Ukraine cannot be shelled into submission

Omagh man, Jonathan Baynard, diaries life within a war zone. 

I have spent the last week in the Sumy Oblast. It is one of Ukraine’s 27 provinces and it shares a borderline with Russia. It is strange to be in such close proximity to this once respected and seemingly permanent frontier, one that missiles, artillery and drones now violate daily.

The pendulum has swung further in favour of the Ukrainian forces’ in the last week. Like a tank over dead wood, they have rolled through occupied territory and recaptured thousands of miles of Ukrainian soil.

Russian troops have fled en masse, leaving tanks and equipment to be appropriated by the Ukrainians. But I’ll tell you more about after.

For now, I’ll explain why my team and I have been living just miles from the Russian border.

Embedded

THE Team and I have been embedded in a Ukrainian military unit in Sumy Oblast, meaning we stay with them, as and when circumstances dictate. It has been interesting to experience the daily life of an average Ukrainian solider.

Sumy Oblast was liberated a while back, however, being so close to the border, it is dangerous at all times.

You are always within strike distance from various lower accuracy (mortars/artillery) to higher accuracy ordnance (rocket/cruise missiles).

Spirit and strategy

LAST week, we spoke about the success the Ukrainians were having in their counter-offensive, how their attitudes had hardened and calcified, and how they were fighting with a sacrificial conviction.

But it has been more than guts and spirit that have brought their recent military successes about.

You cannot win a conflict on heart alone. It’s about tactics and planning. Every war, at some level, is a war of wits.

Tactics

The counter-offensive we have witnessed has been a magnificent feat of strategy. Of thinking and out-thinking.

The Ukrainians initially made it appear that the counter-offensive was isolated to the south, then they took the Russians by surprise in the eastern province of Kharkiv.

The element of surprise

Anybody who knows anything about military history knows that the side which exercises the element of surprise over their enemy will always have the advantage. Anticipation and preparation is paramount. Without it, you cannot hold the upper hand.

That’s what the Ukrainians had in this recent counter-offensive.

Maybe in the south the operation was somewhat of a decoy, a rouse, a distraction. While the Russians fought to defend the south, the Ukrainian rolled through the east, retaking around 3,000 sq kilometres.

We must remember that this was land that took Russia – the invader – months to capture and hold. Now it has been lost in a matter of days. Both in terms of territory and morale, it was a huge win for Ukraine.

Equipment and weaponry seized

AS the Russians fled their posts, they left a lot of their primitive and advanced, high calibre weaponry and equipment behind. Interestingly, this included Russia’s top tank the T-90 that was abandoned as the troops retreated.

The Ukrainian’s have appropriated these and they will use them.

Russia in crisis

THEY have retaliated by burning villages to the ground with phosphorus – an incendiary substance that burns straight to the bone when it comes into contact with human skin.

Such usage is indiscriminate and really horrible.

But I think this is, in part, a sign of a Russia in crisis, both militarily and at home.

Their propaganda machine has not stopped, and their news anchors still focus on western weapons as the primary threat.

However, critics within Russia have been asking harder questions, highlighting the failures of their own army.

Will this force the Russians to attempt to save face by causing even more destruction, in even more barbaric ways? Or even perhaps a full scale draft?

Or, is it that they might realise that they cannot rewrite history? The Ukrainian language, culture and people cannot be shelled into submission.