Ukraine Thwarts Russian Battalion’s River-crossing
Russia was attempting to cross the Donets river at Bilohorivka to surround the city of Lysychansk, in Donbas. But Ukrainian engineer claims to have successfully guessed where they would try to cross and laid a trap.
Russia suffered yet another battlefield humiliation after Ukraine successfully thwarted its attempt to cross a river in Donbas, destroying dozens of vehicles and inflicting heavy casualties.
Satellite images lay bare the scale of the failure with the remains of two pontoon bridges drifting in the Donets River at Bilohorivka, west of the city of Lysychansk, surrounded by the ruins of tanks and armoured vehicles.
It appeared that Russian commanders were attempting to surround Lysychansk - and its sister city of Severodonetsk - with the crossing, but saw their sneakattack turn into a massacre when Ukraine correctly guessed their plans.
‘Maxim’, a Twitter user claiming to be a Ukrainian military engineer, says he identified the spot where Russia was most-likely to try crossing the river on May 7 and told his commanders to listen out for the sound of tugboat engines pushing a pontoon bridge into place as a sure sign that a crossing was imminent.
On the morning of May 8 Russia blanketed the river with smoke by burning nearby fields and throwing smoke grenades, he said, but commanders detected the sound of boat engines and called in artillery strikes which caused devastating losses.
It came as Ukraine’s generals said Russia’s offensive in the Donbass has largely stalled, with Putin’s troops forced on to the defensive north of Kharkiv as counter-attacks push the invaders back across their own border.
On a late-Wednesday update, Ukraine’s commander said there had been no major attacks around Izyum - where the bulk of its Donbas force is located - or in Mykolaiv or Kryvyi Rih, hundreds of miles to the south, where it has been forced to reinforce its units after taking casualties.
To the north of Kharkiv, commanders said ‘occupying forces moved to the defence in order to slow down the pace of the offensive of our troops’. It means the only section of frontline that remains active is around Severodonetsk - where the bridge ambush took place - Donetsk and Mariupol, where Ukrainian defenders are still holding out.
Speaking about the moment the Severodonetsk ambush took place, Maxim said: ‘Roughly 20 minutes after recon unit confirmed the Russian bridge was being mounted, heavy artillery engaged against Russian forces, and then aviation chipped in as well.