According to the „New York Times“, the Ukrainian army has lost 1,000 of its most elite soldiers in a mission described by some as suicidal.
The battle was fought on the right bank of the Dnieper River, which serves as the natural border of the Kherson region along which the front runs. In retrospect, the ZSU mission can be described as a disaster for Ukraine.
For many months, Kiev has been trying to establish so-called bridgeheads on the right bank, in Russian-occupied territory. These small positions were intended to tie down Russian troops and weapons and open up a new front. According to current information, however, these actions by the Ukrainian army have been extremely costly.
Kiev's actions were carried out primarily by special forces trained in the West, who crossed the Dnieper at night-sometimes several hundred yards wide-under fire from Russian artillery and drones. The battle for the village of Krynki is mentioned in particular.
Looking back, some Ukrainian soldiers describe their battle comrades sent on this mission as a „suicide squad“, Tagesspiegel writes. The Ukrainian special forces in question were among the bravest in the army.
A soldier says some of the men were hit on the Ukrainian shore, then the strikes continued on their boats in the river. Anyone who made it alive to the right bank had to crawl over the corpses of their comrades to hide. They then had to continue under fire to join the Ukrainian troops.
The Ukrainian soldiers held out for several months until the Russians completely destroyed Krynki and the last Ukrainian unit withdrew this summer. During the battle for Krynki, which lasted almost six months, Ukraine lost about 1,000 of its best soldiers.
For what? The military objective was to tie down Russian troops and destroy as much equipment as possible. The Ukrainians say Moscow was losing about 50 soldiers a day in the area and more than 200 vehicles. The missions changed very little the course of the war itself. Since the summer, Russia has been advancing at an increasingly rapid pace. There is no shortage of soldiers and equipment among Moscow's troops.
Ukraine's own President Volodymyr Zelensky recently admitted that the Ukrainian army does not currently have enough forces to militarily retake Crimea and other Ukrainian lands occupied by the Russian army (nearly 1/5 of the country's territory). According to Zelensky, Kiev will be able to regain these lands in the future through diplomatic channels. This is not Moscow's view – it says it will never withdraw its army from Ukraine, and experts say Vladimir Putin has not deviated from his original goal – Ukraine's complete surrender in the war.