Offensive Confirmed: AFU Strikes Hard But Leopards Get Spayed

If yesterday was the first formative leg of the offensive, today we can say was the full confirmation that it is in fact in motion. Even Western media sources now seem in agreement.

And of course, the biggest indicator was also the big news of the day, that Ukraine has finally thrown its mythical, vaunted Leopard tanks into battle as part of their assigned ‘special’ 33rd NATO-trained brigade.

Recall, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense warned us to be prepared:

Well, the Leopards lasted about as long as we expected:

For identification purposes:

More footage of them cooking off like popcorn:

Closeup:

Shockingly, even Oryx was forced to ID and add the Leopards to his infamous list, as well as the destroyed German IRIS-T from yesterday:

German BILD proudly trumpeted the advance of their mighty Germanic armor:

But the tone begins to sour over the day from MSM as it slowly dawns on them how the offensive is actually going:

From the above CNN article, the dreaded admission is made that Ukrainian losses being suffered are “significant”:

Ukrainian forces have suffered losses in heavy equipment and soldiers as they met greater than expected resistance from Russian forces in their first attempt to breach Russian lines in the east of the country in recent days, two senior US officials tell CNN.

One US official described the losses – which include US supplied MRAP armored personnel vehicles as “significant.”

In the footage above some even believed there were American Bradleys destroyed, and to me some of the IFVs did look like them but there’s no real confirmation of that yet. One of the reasons it’s plausible is because others have reportedly sighted the upgraded T-55S which were given to the 47th brigade as per the Pentagon leaks—and that’s exactly the brigade also granted the M2 Bradleys. Also, in general many of the reports spoke about the 47th’s participation in the fighting so one can only assume the Bradleys had to have been there, but I’ll await confirmation.

For those interested, the exact geolocation of the Leopards mass destruction is here:

Destruction Leopards

Geolocation of the 2 tanks by Rybar:

📍47.496465, 35.932047

📍47.500864, 35.931843

By the way, a Russian tank commander on a T-80BV says he tried to engage one of the Leopards in a duel, but the kitty ran away (well, that vaunted reverse speed is good for something):

❗️"Ares" (Company Tank commander from a 🇷🇺Marine Bgd) mentions that he tried to engage in a duel a Leopard-2 with his T-80BV tank but the Ukrainian tank retreated when artillery fire began.

The company commander also talked about French AMX-10RC wheeled tanks, 3 of which were damaged-abandoned near Novodonetsk, and which the marines tried to pull out to the rear.

But how did the attack unfold in general?

If you recall in the last report I wrote how they would try to launch at night with the hopes that their Western “superior optics” (nightvision, thermals, etc.) would give them an advantage. And they did follow this plan, as at night they launched a frighteningly massive artillery assault, utilizing every conceivable asset at their disposal, from tube and rocket artillery to missiles, Storm Shadows, heavy EW jamming, even highly advanced Western electronic mines launched to the rear of Russian troops to prevent their resupply.

Summing up, the enemy included a large number of armored vehicles in the battle, but had no success in any of these areas, on the contrary, suffered significant losses with zero results. Please note that the enemy started mining the tracks with anti-tank mines DM-1399, DM-31, etc. These mines were detected in the area of Novaya Pavlovka, Verbovka, Ilchenkovo, Sweet Balka, Novoe. In the enemy's radio intercepts, Polish speech is noted. (Boris Rozhin)

Russian troops initially reported hellacious firebombing onto their positions and trenches, which were long reconnoitered by the AFU with the help of their Western ISR systems. There’s no indication of losses yet, but there is a chance the Russian side suffered losses in this assault because by the sounds of it, it was one of the fiercest that the AFU had ever launched. They likely used up a large allotment of ammunition stockpiled precisely for this moment.

Only after this aerial assault did their ground operations begin. Here are some descriptions from the frontline correspondents of how it went down. From Aleksander Kots:

Blitzkrieg obviously did not work out. As Budanov said there, everything will be fast and inevitable. But something went wrong. It didn't work out quickly.

I have said many times that for 15 months the enemy did not take a single large city in battle. Yes, he skillfully used our mistakes, but did not gnaw out the victory with his teeth. And then there was a chance, and what do we see?

The enemy expected that with precision strikes he would destroy our logistics and headquarters, and then, at the sight of the first leopards, we would run headlong.

But we did not lose control of the troops - everything is in its place. There is no disorganization within the units either - we are giving a powerful rebuff. Despite the fact that Kyiv throws its trained reserves into battle, including one of the best brigades - the 47th, the same shock fist that was trained specifically for this mission.

