Russia Attacks Snake Island After ‘Goodwill Withdrawal’; Ukraine has not learned the lessons of kyiv and Mariupol

Russia aims to remotely control Snake Island with airstrikes and missiles without occupying it if Russian actions after their withdrawal and statements from Moscow are considered.

A day after a third Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) attack on Snake Island forced a Russian evacuation ‘in a gesture of goodwill’ to allow the export of food grains from ports in the northwest of Ukraine, kyiv itself immediately complained about the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS). ) strikes with white phosphorus incendiary bombs.

After making public their “Artillery, rocket and air strikes” June 30, that the occupying Russians could not “resist”, UAF Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General Valeriy Zaluzhnyy posted another video on June 1, showing VKS Sukhoi Su-30 fighters carrying out a bombardment.

Blaming Russia for backtracking, he warned: “everyone (with) these facts (before you make a) deal with Russia.”

⚡️The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, released a video showing how the Ukrainian army destroyed the remains of Russian equipment on the island of Zmiinyi (Serpent). pic.twitter.com/cswDKGX3rq

—Flash (@Flash43191300) July 2, 2022

Military/tactical victory versus political strategic defeat

UAF Southern Command spokeswoman Natalia Humenyuk warned that it was “too early” to establish an outpost there and to clarify that their “forces (had not) landed there yet”, in addition to not knowing whether the Russian troops had completely withdrawn, indicated that it was a mere token victory.

She later said an “investigation” was needed into possible “hijacking tools” left behind by Russia before retaking the island.

The spokesman, however, also celebrated the UAF strikes, saying the Russians “gathered their things and got out as soon as they could” after “truly understanding” the impact of the mighty “assault of ‘rocket artillery’ of the UAF.

That Russia would not entirely abandon a key strategic outpost like Snake Island (or Zmeiny as Russia calls it) that controls the northern Black Sea approaches to Odessa, as evidenced by the State Duma’s statement of Russian State (Parliament) Alexei Chernyak that the island was now under the control of their “missile, fleet and aerospace forces”.

#Ukraine: Even more drama in the Snake Island saga; this time, it is the turn of the Su-30SM jets of the Russian naval aviation to strike the rock, presumably to destroy any equipment left behind.

However, unlike the Ukrainian Su-27 strike just a few weeks ago, 3 out of 4 bombs missed. pic.twitter.com/eCA1oE8RIV

— 🇺🇦 Ukrainian Weapon Tracking (@UAWeapons) July 1, 2022

This isn’t Humenyuk’s first time exercising either. caution about celebrating too soon. After the second attempt to take the island on June 21, she said the assessment “required silence”, “enemy casualties being verified”, and any other information compromising operational security as the Russians were “listening”. permanently”.

The Ukrainian claim of this attack was also vague on details, with information only on the weapon platforms used – Tochka-U ballistic missiles, Uragan Multiple Rocket Launch Systems (MLRS) and M-777 155mm howitzers made in the USA from Kubansky Island. , west of Odessa.

In contrast, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) had listing destroying 15 Ukrainian UAVs, including two TB-2 Bayraktar drones, four Tochka-U missiles and 21 Uragan Multiple Rocket Launch Systems (MLRS) in what he described as a “crazy attack”.

“Not a single Ukrainian missile or bomb hit its target (with the) missed strike forcing the enemy to abandon the landing,” the Russian Defense Ministry added.

He also claimed to have detected a US Air Force RQ-4 “Global Hawk” at high altitude and said UAF drones were covered by S-300 surface-to-air missiles from the towns of Tuzla and Ochakov.

During the first Ukrainian attack on May 8, Russia claims destroying three Sukhoi Su-24 ground attack aircraft; an Su-27 fighter; an Mi-24 helicopter; three Mi-8s loaded with troops, and; three Centaur-class attack boats killing over 50 Ukrainian soldiers.

Diversion to make you look away

The Russian ‘Maskirovka’ tactic of World War II is still in use today, as evidenced by the second month of the war in Ukraine, where its maneuvers outside kyiv brought Ukraine and the world to believe that the capital was the target.

A 64 km long Russian military convoy hardly moved for several days, as the UAF managed to block its advance.

However, Russia and the People’s Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk (LDPR) win in the east and south in Mariupol later revealed were because the UAF had committed the majority of their forces there.

Today Lisychansk and Sieverodonetsk fell.

In Mariupol, at the heavily fortified Azovstal steelworks, nearly 2,000 members of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment holed up in the maze of underground tunnels that could have held a siege for months!

Such was the guarantee of a deep lair for the defenders that Putin order for his Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, to surround the factory – for successfully capturing the rest of the city – and simply starve the defenders even seemed smart.

This was also in line with the Russian tactic of bypassing heavy pockets of resistance in the north and east to achieve wider strategic objectives.

At the end of May, 2,439 Ukrainian soldiers, most of the Azov battalion, renderedsuccumbing to heavy shelling, a limited Spetsnaz incursion and a blocade terrifying-looking phosphorus incendiary bombs.

Experts mapping Russian advances later carried out the ploy – building a contiguous zone from the pro-Russian east, Crimea and south. EurAsian Times had described this way of slow and incremental advances without having to rush for a quick victory as a “long war”.

The description of the British Chief of Staff, General Patrick Sanders, of the Russian mode of war being at “strategic and not tactical level” at the June 28 Land Warfare Conference was instructive – if one considers an assessment by the enemy.

“His depth and resilience means he can endure unlimited campaigns, battles and lost engagements, regenerate and ultimately prevail,” Sanders said.

“The first time is a fluke, the second a coincidence and the third an enemy action”, as the old military adage goes. In kyiv, Mariupol and Snake Island, it was enemy action all the way.