Preparations Before The Ukrainian Counteroffensive Poem by Gert Strydom

The Ukrainian army is systematically
destroying the ability,
of Russian units to fight
before the counteroffensive starts.

Ammunition depots, control-posts,
radar-installations,
electronic warfare apparatus,
specials forces unit encampments,
anti-aircraft systems and airfields
as well as ports will have to be targeted.

The bridges have been hit to stop
supplies and equipment and soldiers.
The Antonovskiy Bridge is so damaged
that heavy equipment like
tanks and ammunition
trucks cannot pass over it.
Now they have to go 160 kilometres
to ammunition depots.

Another bridge across the Inhulets river,
the Daryivka Bridge,
has been taken out with surgical precision
and a group of Russian soldiers
in the northwest part of Kherson
is also cut off and cannot be supplied.

At the moment the Russian soldiers
are in terror of being obliterated
by the HIMARS or by the different
howitzer guns,

some Russian soldiers throughout
Russian occupied territory
do not want to fight
and choose to rather go to jail,
as there they will survive in jail
and they are convinced
that they are going to die
in this war.

When Russian soldiers of an elite brigade
in the army were told they would be deployed
to Ukraine for a second time
real fear was in the ranks.

According to Dmitri: ' many of us simply
did not want to go back.
I want to return to my family -
not in a casket.'

A group of servicemen
of the 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade
from Buryatia in Siberia resigned,

they had been 78 at first
and they were sent to special detention centre
in Luhansk, Oksana,
the mother of one of them said.

Before being arrested
and held incommunicado a Russian soldier,
Ilya Kaminsky told the Current Time TV channel
about soldiers that refuse to fight
being 'kept locked up in a garage'
and being 'fed gruel once a day'
before ending up in a detention centre.

According to a report in Newsweek:
'at least 1783 Russian military personnel
have refused to take part in the war.'

The Russian news service Verstka reports
that a detention centre has been formed
in the Luhansk region,
where Russian troops that refuse to fight
are being sent after being kept
in garages and basements in Luhansk.

There are 234 soldiers
that has been documented
not wanting to fight
that at the moment
are illegally being held
at this facility.

The motivation of an honourable
moral obligation is not in place,
the moral reason to fight
or to defend the country or homeland,

to be fighting for good if you will,
more than this, the Russian soldiers
do believe that they are not going to win,

The Russian soldiers believe
they are not going to survive.
The Russian soldiers have started to realise
that they are being used
as cannon fodder,

but more than this
their very best units and special forces
have been destroyed.

The 80th separate Air assault Brigade,
probably one the best airborne units
in the Ukraine
known as the Lviv-paratroopers
have destroyed the Russian 104th paratrooper Assault regiment,
an elite force,
known as the Pskov-paratroopers.

Major General Andrey Sukhovetsky
of the Russian Airborne Forces was killed,
the Russian 45th Spetsnaz has been wiped out,
the Russian 98th VDV airborne
and 3rd GRU Spetsnaz were hospitalized
for acute radiation.

The Russian 331st Parachute regiment
that did in 2014 a cease-fire break in Donbas,
was slaughtered at Kiev.

A HIMARS strike killed nearly
each deputy commander
of the Russian 106th Airborne Division
where the Ukrainian forces had attacked
in the Donetsk Oblast.

They have witnessed the effect of HIMARS
and howitzer strikes,
where unchecked they have bombarded
the Ukrainian army and civilians
and towns with multiple rocket launchers
and howitzer guns

but now precision strikes
are taking them out,
are obliterating them,
and this comes from strikes against
ammunition depots,
military control posts
and against the artillery,
multiple rocket launchers,
Howitzers and guns of the Russians,

whose fire is answered by being wiped out,
even their 2S3 self propelled 'Akatsiyas, '
in whole columns and groups of vehicles
are being destroyed.

According to Oryx,
an online visual checking
investigation project,
Russia has lost at least
61 towed howitzers,
121 self-propelled howitzers
and 69 multiple launch rocket systems.

The Russians have lost 1708 tanks,
3929 armoured fighting vehicles,
864 artillery systems
and 39240 soldiers.

Pitted against the overwhelming Russian numbers
of men, weapons and equipment
are the Ukrainian army that acts with the
honourable will to defend the homeland,
and these people are very brave
as a thing from both honour and culture
and they know that they can and must win.

Putin and the general's have instructed
the Russian soldiers to take out
the Ukrainian HIMARS, M280
and howitzer-guns

but I have seen how quick and effective
the German self-propelled Panzerhaubitze 2000
(PzH 2000) can fire
in a Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty video
of a crew in action
and how quick again the howitzer
can drive away,
that makes this almost impossible
as these units and the HIMARS
are not static targets that keep firing
from the same spot.

To be more specific
the Panzerhaubitze 2000 Howitzer gun
rolls into action in a forest,
(probably in Izyum) ,
where under the cover of trees
and undergrowth and shrubs all around,
it fires three very accurate shells
in ten seconds,
which is its maximum firing rate.

The firing range of this howitzer
depends on its ammunition
and the effective range is up to
30 kilometres
and where the shell hits
nothing remains but scrap iron
and bits of flesh,
but the Ukrainians are hugely outnumbered
by the Russians
that has many more artillery pieces.