But ours adequately meet the first wave of the offensive. Yes, with losses, but without fuss and confusion. Inflicting a large-scale fire defeat on selected enemy formations.

Both the mining of the fields and the defense in depth worked, when you can retreat to more advantageous positions without losing strategic territory. Yes, it's hard, but these days our army shows how to fight for our land, for every piece of it. Against all odds. Like 80 years ago. Handsome!

👉sashakots

And another report from a Colonel K Zalessky, which starts off with the fact that 4 of the destroyed Leopards are reportedly still lying in the ‘gray zone’—the territory between the two sides that neither side controls, so there’s still a chance Russian forces could recover them or will simply destroy them fully so AFU can’t recover them. Read the full report as it gives a very detailed account of exactly how the assault began:

Four "Leopards" remained in the gray zone ...

Colonel K.Zalessky especially for the channel Voenkor Kitten Z 👉👉voenkorKotenok :

In continuation of yesterday's topic about the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and our preparation for this offensive.

Yes, they knew, yes, they were preparing, yes, they guessed again where they would go, and, finally, they waited for the Leopards!

The enemy launched an offensive in the Orekhovskoye direction at 2 a.m. Moscow time in the defense zone of the 58th Army. On a wide front, after the most powerful artillery preparation and an electronic warfare attack that put down our antenna communications. The infantry faltered, but did not run, although one of the company's defenders was literally razed to the ground.

The main striking force of the night assault was the columns of armored vehicles that came out of Malaya Tokmachka, which included 40 tanks, some of which were the same Leopards.

The success of the battle was predetermined by the professional work of the special forces of the 45th and 22nd brigades. Being in the gray zone, our "specialists" with a sufficient time margin spotted vehicles moving without headlights, allowing two pairs of Ka-52s to reach the battlefield in time.

Approaching the minefields, the enemy launched mine-clearing Zmei-Gorynychi (UR-77 mine clearer), and tanks with trawls went forward, clearing the way for the Leopards and armored vehicles with infantry. The brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, trained at the NATO training grounds, having passed the minefields, would probably have quickly turned into battle formation and moved to our defenders ... But they were shot in a night battle that was mesmerizing with its drama. ATGMs, artillery, and, of course, helicopters hit the armored vehicles that stood in the minefields from all sides.

As a result, by morning, 20 damaged and destroyed enemy tanks (including 4 Leopards) and 15 armored vehicles remained on the battlefield, which neither we nor the enemy can evacuate from the minefield.

In a word, all of ours - from the commander of the 58th OA, Lieutenant General Ivan Popov, to the anti-aircraft gunners, helicopter pilots, infantry, artillery and special forces, worked as a single, well-oiled mechanism.

The legendary commander of the 58th Vladimir Shamanov would have been pleased with both his army and his 45th brigade. Well, he would also be very pleased with one more of his good friends ...

The daytime offensive in this sector has become a miserable parody of the night one: covered by our artillery, the armored column of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not even reach our minefields.

So, as you can see. The enemy approached the minefields in the ‘no man’s land’ between the two armies south of Orekhov. They rode in vehicles with headlights off, counting on their fancy NATO ‘nightvision’. They began to clear mines with trawls and with the UR-77 ‘Snake Gorynch’ mine clearer. However, many of them still appeared to hit mines anyway at one point or another.

Russian analyst Yuriy Podolyaka gives further details:

Yuriy Podolyaka: "The Armed Forces of Ukraine could not clear the fields, they are forced to go through narrow corridors. There are shots of a cluster of tanks: one is hit, and the rest are afraid to bypass it, run into mines. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are compressed, our artillery and aviation are working. All night long, our night hunters worked as a carousel, shooting a lot of enemy equipment.
American BMP "Bradley" and "Leopards" are seen-this is the very breakthrough guard, this is a counteroffensive, no matter how Kiev denies it.
The Breakthrough Guards have not yet been able to do anything with our 42nd division, which does not allow the enemy to break through even the first line of trenches, let alone the first line of defense. The Ukrainian Armed Forces took several positions where they hit the "Highmars", but the first line of defense is not broken through."

Russian Spetsnaz of the 45th and 22nd spotted the creeping vehicles with their own advanced night recon systems and called down fiery hell on the approaching enemies, at which point Ka-52s sprung into action like so (actual footage from yesterday):

The rest of the brunt of the attack appeared to have been handled by Russia’s 58th army brigades from the Southern military district from Vladikavkaz. The 58th is the main force that pretty much single handedly brought Georgia to its knees in 2008, with its famed 42nd division that included the famous Chechen ‘Vostok’ and ‘Zapad’ battalions (not to be confused with the DPR ‘Vostok’ commanded by Khodakovsky).

