Summary/Overview
- Ukraine states an offensive in the Kherson region has begun – with some preliminary successes. Russia wants and says unpleasant actions have been defeated back and substantial deficits in men and materiel have been inflicted. Thicker fog of war, thicker of propaganda.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to investigate the problem at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant complex, will reach the town of Ernegodar upon August 31 after a stopover in Kiev. Artillery shelling of the six-reactor area in Russian-controlled territory south of the Dnepr Lake continued on August 30.
- Natural gas pumping over the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is going to be halted from August 31 through September 3 for fixes, according to Russian owner Gazprom.
- Russian factors continued their slower grind toward Sloviansk and into Bakhmut at the mouth from the Donbas salient and moved slowly west from locations opposing and south of the city of Donetsk.
South
The south, notably the Kherson region, is just not necessarily where the activity was, but certainly the region that caught the majority of the public attention after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in the nightly address on Monday (August 29) that an Ukrainian unpleasant had begun and that the Ukrainian troops would chase the Russian army “to the border. ” He warned: “If they want to survive, it’s time for the Ruskies military to run away. ”
Zelensky’s older advisor Oleksy Arestovych commented that Russian defenses in the Kherson region had been “broken through in a few hours. ”
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense mentioned the Ukrainian offensive operations in the Nikolaev-Krivoi Rog (Mikolaiv-Kryvyi Rih) area resulted in the particular “rout of the Ukrainian forces. ”
Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported: “In the past 24 hours, in their effective functions the Russian energies eliminated 48 reservoirs, 46 infantry combating vehicles, 37 various other combat armored automobiles, 8 pickup automobiles with large-caliber machine-guns and over one, 200 Ukrainian servicemen. ”
We have been facing a solid fog of – if not actual, after that at any rate propaganda – war. MODUK, Britain’s ministry of Protection, usually not shy regarding touting Ukrainian successes, made a remarkably subdued comment saying it was “not yet possible to confirm the particular extent of Ukrainian advances but its [Ukraine’s] army had increased artillery fire in front series sectors across southern Ukraine. ”
What is known through direct observations documented by NATO military sources, which statement its observations associated with Russian but not associated with Ukrainian moves, is the fact that Russian forces probed against the town of Potomkyne some thirty-five kilometers south from the city of Kryvyi Rih. They also have increased artillery fire directly into the city of Mikolaiv.
Perhaps the more important action in the South may be the visit of the IAEA’s 14-member mission towards the town of Ernegodar in the Russian-occupied region south of the Dnepr River where Europe’s largest nuclear power complex is located.
Ukraine and The ussr have accused each other of shelling the location near and at the particular Zaporizhzhia power seed over the past several months, which clearly has created the risk of a nuclear devastation.
It could only be wished that the IAEA objective can get to the truth of what’s already been happening there and obtain both sides to prevent.
On the encounter of it, for Russian federation to direct artillery fire at a power plant that they control and at which they have stationed some five hundred of their soldiers seems to be an absurdity. The particular Ukrainians, though, are usually blaming the Russians for mounting “false flag” operations and for shooting at by themselves.
The Americans say maybe the particular Ukrainians did a few of the shelling because the Russians were shooting in the fairly large associated with Nikopol, on the Ukrainian side, from the area of the power plant.
Take a look at the image at the top of this tale of the six reactors as seen through the Ukrainian-controlled north side of the Dnepr Water. Certainly nice big easy targets.
East/Center
East associated with Siversk, a town by now largely destroyed, Russian forces carried out ground operations against the village of Ivano Darivka and acquired some new terrain.
Farther south, around Bakhmut, fighting continues within Kodema and close to Zaitseve. Fighting around Soledar seems to have subsided and most of the town is now in Ruskies hands. Still, Bakhmut is holding out and does not appear to be an instantaneous Russian priority.
The Donetsk Town area and locations farther south have seen much heavier battling and there is no doubt that Russian allows will keep up the threat of a breakout into the western part of the Donetsk Oblast – especially, if a more threatening situation develops around Kherson and it becomes a necessity to connect down Ukrainian allows that might otherwise become moved to the southern theater.
Assessment
Ever since late Apr and certainly given that late July, the fantastic Ukrainian counteroffensive starting with the liberation associated with Kherson City has been repeatedly announced. On Monday night, President Zelensky and his spokesman and since then a number of other Ukrainian government authorities have said that on this occasion it’s for actual.
Talk by yourself, of course , doesn’t make it so. Launching a major offensive without significant air cover quantities to an astonishing undertaking not many military strategists would dare. By all accounts, the Ukrainian air push is lucky if it can mount a few 10 sorties each day.
So why toss all caution to the wind and try a counteroffensive anyway?
The solution clearly cannot be present in military logic. Instead, it lies most likely in what Polish Best Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the French newspapers Le Figaro on Monday after this individual met with French President Macron: that there is a growing divide inside the EU on the Ukraine conflict and that “certain member states” would prefer to seek peace instead of sticking with Kiev till it prevails. “So yes, a certain risk of implosion [of the EU bloc] exists, ” he mentioned.
President Zelensky and his closest EUROPEAN and NATO followers may well have concluded that even a failing offensive would be preferable to the current slow grind and might reinvigorate flagging support.
Rallying NATO’s troops can likewise explain precisely why the Ukrainian ressortchef (umgangssprachlich) of interior plus culture recently told a major German paper that Putin will attack Poland after which march to Berlin.
Stick to Uwe Parpart on Twitter at @uwe_parpart