13 May: Clever. Ukrainians Undermine Russian Kharkiv Offensive by Striking in Kherson - Reporting from Ukraine

[TexasTowelie]

Day 810: May 13

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

Here, the Ukrainians continue to create problems for the Russians across the Dnipro River by using every opportunity to win back territory and establish new footholds. The latest stunning move by the Ukrainian forces was the liberation of the island of Nestryga.

Nestryga is one of the largest islands in the delta of the Dnipro River, southwest of Kherson City, and plays an important tactical role due to its location. This fact was confirmed by the Ukrainian South Defence Forces spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk who stated that there are several important reasons behind this move. Firstly, the liberation of the island will greatly improve the quality of counter-sabotage measures. Secondly, it plays an important part in the Ukrainian strategy in the region to portion battles by dividing Russian attention from the bridgehead in Krynky, which will offload pressure from Ukrainian forces there. Thirdly, it holds significant tactical importance because it prevents the enemy from approaching Ukrainian positions on their side of the river, and it's the last island near the enemy's shore.

The first stage of the battle for the island started with the Ukrainian forces using the village of Velykanske, recaptured back in autumn 2022 during the counter-offensive, as a starting point from which they crossed the river at dawn using the darkness as cover, which can be seen from the published geolocated video of Ukrainian fighters. The liberation was confirmed publicly by the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrsky, which marked the second stage of the battle for the island. Russians tried to surprise Ukrainians before their operation was completed with fierce attacks, which started with mass shelling of the islands and continued with attempts to land their forces to engage Ukrainian troops on the ground.

Ukrainians were expecting this and used the night to their advantage by not only moving more troops and supplies to the island but also by targeting Russian forces on the other side of the river with mortar fire and drones in order to disrupt their counterattacks. As you probably remember, Russians are struggling in this part of the frontline due to the lack of electronic warfare capabilities and drones. One Russian military blogger called this a fatal problem for their troops in this direction.

Geolocated footage from one Russian landing attempt confirms this statement. A Russian motorboat carrying around 10 soldiers was moving at high speed on the river but was monitored by a Ukrainian surveillance drone. Shortly after, it was hit by an FPV drone, which drowned the boat, and the impact sent the crew flying into the water.

The images of the aftermath show an interesting fact: how dense the air in the region is and how dangerous it is for both sides to conduct this move across. If you look more carefully, you can see two other drones hovering above the scene of the successful Ukrainian hit and looking for possible Russian survivors to finish off.

Due to all these high-cost attempts by the Russians, the Institute for the Study of War stated that even though Russian sources claimed that the island is in the grey zone, all their attempts have been rebuffed by heavy Ukrainian fire, and the attackers are suffering significant losses. This situation forced the Russians to intensify their counterbattery efforts in the region with all available means, including conducting guided glide bomb strikes on the west bank of the Dnipro River and targeting Ukrainian assets with Lancet drones like in this geolocated video, which shows the destruction of a Ukrainian M777 howitzer.

This paved the way for the fourth stage of the battle for the Nestryga island. A Russian source claimed that the usual seasonally high water levels are complicating any offensive operations, which led to Russian forces trying a dangerous approach by using jet skis to reach the island to leverage their superior speed, but this again didn’t lead to any success. In the rare cases when they managed to get to the shore, they were quickly spotted and eliminated by the Ukrainians, as can be seen in this combat footage.

[niyad]

1. Slava Ukraini. Thank you for the update.