Here’s the commander of the 58th himself reporting on the events:

Distinguishing themselves were such units as the 291st and 70th Rifle Regiments of the 42nd Guards Motorized Division of the 58th.

Emblem of the 58th

There was a lot of noise last night about the 291st Rifle Regiment in particular, and their bravery and heroism last night in rebuffing the NATO assault:

🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺The heroic company of the 291st regiment withstood all the assaults and regained the height and all positions near Orekhovo‼️

▪️In the Rabotino area, after retreating from a height, Russian company of the 291st regiment repelled all enemy attacks and returned all the positions with the support of the soldiers of the 70th regiment, scouts and special forces of the Southern Military District.

▪️Reinforcements have arrived, the wounded soldiers have been evacuated.

▪️After that, positional battles continued, AFU hid the surviving tanks in the landing and fired at our positions.

▪️AFU columns continue to move, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are regrouping, new assaults are expected in the area.

Correspondent Evgeny Poddubny also adds the following:

The enemy was counting on the loss of control and communications in our battle formations. All overruns are accompanied by the active work of electronic warfare and suppression systems. The purpose of the operators' work is to jam the connection. This also applies to the tactical garden and UAV control channels. But then the Kiev regime fell into the trap of arrogance. The enemy got hit in the teeth as a result of the skillful and timely actions of the fighters and commanders of our Army. And inflated expectations in the operation of Western equipment brought enemy formations under fire from Russian weapons.

👉epoddubny

Ukrainian channels which speak to the soldiers on the front report the hell from last night:

Ukrainian TG channel ZeRada reports that they have contacted AFU soldiers in the Zaporizhzhya direction:

"The guys from near Orekhovo have contacted them. I don't specify the subdivision yet so they don't get hit. They say it was hell yesterday.

Minus 15 tanks and 10 armoured vehicles in one area only.

The guys from the 31st mechanized brigade say "hello" to the engineers and commanders. Just sent to the mines...".

This was the sentiment of many:

And it perfectly encapsulates the sentiment because many people expected Russia to at least fall back to those famous secondary lines we’ve all seen on the maps for months now, with the dragon teeth and revetments. Most people didn’t expect Russia to simply hold the line and completely rebuff the AFU assault without an inch back.

Also, this is one of the first areas where the AFU is up against actual full-blown troops of the Russian army proper, rather than PMCs, paramilitaries, volunteers, LDPR, and endless other groups that constantly get mistaken for ‘Russian forces’ whenever something goes wrong, causing Russia to be accused of being unprofessional, etc.

On the Novodonetsk line, a bit east of yesterday’s direction, there are other groups, like DPR’s Kaskad battalion as well as Russian BARs volunteers. There are many other smaller volunteer groups such as one called ‘Krim’ (Crimea). But the Orekhov line appeared to be held almost entirely by proper, dyed-in-the-wool Russian armed forces. And guess what? Remember when Prigozhin said the Russian army was terrible, untrained, good-for-nothings that fled at the first sign of trouble?

Newsflash: much of Wagner’s Bakhmut fight was up against the lowest tier territorial defense meat-squads sent straight from forced mobilization with zero training. Last night, the Russian 58th boys were up against the elite of the elite NATO-trained and equipped armies riding Leopard tanks. I wonder what big-mouthed, jowl-quakin’ Prigozhin would have to say about their performance. There was no quit in them, and no one fled anywhere. Nor did the 200th Motor Rifle guys in Berkhovka who humiliated poor Prig by posting a video showing themselves riding around 100% Russian-controlled Berkhovka on the same day Prigozhin claimed they had fled and lost it, days ago.

But getting back to the offensive: Dmitry Rogozin cautions not to get too excited, as this was still not a major assault relative to what AFU can still bring to the table:

🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺The enemy has not yet thrown tank wedges into battle: a serious threat of a powerful offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine remains

This was stated by Dmitry Rogozin, who is at the front with a group of military advisers.

“I do not share the joyful reports about the “defeat of the enemy”.

Yes, we repulsed the first attack. Yes, well done.

But the enemy has not yet introduced the main forces of the breakthrough, primarily large tank wedges, has not driven them into our forward positions. And they are only in the vicinity of Orekhov in the most tank-dangerous direction - about 600 tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, not counting the infantry fighting vehicles.

Therefore, it is too early to rejoice, gentlemen. First, let's win, and only then we will "throw caps into the air."

He claims Ukraine has 600 tanks in this direction, which is a mind-boggling number given that’s more than the total tanks that most people estimate the AFU has in its entire arsenal, let alone this one small direction. Could he be right?

