Given the Kakhovka Dam breach, have to wonder if Ukarine could decrease outflows further upstream on the Dnipro River, further lowering water levels from Zaporizhzhia down to the Black Sea.
By early summer, formerly underwater land should be dry enough for heavy equipment mobilization and the remaining river should be much easier to ford at numerous locations, thus providing a new counteroffensive axis.
Russia has spent much less effort fortifying that stretch of the river.
Though by the time the mud has dried out enough the Russians could fortify that sector. Anyone crossing that stretch also has to do so with no cover. The Ukrainians can do it at night, but movement during the day would be tough.
And the bases are within reach of the storm shadow and yet they don’t use them for this. That tells us something…..we’ll it could tell us many things.
The Ukrainians would have to identify the exact locations of the helicopters under cover and dispersed, then allocate one Storm Shadow per helicopter. It would burn up a lot of Storm Shadows and might waste some because those helicopters are moving around a lot unless they are down for maintenance.
Early summer might just be around the corner...
If the dam breach was indeed deliberate with the intention of reducing the length of the front line, this could soon turn out as a classic example of shooting themselves into the foot.
Edit to add: Ukraine controls the dam upstream at Zaporizhia.
Russia is good at the nasty tricks department, but like an amateur chess player, they don't think through the long term consequences of their moves. The flooding affected their troops on the left bank more than it affected the Ukrainians and while the Ukrainians in the flooded areas are taking the precautions of boiling their water, the Russians are getting cholera in their occupied region. The Russians are known to be very poor with sanitation, so it's likely that they are going to struggle to get the cholera under control.
Apparently approx 30 x Ka52 have been destroyed this far, which is about a third of the Russian fleet.
One has to wonder what the crew situation is.
I'm sure Ukraine would be targetting the bases if it could identify them timeously.
According to the Wikipedia list of aircraft losses, 26 Ka-52 have been lost and 5 damaged. These appear to be visually confirmed losses
List of aircraft losses during the Russo-Ukrainian War - Wikipedia
Actual losses are almost certainly higher. They started the war with 133. Between combat losses and numbers being diminished due to wear and tear leading to long repair cycles, Russia could have lost 50-100 thus far. Though the pilots of the helicopters down for maintenance would be free to be moved to another helicopter.
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EDIT
More reports regarding these latest moves. There was also some reporting (in Ukraine, but translated) that indicated infantry casulaties of 50 Russian KIA and 70 WIA for loss of 1 and 1 in Ukraine's force. The disparity was huge.
War blogger also reports recapture of Piatykhatky, which if confirmed would be first village taken in nearly a week
www.theguardian.com
I've been reading that rather than sit and wait in defensive positions, the Russians have been trying to counterattack all along the front which results in very high losses. They are bleeding out their own defense force in front of their trenchlines.
Igor Girkin who has been pretty accurate about predictions of the Russian military thus far, said yesterday that once the Ukrainians breach the line of defense they are attacking now, Russia will have few troops left to stop them and the Russian military will collapse. He also predicts this will trigger a political collapse in Russia.
For Girkin this isn't a good thing. He and Prigozhin are the only two prominent Russians who are realists about the Russian military. Both want to see Russia succeed, but they see where Russia is failing and are predicting overall failure as a result.
www.ukrinform.net
