied by the Russians. Once again the Ukrainians have suffered very significant losses.
In Donetesk city, which the Russians have been incrementally encircling since March, the Russians have also come under attack in the last few days in coordinated attacks that have been launched simultaneously with the attacks in Zaporizhia and Bakhmut in a town called Avdiivka, just north of Donetesk city. Just like the attacks in southern Zaporizhia and around the Bakhmut area, the Ukrainians have made little or no progress at the expense of very high casualties, losses of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and ammunition used up that they can ill afford to lose. Ukraine is using up far more ammunition than the West can produce, even though the West has also been bringing in ammunition made in South Korea, it’s just not sustainable on every front now for the Ukrainians to continue this war of attrition.
CNN have admitted that the offensive is not going too well for the Ukrainians and there is surprise at the strong Russian resistance also from the American news agency, giving credence to the claims above.