The truth is, on paper the 9 special brigades from the Pentagon leaks are each accoutred with 30 tanks and 100 IFVs. So for just those special, NATO-trained breakthrough brigades that comes up to 270 main battle tanks and 900 IFVs. And we know there are in fact many other brigades that are set to pad out the bulk of the shock fist so it’s somewhat feasible they could conceivably have an amount of tanks in that neighborhood. At least 400-500 are possible, if not the full 600.

Most of you are probably wondering, “Jeez, how many tanks does Ukraine have left?” Well, to be honest, if I were to have guessed previously I would have said only 200-300 give or take. But the Pentagon leaks actually stated the exact number, and though it’s hard to know how accurate they are here’s what the leaks had for total Ukrainian main battle tanks:

In storage: 495
Fielded: 802 (433 delivered)
Destroyed: 468

I’m assuming the 433 delivered is what Poland and the West gave to them, which would mean that they would have ~400 active tanks left of their own if it weren’t for that. The “495” storage is difficult to parse because we have no way of knowing if those in storage means they are complete junkers without the ability to be refurbished or whether they are refurbishable.

Also, these numbers are nearly half a year old at this point as the leaks are from earlier this year, so it’s arguable the numbers are much less.

So the question is, even if they have 600-800 left, would they put nearly all of them on this one last line as Rogozin states? I guess we’ll find out, but as I said, at the minimum there’s got to be the nearly ~300 from the 9 special brigades as well as likely at least another 100 from the various brigades helping them out, which we do know are there like the 36th, 68th Jaeger and many others recently named in the Novodonetsk and Orekhov direction which are not part of the 9. So it is plausible that at least ~400 tanks are in this direction.

But recall that the losses are mounting fast, there are now nearly 100 visually confirmed total armor losses (this includes light) from the past few days:

Shoigu claimed 52 main battle tanks destroyed (while Russia lost 15) just in the June 4-6 period of Novodonetsk fights. Last night they lost a good number of additional ones, so if those figures are accurate, the numbers are depleting rapidly. And in last night’s assault, Shoigu reported 30 total destroyed AFU tanks:

Today at 1.30 am in the Zaporozhye direction, the enemy attempted to break through the defense with the forces of the 47th mechanized brigade, numbering up to 1,500 people and 150 armored vehicles. The enemy was detected in a timely manner, and a preventive strike was delivered by artillery, aviation and anti-tank weapons. During the two-hour battle, Ukrainian losses amounted to 30 tanks, 11 infantry fighting vehicles, up to 350 people. The enemy was stopped in all four directions and retreated with heavy losses. The reserve forces specially trained by Kiev to carry out a breakthrough in the Zaporozhye direction did not fulfill their task. Shoigu

AFU armor cooking off in yesterday's fight.

Also, recall that Ukraine’s inflated numbers of MBTs are slightly misleading as many if not most of them are aging T-62s and things of that nature. Let’s assume all of Shoigu’s numbers are roughly accurate thus far: that would mean over 80 tanks already lost just since June 4th. That would amount to 20% of a hypothetical 400 tank concentration in this region.

Also, note that while all this was going on in the Zaporozhye direction, Ukraine has been launching an offensive in Berkhovka as well, on the northwest flank of Bakhmut. And they suffered pretty serious armor losses there as well—many tanks destroyed:

But speaking of Novodonetsk. Let’s turn back to that assault for a moment. In the last report I had mentioned how there were already mutinies from refusenik units which posted videos rising up against their command who sent them ‘to the slaughter’. Also, there were already reports of intercepted communications from the AFU where groups given the command to attack in yesterday’s offensive in fact refused to attack.

Beznosov: Zaporozhye direction. According to the received radio intercepts, at least one AFU unit ignores the order to move out and attack our positions. The enemy's losses are very high.

Now we finally have the translated and subtitled versions plus new videos of mutinying units from the Novodonetsk direction:

🔥According to the appeal of the 505th battalion of the 37th Brigade, only 130❗️servicemen survived out of 450‼️ fighters sent to counterattack. They refused to fight under the command of those who used them as cannon fodder and did not bother to cover their attack with artillery and other means.

🇺🇦🎤🇺🇦 Video from the other side pt2

🔥Later, another official video appeal was shared by servicemen of the Ukrainian 1st company of the 1st platoon of the 2nd battalions of marines, and members of some tank crews, who were sent to the village of Novodonetske to support the 505th battalion which was almost destroyed there.

🔥The servicemen shared their story and made the same decision to refuse to fight under their command. They claimed that they were informed about the combat operation 10 minutes before they were sent to the battle.

