Moon of Alabama — Aug 3, 2022

Below is a slightly edited machine translation of a piece which appeared yesterday on the Ukrainian side censor.net. The piece was promoted by Yuri Butusov, a well known Ukrainian military correspondent. It is originally a social media post by someone who was on the frontline in Pisky, immediately northwest of Donetsk city.

Context:

Over the last two to three months the Ukrainian side has used its positions in the vicinity of Donetsk city to more or less randomly shell the civilian population on the Russian affiliated side. After some serious protests the Russian military command agreed to launch a dedicated counter-artillery operation to shut down the deadly Ukrainian harassment.

Its daily ‘clobber reports’, here is yesterday’s, have since included lines like these on nearly each and every day:

As part of counter-battery warfare 2 artillery batteries of Giatsint howitzers near Dzerzhinsk and Novhorodskoye, Donetsk People’s Republic have been hit.

4 platoons of Grad MLRS and 9 artillery platoons at firing positions near Seversk, Kirovo, Artemovsk, Avdeevka, Peski, Orlovka, Shakhterskoye, Velikaya Novoselka in Donetsk People’s Republic, Dobropolie in Zaporozhye Region, Shirokoye, Bereznevatoye in Nikolaev Region, Russkaya Lozovaya and Nortsovka in Kharkov Region.

The systematic counter-artillery campaign has seriously deteriorated the already rare Ukrainian fire power.

The Russian side has also changed the primary direction of its thrust from the northern front of the Sievierdonetsk-Lysichansk-Siversk direction to a push further south. The current offensive operation is concentrated north-west and west of Donetsk city in the direction of Avdivka. There is an envelope operation going on its north and south to surround that extremely heavily fortified town.

The red territory to the left of the red line marks parts of recent progress.

Avdivka. Click to enlarge

Pisky is the southern part of that envelope operation.

Pisky. Click to enlarge

Following intense artillery preparations Russian forces are currently – slowly, slowly – clearing the lines of reinforced concrete bunkers and ditches that have been build on the Ukrainian side over the last 8 years. Here now is the view of that battle from the Ukrainian side (edited machine translation, for an alternative translation see this.) (Note: 300 is the military cargo designator for wounded people, 200 is for dead soldiers):

Pisky. Meat grinder

Author: Serhiy Gnezdilov

Continues …