08 Apr: Ukrainians deep fry a huge Russian attack force near Terny - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 775: Apr 08

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Liman direction.

Here, Russians have been continuously assaulting Ukrainian positions in an attempt to reach the Ukrainian settlements along the east side of the Zherebets River. Moreover, Russians have increased the number and size of mechanized assaults in recent days.

As mentioned last time, the reason why Russian forces are trying to take control of these settlements is to cross the Zherebets River and have a clear path to attack Liman, which plays a key role as a logistics and supply hub for any party that controls it.

In particular, Russian forces recently conducted an unsuccessful heavily reinforced mechanized assault east of Terny. Recently released geolocated footage shows Ukrainian forces repelling the reinforced Russian mechanized assault with FPV drones, artillery, land mines, and anti-tank guided missiles.

Before the departure of the convoy, Russian forces attempted to deploy a TOS-1 thermobaric artillery system to strike the Ukrainian positions, however, it was detected and eliminated in time. A Russian source later stated that the highly developed Ukrainian air reconnaissance capabilities severely complicate Russian offensive operations in this direction.

The video footage begins with a reconnaissance drone's early sighting of the column.

The column consisted of 6 armored vehicles advancing from the Zhytlivka area, of which at least the first two were tanks. As seen later, the leading tank had a bulk set of electronic warfare equipment attached to it, tied with ropes, and then mounted on a wooden pallet. The images show various electronic warfare modules and antennas on different frequencies, as well as many batteries and a generator to power the set.

Unfortunately for the Russians, all this alleged protection was of little help, as already in the approximation, Ukrainian forces achieved to hit the first tank.

Moments later, the rest of the vehicles also were hit by all kinds of weaponry, including FPV drones, artillery, and ATGMs. In the following stages, the lack of coordination of the column became evident, as some of the vehicles tried to move forward while others tried to start the retreat. As a result, out of the six vehicles, only one managed to escape the carnage. An armored vehicle came later to try to save infantrymen who had managed to survive but were also destroyed.

The damaged first tank, which still had all the electronic warfare equipment attached, continued advancing until it finally had to stop just next to the remains of another armored vehicle previously destroyed. The tank crew finally left and tried to flee the area. Incidentally, this damaged Russian tank was later repaired by Ukrainian forces onsite and was successfully driven to the Ukrainian positions in Terny. The entire electronic warfare assembly was recovered and is currently being analyzed.

In the following days, more geolocated videos appeared showing the destruction of additional Russian equipment, including another TOS-1 thermobaric launcher, which was hit by night vision FPV drones. An additional tank was also destroyed. It was, in a very unusual way, carrying on top up to 24 infantry soldiers. The tank hit a land mine, and seconds later, the surviving soldiers began a desperate withdrawal.

As we can see on the map, the Russian forces are trying to carry out mechanized assaults to reach Terny at any cost, although the created salient, through which they have to advance, poses them significant difficulties. First of all, due to the high activity of Ukrainian reconnaissance drones and the considerable distance in the open field from the convoy's starting point, any mechanized assault is detected well in advance, allowing the preparation of numerous firing forces for the approaching convoy. In addition, by exposing the flanks, the advancing Russian forces can be attacked from multiple directions, making the convoy's mission virtually suicidal. As an example, no less than six different units of the Ukrainian army participated in the attack on this convoy. To make matters worse, analysis of data in the previous days reveals a significant Russian lack of artillery preparation and drone strikes over the Ukrainian positions they intended to attack, no doubt as a result of weeks of intense Ukrainian counter-battery and drone activity in the area.