There’s another such interesting interview from an AFU soldier actually captured during the Zaporozhye assaults of the past few days. He gives an interview as a POW but it hasn’t been subtitled yet, hopefully I can post it another time.

Now to turn to some other updates. First about the Kakhovka dam. There are now new interesting details which complicate the situation. It turns out that a Norwegian seismic monitor, using local stations, recorded a seismic shock commensurate with an ‘explosion’ at exactly the time the Kakhovka dam first collapsed around 2am:

Norway’s nuclear test-ban monitor NORSAR says seismic signals indicate that there was an explosion at the Nova Kakhovka Dam at 02:54 AM on June 6, meaning kinetic action was highly likely used to bring the dam down. Magnitude estimated between 1 and 2.

What was required to prove: the monitoring system of prohibition of nuclear tests in Norway at the site NORSAR in Romania recorded that June 6 at 02:54 in the direction of Kherson there was a kinetic explosion with a magnitude of 1-2.

Official website here.

And this comes after new reports from local citizens claimed that they heard powerful blasts at approximately that time in the morning which woke them up. Two new articles detail this. The first states:

Local residents in the town of Nova Kakhovka in Ukraine’s Kherson region heard explosions and saw a signal flare before the Kakhovka HPP dam broke, and discussed what happened on the morning of June 6 in the city's Telegram channels and chat rooms.

And the NYTimes released a new article claiming:

Ihor Syrota, head of Ukrhydroenergo, the state hydroelectric company, said in an interview, “A missile strike would not cause such destruction because this plant was built to withstand an atomic bomb.” He added, “It’s clear: There was a blast from inside the station and the station broke in half.”

The article also confirms the residents hearing the explosion:

Experts cautioned that the available evidence was very limited, but they said that an internal explosion was the likeliest explanation for the destruction of the dam, a massive structure of steel-reinforced concrete that was completed in 1956. And local residents reported on social media that they heard a huge explosion around the time the dam was breached, at 2:50 a.m.

Note that the Norwegian seismic monitoring group reported the explosion signal at 2:54am Kherson local time, and the residents in the above article heard an explosion at 2:50am, so it definitely matches up.

The only big question some are asking is: is it possible the “explosion” was simply the sound of the dam collapsing rather than a man-made explosive sabotage? Could a collapsing dam set off seismographs in Romania and elsewhere?

The fact that we now have proof (videos of which I posted last time) that Kiev opened up the sluicegates at the hydro-electric plants upstream in Dnipro appears to heavily imply that Kiev was behind this act as they were clearly trying to profit from the flooding by massively dumping water downstream.

Now there are reports from the IAEA nuclear agency that:

❗️The water level in the reservoir, from which ZNPP takes water for reactors, is falling at a rate of 4-7 cm per hour. The situation with nuclear and physical safety at ZNPP remains potentially dangerous.

IAEA

So was this falseflag aimed at targeting the ZNPP all along? We’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll keep this report shorter so as not to overwhelm people too much, so a few more sundry items:

Firstly the destroed IRIS-T was geolocated to Kherson region:

That destoyed Iris-T radar has been geolocated.

Grechanovka settlement, Kherson region.

Coordinates: 46.932592, 32.796470.

30 kilometers away from frontline.

What’s interesting about that is it was right at 20km from the contact line which means they were keeping it at the absolute limit of the missile’s range which is exactly 20-25km. It was clearly placed to ward off Russian aviation from striking Ukrainian positions on the shore, particularly the ones said to be gathering resources to make amphibious landings, etc.

An angry pro-Ukrainian analyst’s take on the AFU’s performance during the Leopard destruction maneuvers:

Hilarious new Atlantic headline which further shows how far Western media have fallen from their earlier narrative goals. They no longer see Ukraine winning at all and are in fact slowly conditioning their demented readers towards the inevitable eventuality of Ukraine simply pushing for a desperate ceasefire:

And the Rothschild-owned Economist crosses their fingers in blind hope:

A video showing Russian-DPR ‘Kaskad’ battalion fighters recovering those destroyed Mastiffs I reported on yesterday:

These are the trucks that were part of one of the ‘special 9’ NATO-trained/armed brigades, the 37th, which also had the AMX-10s which were lost here:

And interestingly, Zelensky had an important meeting with all his top leadership and commanders, like ground forces commander Syrsky: notably absent were both Zaluzhny and Budanov.

The previously loquacious Budanov is yet to be seen since the GUR building strike.

Let’s see if the AFU tries their hand again in the coming day.

“Leopard hunting”

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