Dramatic video shows trench warfare raging in Ukraine

Ukrainian troops have recaptured almost 80 square miles of territory from Russian occupying forces since launching a counter-offensive last month, the defence ministry has claimed.

Giving an early update on Monday from around the frontlines, Ukrainian military officials claimed their troops have seized more than 65 square miles on the southern front and up to 14 square miles around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

Russian accounts said heavy fighting gripped areas outside Bakhmut, the city captured by Russian Wagner Group mercenaries in May after a months-long siege, corroborating reports that Kyiv’s forces were fighting back.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that advances were slower than what he and his generals wanted, but said Ukrainian forces held the initiative.

‘All of us, we want to do it faster because every day means new losses of Ukrainians. We are advancing. We are not stuck,’ he said, noting that the military had overcome a ‘kind of stagnation’ in previous months.

‘We would all love to see the counteroffensive accomplished in a shorter period of time. But there is reality. Today, the initiative is on our side.’

Both sides released a slew of footage from the frontlines in recent days, showing savage trench warfare and the destruction of armoured vehicles in missile strikes.

Ukrainian soldiers are seen clearing Russian positions on the outskirts of Bakhmut

Russian Forces destroy Ukrainian convoy of Western-made armoured vehicles in Ukraine in undated footage. The footage was released by Russian MoD on Sunday, Jul. 09, 2023

Ukrainian forces fire with captured TOS-1A ‘Sontsepek’ MLRS at Russian military positions in Ukraine in footage obtained on July 9

Ukrainian soldiers of the 57th brigade fire a machine gun in Donetsk

In one video, Ukrainian soldiers are seen storming Russian positions near Bakhmut in a fierce battle that reportedly lasted all day.

The footage, shot from a drone, shows the moment a Ukrainian soldier hurls a grenade into a trench as his compatriots exchange small arms fire and even rocket propelled grenades with their Russian foes. 

The images were obtained from the Office of Strategic Communications (StratCom) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on July 8, along with a statement saying: ‘Infantrymen of the 28th OMBr, with the support of artillery and mortars, successfully knocked out the invaders from the landing south of Bakhmut.’

Another clip showed Ukrainian units targeting Russian positions with multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) they had captured from the invaders. 

A volley of missiles launched from the Ukrainian-operated TOS-1A ‘Soncepek’ can be seen devastating Russian positions and armour in a series of large explosions.

The images were obtained from the 1st Separate Assault Company of the DUK PS of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on July 9.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry released a clip of a convoy of Ukrainian armour being destroyed in a pinpoint strike, though did not specify the location. 

Much attention in recent days has focused on the ongoing fight for Bakhmut, particularly in the village of Klishchiivka in the city’s southern outskirts.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had repelled Ukrainian advances near Bakhmut, with fighting made difficult ‘not only by the daily intensity of fire and battle, but also by topography. The line of contact runs between two hills.’

Ukrainian military analyst Denys Popovych said Ukrainian forces had taken ‘important positions near Klishchiivka.

‘This will allow for artillery control of Klishchiivka itself and of parts of Bakhmut and supply routes,’ he told Ukraine’s NV Radio. ‘Just as Wagner surrounded the city, so will we.’

And Chechen leader and close Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov said his ‘Akhmat’ unit was ‘in the difficult Bakhmut sector’, but did not provide a battlefield assessment. 

Bakhmut for months has been the epicentre of the bloody conflict in Ukraine, with bitter World War One-style trench and artillery warfare in the countryside surrounding the city giving way to brutal close quarter urban combat in the centre.

It comes as Putin’s missiles on Sunday demolished a school and humanitarian aid point in southern Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of four people.

Three women and a man, all in their 40s, died on Sunday after the attack in the town of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia governor Yuriy Malashko said.

A guided aerial bomb caused an explosion at the school, Mr Malashko claimed, in what he described as a war crime. Eleven other people were injured.

Overall, Russia fired on 10 settlements in the province over the course of a day, the governor added.

Moscow denies that it targets civilian locations. Russia has been accused numerous times of doing so and committing other war crimes since its full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.

In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

Broad investigations are also under way in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, located in The Hague, is helping with those investigations.

Meanwhile, the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s casualties in the conflict put the death toll at nearly 50,000. 

Ukrainian soldiers of the 57th brigade during tactical training with BMP in Donetsk oblast, Ukraine on July 9, 2023

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that advances were slower than what he and his generals wanted, but said Ukrainian forces held the initiative

A view shows buildings destroyed by a Russian air strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine July 10, 2023

Three women and a man, all in their 40s, died on Sunday after the attack in the town of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia governor Yuriy Malashko said

Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, working with a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University, used Russian government data to shed light on one of Moscow’s closest-held secrets – the true human cost of its invasion of Ukraine. 

To do so, they relied on a statistical concept popularised during the COVID-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than normal. 

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses, and each is at pains to amplify the other side’s casualties, and Russia has publicly acknowledged the deaths of just over 6,000 soldiers. 

‘The estimate we did with Meduza allows us to see the ”hidden” deaths, deaths the Russian government is so obsessively and unsuccessfully trying to hide,’ said Dmitry Treshchanin, an editor at Mediazona who helped oversee the investigation.

To come up with a more comprehensive tally, journalists from Mediazona and Meduza obtained records of inheritance cases filed with the Russian authorities.

Their data from the National Probate Registry contained information about more than 11 million people who died between 2014 and May 2023. 

According to their analysis, 25,000 more inheritance cases were opened in 2022 for males aged 15 to 49 than expected. By May 27, 2023, the number of excess cases had shot up to 47,000. 

That surge is roughly in line with a May assessment by the White House that more than 20,000 Russians had been killed in Ukraine since December, though lower than U.S. and U.K. intelligence assessments of overall Russian deaths.

In February, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said approximately 40,000 to 60,000 Russians had likely been killed in the war. A leaked assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency put the number of Russians killed in action in the first year of the war at 35,000 to 43,000.