14:22
Certainly last as usual and maybe not the coolest now that the city of Kherson has fallen but UA is in Beryslav as well so east of Inhulets is now closed for further retreat if there happened to be Russian rear units still in the area
20:32
Got a bit colored by Bingbong but –
Ukraaaaaina ✊
Swan Lake in black and white on TV in a Russian province near you, hope, hope, hope.
(know it’s early but before summer we will see black and white Swan Lake on Russian TV and the very slippery Hypnopad dangling from a gas station in central Moscow).
A blacker and whiter war has probably never been seen.
09:11
Russia is really a colonial power where many provinces and places should be their own countries.
It didn’t always become super-democracy from decolonization in developing countries either but it was correct.
Russia has gotten some kind of free pass here, probably because it was Soviet during the decolonization of the world.
Then it probably doesn’t matter much what we think, it’s heading that way anyway entirely on its own.
09:25
High number, don’t think it’s the Kherson retreat because there have been very hard battles in Bakhmut and Avdiivka and then it has previously landed on this number.
There are stories about when they reached assembly points to cross the Dnipro that HIMARS claims there are dead Russians everywhere. Of course only Twitter rumors but such a panic retreat should have led to losses beyond the normal.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1591327559681277953?s=20&t=hROj3qi2bBhB3_CvFPFTTw
09:26
Third on that I saw now, going downhill 😀
12:38
This one went out a bit late due to not being at the computer, Russian sources claim that the retreat has been carried out and that seems to be taking over the reporting.
We have a couple of things to look forward to – drone footage from the ferry camps and bridgeheads, flag pictures from Kherson and Khakovka, as well as some official statement from Ukraine about prisoners and equipment – the latter might be a bit early to expect.
We know that Khakovka was an open retreat route over the dam that couldn’t be blown up but that both bridgeheads were shelled with presumed cluster munitions and tungsten, I bet the child benefit on there being a lot of death on the access roads but that retreat went as the Russians planned.
We also know that they shelled assembly points EAST of the Dnipro so intelligence gathering has been in real time and very active and Ukraine has absolutely not held back here but lobbed in their death on the Russian side of the river and everywhere during the retreat.
We also know that the Russians pulled away air defense and artillery earlier so air and army aviation have probably gone all in, hopefully together with the last Bayraktars.
One must not forget that it is in the nature of things that defenders try to retreat before they get captured.
At the city of Kherson there seemed to have been +10 ferries in operation and a lot of smaller boats as well as the Antonovsky bridge, pontoon bridge and railway bridge being passable at least on foot. Now they are no more and whether all were blown up by retreating Russians or someone from Ukraine I do not know.
Ukraine was in the starting blocks for a renewed offensive, we knew that – the time since the last offensive was reached and we started seeing footage with rows of revving armored vehicles which always gets one excited.
If one tries to guess, Russian command has pulled away high-value units from at least east of Inhulets/Khakovka for a couple of weeks and initiated a full retreat over Khakovka for the units east of Inhulets before Shoigu’s speech.
What then happened is nothing less than a sensation – for some reason the Russians did not get their retreat order for the city of Kherson before Shoigu’s TV broadcast of his speech.
Either they had planned to defend/trap the city of Kherson or it was just Russian communications messing up.
The units in the city of Kherson probably watch Shoigu’s speech on TV, they see the retreat route over Khakovka collapse, they see the bridges over Inhulets blown up, they see detonations over the Antonovsky bridge and all ferry camps while Ukraine absolutely does not dawdle. It seems to have become a spontaneous reaction to the whole thing and a pure wildebeest migration over the Dnipro river.
The city Kherson Russians absolutely did not retreat in an organized manner, it was a proper flight, as close to a rubber duck as you can get without physically wriggling into one and flapping across.
Ukraine cuts straight through the first and second lines and pushes in all SOF they have in the CITY of Kherson. Now in the morning it’s breaking apart but there seems to be consensus that they have a foothold in the northern parts of the city itself, meaning not just Chornobayivka but the CITY of Kherson, and that these are army units not just SOF.
No point guessing the number of prisoners in the CITY of Kherson, it seems to have been quite creative during the night and they have crossed the river on everything that floats. I think we can assume that at Khakovka they carried out a somewhat organized retreat and possibly sacrificed some rear units.
At the city of Kherson it turned into Russian colorful chaos of painting and we can probably assume that there are/were several pockets between Snigurivka and down to Kherson that did not retreat in time and that when the prisoners are counted it will be quite a few.
Captured equipment should be in enormous quantities, again I can imagine that they retreated in reasonably good order at Khakovka minus those knocked out on the way.
At the city of Kherson my impression is that they withdrew with personal weapons, roughly.
Supplies and heavier weapons that were not shipped over earlier probably remained. We know they moved away artillery earlier and air defense but we have no information about armor for example.
Surely a lot is stuck in mud, with technical faults and simply where they chose a truck that was faster.
Now it’s up to Ukraine’s PR brigade to step in, flood the internet with videos and pictures, make this a bigger loss than it was, get it out on Telegram. Humiliate the Russian army. Partly it strengthens morale on their own side, then it demoralizes the Russians and it will send shockwaves deep into Russia.
-our VDV are driving like car thieves not to die.
I know you’re not supposed to but gather all prisoners and do some drone sweeps so it looks like a lot.
This is a big win, quite fun that what we said back in March/April actually happened 🙂
It could have been an organized retreat of the whole thing but since they are Russians it turned into total chaos.
If we get to see any footage of a Russian in any small floating vessel over the Dnipro my day is made.