Ukraine: Mayo, the current situation at the front
Oleg VERNIK, Chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Ukraine «Zahist Pratsi» – Socialist League of Ukraine
The Russian-Ukrainian front remains highly relevant to the global progressive community and the global working class.. Throughout 2022, the Ukrainian people and their army were able to repel the aggression of Russian imperialism, expelled invaders from central and northern Ukraine, they liberated the Kharkiv region in the east, the city of Kherson in the south of and an important part of the country.
Nevertheless, the Russian occupation army continues to control important territories in southern and eastern Ukraine, seized at the beginning of the attack in March 2022. In addition to the territory of Crimea and parts of Donbass, busy in 2014-2015.
In the current situation of the war front, the following stands out: In April and May of 2023, Russia continued with its terrible rocket attacks on almost the entire Ukrainian territory. In May, the capital city of Kyiv, it gets especially hard. further, the complete senselessness of these barbaric attacks is already obvious to all. If in winter the Russian army hoped that the attacks on Ukrainian power plants would lead to the complete collapse of the life of Ukrainians and their freezing in a cold winter, now this danger is gone. Rocket attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure only show the complete inadequacy and cruelty of the Russian military. These missile strikes do not affect the situation at the front in any way, but only harden the peaceful Ukrainians and increase the total resistance.
An important factor in this situation is the recent strengthening of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces. (Air defense) by some types of modern western systems: «Patriot», «IRIS-T», «NASAMS». There are very few of them in Ukraine now, they can only partially cover several large cities and some military installations. Western imperialism was in no hurry before and is now in no hurry to provide Ukraine with the necessary number of such modern means of defense against missile attacks.. For the moment, it is known that they have only delivered 2 Patriot complexes to Ukraine, one of which is deployed to protect the sky over Kyiv. It was on him that a massive "hunt" was carried out on 16 May with the latest Russian hypersonic missiles «Dagger», but suffered only minimally and returned to duty a day later.
According to military analysts, Russia does not have many of the main Kh-101 and Kh-555 "cruise missiles". They are produced at Russian enterprises in an amount of not more than 25-30 missiles per month, and almost everyone immediately goes to rocket attacks in Ukraine. Russia has very few modern hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, they are few in number and very expensive. Putin's propaganda for a long time proclaimed his complete invulnerability, but already in the night of 12 of May, Ukrainian air defense forces managed to shoot down a "Dagger". His remains were shown to the press by the mayor of kyiv, former world professional boxing champion Vitali Klitschko. Nevertheless, Russia still has many very old Soviet Kh-22 ballistic missiles that have been out of production for a long time., but there are many in the stores. These are terrible missiles that were created in the Soviet Union to destroy aircraft carriers, western naval cruisers and destroyers. They have extremely inaccurate orientation when hit. The radius of imprecision reaches 700 metros. The victim of these monstrous ancient rockets has already become a large residential building in the city of Dnepr, where many civilians died.
The main topic in the world media for many months in a row has been the desperate and bloody battles for a small Ukrainian town in the Donetsk region.: Bakhmut. It is a very small city and has no particular strategic importance, but Russian propaganda has exaggerated the significance of these battles. This was because, according to one of the latest versions of Putin, the“Liberation of Donbass” is the key task of the call"special military operation". And the city of Bakhmut opens the way for the Russian army to the last large Ukrainian cities of the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian army decided, at the same time, not hand over Bakhmut without a fight, and bloody battles began.
The key role in the offensive of the Russian army in Bakhmut was played by the private military company Wagner, which was previously used by Russian imperialism in central Africa and Syria. Wagner began to participate in the war in March of 2022. Wagner's Leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was for many years a person very close to Putin and for a long time received a privileged supply of ammunition, artillery and aircraft. In the early winter of 2022-2023, promised Putin that he would soon take possession of Bakhmut. Nevertheless, the battles for the city became very fierce. Heroic resistance thwarted Putin and Prigozhin's plans. In this situation, Prigozhin came into open conflict with the command of the Russian army and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. He claimed that he was deliberately not being provided with the necessary amount of ammunition and, Thus, Wagner was suffering heavy losses in his unit. He issued ultimatums several times and threatened to withdraw his unit from Bakhmut in protest of their low ammunition supply.. Nevertheless, this was far from the truth. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in February-March 2023 decided to supply the Wagner group, as well as all other units of the Russian army, without any privilege. That's where this conflict came from., which was highly publicized in the world press.
It should be noted that the Wagner unit has about 4.000 fighters, and this is just the 1% of the total number of Russian troops on the Ukrainian front. And the front line of 20-25 kilometers, which is in the hands of the Wagner group, it's just him 1% the length of the entire Russo-Ukrainian front. That is to say, we have a typical example of how the world media have formed an extremely distorted understanding of the situation at the front, paying special attention to a sector away from the main front, which is not and will never be of decisive importance. for the further development of events on the front.
For the moment, almost all of Bakhmut has been captured by the Russian army, but the Ukrainian army is actively trying to catch the Russian army, which is concentrated within the city, from the north and south of the city. We will closely monitor the evolution of the situation.
Of course, the hottest topic of the day is the long-announced global counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army. at the beginning of 2023, the main world media announced the"spring counteroffensive"of the ukrainian army, but now most analysts already talk about the"summer counteroffensive". Zelensky announced a pause with the start of the counteroffensive due to the still insufficient availability of Western weapons in the Ukrainian army. First, it was about the absence of “medium-range” missiles (until 300 kilometers) and modern military aviation. And if the UK partially resolved the missile issue in connection with the supply of high-precision Storm Shadow missiles, so the question of the lack of modern military aviation in Ukraine remains open. Zelensky asks his "Western partners" to supply up to 100 aircraft units F -16 Americans, and Joe Biden deliberately transfers this responsibility to the European NATO countries. It goes without saying that a modern offensive in a wide theater of operations is impossible without the support of military aviation.. In conditions of complete absence of strategic and front-line aviation, it is extremely difficult to count on the success of the counteroffensive. In any case, a counteroffensive without air support will be accompanied by a large number of casualties for the advance of the Ukrainian army. just the other day, information appeared that several Western countries are ready to start training Ukrainian pilots on F planes -16, and the delivery of these aircraft to Ukraine is possible only in late summer and early autumn. Of course, it is highly unlikely that the Ukrainian army can afford to postpone the counteroffensive until the end of summer, since they will only remain 1-2 months before the start of the rainy season and the lack of good roads. for the movement of troops and equipment because of this.
According to military analysts, Ukraine has already prepared 9 a 12 brigades for the offensive, which means approximately 40.000 fighters. Many of them have been trained in NATO countries. According to military experts, the total amount of equipment needed to 9 brigades is from 253 tanks, 381 infantry fighting vehicles, 480 vehicles, 147 artillery pieces, as well as 571 American HMMWV armored vehicles. It is difficult to say whether this is already in the Ukrainian army or not, since these data only indicate the military resources necessary for a successful counteroffensive.
Three activists from the Ukrainian Socialist League are now in the army and preparing to take part in a future counter-offensive and liberation of the occupied Ukrainian territories.. We are very worried about them. All the Ukrainian people and their working class wish the speedy liberation of our land and the expulsion of the Russian imperialist aggressor. After our victory over the external enemy, we have ahead of us a tough class struggle against the internal enemy: the Ukrainian oligarchic bourgeoisie. And this is precisely our fight and our responsibility: the responsibility of the Ukrainian working class, and not from the Russian imperialist occupiers. to victory, comrades!
