02 Oct: Unbelievable! Confused Russian Tank Drivers Crash Into Each Other Mid Fight - Reporting from Ukraine

[TexasTowelie]

Today, the most interesting developments come from the Pokrovsk direction.

Here, the looming rainy season threatens to turn the Ukrainian fields into impassable mud, forcing Russians to launch hurried assaults before their time runs out. Ukrainians exploited these hurried assaults to deal heavy losses to Russian forces, and buy themselves enough time to fortify their main stronghold.

The main goal of Russians in this direction continues to be reaching and capturing the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, as it functions as a crucial logistics hub for Ukrainian forces in Donetsk. But before Russians can start the storming operation, they must overcome the last town of the Selydove-Novohrodivka-Hrodivka defense line to protect their flanks from Ukrainian counterattacks.

The initial Russian plan was to take Selydove in a rapid frontal assault but the Russian storming operation quickly collapsed under the pressure of constant Ukrainian counterattacks. As Ukrainians had also moved additional reinforcements toward the Selydove area, Russians could not breach Selydove in an outright assault and had to change their tactics.

The new Russian tactics involved assaulting Selydove from the north and opening a new vector of assault from Novohrodivka. Unfortunately for Russians, Ukrainians counterattacked the Russian flanking maneuver by conducting lone tank raids that drove up to Russian assault groups moving through the tree lines and engaged them with high-explosive shells. The original uncensored combat footage can be found on our Telegram channel through the link in the description.

Moreover, while Russians initially claimed control of the village of Marynivka, geolocated footage soon proved otherwise, indicating that Ukrainian positions in the settlement were holding strong against Russian attacks, undermining the entire Russian flanking operation at its base.

It’s important to note that, by the end of October, the autumn rainy season will turn every field in eastern Ukraine into mud, making rapid mechanized maneuvers practically impossible. This means that Russians are running out of time to reach and capture Selydove and continue moving toward Pokrovsk. With that understanding, it becomes clear why Russians continued to launch repeated assaults on Marynivka to complete their flanking operation from the north as soon as possible. Ukrainian soldiers operating in Marynivka reported that Russians were launching simultaneous attacks from all three sides, which made them hard to repulse as Ukrainians could not concentrate their fire. Still, Russians took heavy casualties, as they hurried large groups of infantry over the open roads toward the settlement. Ukrainians even shared geolocated footage of nearly 50 dead Russian bodies on one road that Russians were using not for assaults, but only to gather their forces in preparation for an assault, showing how the intensity of meat wave tactics.

Eventually, the meat waves allowed Russians to encroach onto Ukrainians from all sides, and Ukrainians decided to withdraw their forces from the salient. Nonetheless, Ukrainian forces managed to deal heavy casualties to the Russians and delayed the Russian flanking operation for nearly two weeks. This gave the defenders of Selydove precious time to fortify the town and organize defensive positions against the new threat.

Knowing that they only had a few more weeks till the mud season came in, Russian commanders ordered direct and repeated assaults on the northern flank of Selydove. The limiting factor for advancement was the fact that Russians could only advance in the areas from which the Ukrainians had withdrawn, so the moment Russians came closer to the towns’ edge, they were stopped by fierce resistance.

Moreover, one of the most important strongholds shielding Selydove is the terrikon to the north. This terrikon is the largest in the surrounding area, with a surface area of over 1 point 1 square kilometer and standing over 50 meters over the surrounding area. Ukrainians used the elevated positions on top of the terrikon to exert large drone fire control over the northern approaches to the town, targeting the Russian assaults. Geolocated footage illustrates the frequency of these assaults, as we see one Russian armored personnel carrier retreating after a failed assault, as two others already drive in for the next attack. The footage also shows that...

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The word "terrikon" is Russian for hill.

[niyad]

1. Slava Ukraini. Thank you for the update.