The Ukrainian commander revealed the experience of falling into Russia’s “death trap”

A Ukrainian commander told the story of his unit falling into a Russian mine trap while trying to break through the line, resulting in heavy losses.

Speaking to the New York Times, the Ukrainian commander, nicknamed “Voskres”, told about an attack that his forces carried out in July against the Russian line. He said his unit had fallen into a Russian mine trap, with great casualties.

Specifically, according to Voskres, from the beginning, the attack of the Ukrainian special forces group had problems when the armored vehicles of Kiev were attacked by Russian artillery first. This forced the Kiev soldiers to abandon their armored vehicles and attack on foot.

When they reached the Russian line after clearing part of the minefield along the tree line, the Ukrainian forces jumped into a trench, ready to fight.

However, this is a “death trap” for Ukrainian soldiers. “The trenches were full of mines. Our soldiers jumped down and the mines were detonated from afar,” Mr. Voskres said.

At the same time, according to the Ukrainian commander, Russian explosives-laden UAVs dived to attack others. “It’s like they have enough UAVs to attack each of them,” he admitted.

According to the military expert of the Center for Naval Analysis (USA) Michael Kofman, Ukraine’s frontline forces now face a challenge from Moscow: A fake trench system that acts as a mine trap.

Mr. Kofman, who made a trip to Ukraine with other experts last month, took note of the information from Ukrainian forces.

According to him, when the hostilities lasted until the 18th month, Russia was still adapting to the situation to deal with the counter-attack of Ukraine.

“Russia builds dummy trenches filled with mines for Ukrainian forces to enter. Russia uses mines remotely activated and then detonates them,” Kofman said of the traps Moscow set with Ukrainian forces.

Demining trenches is a challenging battlefield task that requires the coordination of artillery forces with other units.

On the other hand, on the front lines, Russia is also seeking to reduce Ukraine’s combat effectiveness. For example, according to Kofman, Russia has doubled or tripled the number of mines in the battlefield, with the goal of destroying enemy mine-clearing vehicles. These weapons can usually withstand 1-2 mines, but if there are more, they have a high risk of being blown up. 

In addition, Russia has built a defense system of depth consisting of various fences and obstacles supported by infantry, artillery, and air force.

In order to prevent the progress of Ukraine, the Russian army arranged regular forces, motorized rifle units, and special forces with powerful artillery. Russian firepower creates a defensive layer from afar, ready to strike first when groups of Ukrainian forces seek to break through.

Russia also deploys a range of other anti-tank weapons as well as suicide drones and attack helicopters. The overlapping defenses caused Ukraine to suffer heavy losses in tanks and armor in the first weeks of the counterattack.

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