The cannon commander receives
the target coordinates
and in the firing position,
the system automatically aims,
but a gunner does also help with aiming
in a combat situation with many targets.

There are two assistant gunners
that loads the ammunition.
The crew of this self propelled howitzer,
have trained a month and a half
throughout those days,
with no time or days off.

More than twelve of these PhZ 2000
self-propelled howitzers,
have been received from both Germany
and the Netherlands.

The ammunition package of this PhZ 2000
is 60 shells.
To fully reload these 60 shells,
takes only 12 minutes manually
with a special kind of stand,
which is the duty
of the two assistant gunners.

It can drive at 60 kilometres per hour
and with the high rate of fire
this gun can shoot and shoot,
before the Russians are able to fire back,
without a lot of physical effort for the crew.

Everything can happen in three minutes.
It takes a minute to setup,
after arriving at a new position,
a minute to start firing
and another minute to leave that aria.

The Ukraine has got the M-777 howitzer,
its own self-propelled 2S22 Bodana
that fires NATO ammunition,
the M109, the Krab, the Caesar,
the PzH 2000, the SpGH Zuzana 2,
the Dana M2 and the FH 70.

The Russian way of fighting goes like this:
with its over-whelming artillery strikes
with multiple rockets, missiles and guns
continually shelling,
to be able to destroy everything,
there is not a thing left
before they sent their soldiers in
but usually they do not care
to use weapons, equipment
and soldiers are mere canon-fodder
to win with overwhelming numbers.

The Russian soldiers have not been trained
to take territory and there is no cohesion
or real military experience to them,
veterans or any motivation.

The Russian artillery men are scared
of firing as they do become targets,
some of them do not have munitions
to fire where 50 to 60%
of all Russian missiles
have been used and what is left
is very old and mothballed.

In the Kherson oblast the Russian troops
are digging in.
People that have escaped from Kherson say
that the Russians are building
hardened tank shelters,
did dig trenches,
did bring in concrete pillboxes by truck.

Makita, a Ukrainian battalion instructor says:
"Russian forces are fortifying
what are already good positions.
They had a month in which
to improve defences.
They also appear to be bringing in
reserves and more weapons including 2S7's, '
that is self propelled 203mm Pion Howitzers.

The mayor of Mikolaiv, Alexander Sekevich says:
'military theory says
you need a three to one advantage,
if you are attacking
but they (The Russians)
are building fortifications
including tank blinds to protect their armour.
They will try to extend any fighting in the winter
when they will be under cover,
while our troops will be in the field.
But with our city being targeted every day
we need a counter offensive.'

The journalist Eugenia Virlych
who has just escaped from Kherson
in July says:
'the Russians have also become
much more oppressive.
They are looking for activists,
signs of anyone who is pro-Ukrainian,
and they are now moving their checkpoints
around the city.
They are mining fields
on the approaches from Mykolaiv.
They are mining everything
and their soldiers are digging trenches.'

Virlych also said of the Russians:
'They are aware that the Ukrainian army,
is getting closer from one side."

According to Virlych in one place,
they are as close as six miles
from Kherson City.

The Russians move ammunition depots
as far as they think is out of range
of HIMARS missiles.

Ukrainian soldiers are advancing on one battalion
of a thousand Russian troops in North Western
Kherson that are surrounded on three sides,
without a way out near Vysokopilia
and under heavy Ukrainian fire
is the only way out.

Lilia Pononarenko, the Kyiv Independent's
war correspondent writes:

'Due to the lack of roads in the Oblast
and few bridges a cross the Dnipro River,
Russian logistics are slower in Kherson
and transportation bottlenecks,
force Russian forces
to keep their supplies concentrated
in a few locations near train stations. The saturated arias are juicy targets for HIMSRS.'

Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine's
national security council says:

'It is just a matter of time
before the next much more bloody phase
...We are preparing people in the south.
The government is warning to leave.
Everything between the territories
of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof
is in the danger zone.'

At the moment a depleted Russian force
of 10 battalion groups
of the Russian 48th combined arms army,
including elite airborne units,
the 22nd Army Corps and Rosgvardiya
is holding the 200 kilometre Kherson frontline
that borders Mikolaiv.

Kirill Mikahsilov of the Conflict Intelligence
Team(CIT) says:
'The Russians are not capable
of completely securing the whole duration of the
giant frontline in Kherson.
They can't have a wholesome line of trenches.
The best they can have is strong-point
in certain populated arias or at road junctions.

In many cases they will not
be able to coordinate their actions.
And Ukraine has the opportunity
of pinking them off one by one.
Nor is Russia capable of sending
quick reinforcements to the aria,
as they would have to drastically reduce
or even abandon their offensive in the Donbas.'

Already the ill-fated airport at Chornobaivka
close to Kherson City's outskirts
have become the scene of dozens
of Ukrainian attacks
in which Russians, their aircraft
and hardware has been destroyed.

Of the four key objectives:
the Antonivsky bridge have already been attacked,
the bridge at Nova Kakhovska dam,
has already been broken,
which only leaves the railway bridge
that has got to be destroyed
which cross the Dnieper River
and the M14 / P47 highway over which
the Ukraine will have to impose
a very firm control.

This will end the first phase
and result in the Russians in the Kherson oblast
being cut off from supplies and reinforcements.