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Exhausted Troops, Supply Routes Under Constant Fire: French Reporters from Le Monde, on the Ground in Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, Experience the Ukrainian Collapse in the Donbas (VIDEOS)

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Exhausted Troops, Supply Routes Under Constant Fire: French Reporters from Le Monde, on the Ground in Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, Experience the Ukrainian Collapse in the Donbas (VIDEOS)

The Donbas war on the ground is not like they paint on MSM

In the last Ukrainian bastion in the Donetsk region, the ‘amazing’ victories on the MSM are nowhere to be found.

While there’s no denying that the recent Ukrainian drone and missile strikes are taking a toll on the Russian war effort, especially in the Crimean peninsula, the most salient feature of the war on the ground is going mostly unreported.

The siege on Konstantinovka is about to bear fruit for the conquering Russian forces.

Meanwhile, the two last Ukrainian-controlled strongholds in Donetsk are already under major stress, as Slavyansk and Kramatorsk are under heavy drone strikes, with civilians and soldiers fearing the bombings ‘will intensify’.

French newspaper Le Monde reported from the ground:

“Of all the roads leading to Sloviansk, only one remains relatively safe from Russian drones: The one that runs from Barvinkove, a west-east route lined with sad, dusty villages. Just like several other areas near the front lines, the road is covered with nets stretched between poles, forming an endless tunnel that ripples in the wind. The nets are designed to intercept explosive-laden Russian drones that dive onto vehicles, and the makeshift defenses they form have become one of the most visible symbols of how the war between Kiev and Moscow has changed.”

All the other routes are heavily targeted by enemy artillery and drones.

Watch: Russian aviation increasingly pressures the logistic supply routes to Slaviansk and Kramatorsk.

Watch: the ‘road of death’ in Slaviansk.

Before the war, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka and Kostantinovka formed an urban area (an ‘agglomeration’) with more than 350,000 residents in total.

The region was heavily fortified since 2014, and at this point, the cities mostly serve as ‘rear area military bases for this strategic zone’.

“The men who come here often show similar symptoms: lost weight, extreme exhaustion, neglected wounds and accumulated psychological trauma after months under bombardment. ‘They are exhausted, physically but also mentally’, said Yuriy, the head of the medical unit.”

While the Russian forces are not yet besieging the cities, there is already a Russian troop presence, as infiltrations happen every day, usually in groups of two or three men, Ukrainian servicemen told the French reporters.

“Conversations almost always end up coming back to the same name: Kostantinovka, about 20 kilometers away, where one of the fiercest battles in Ukraine has been raging for several months. The Russian forces have been razing the city to allow their infantry to slip in. In the fog of war, it is hard to assess exactly how the fighting is going, but one thing seems clear: The Ukrainian defenders’ situation continues to deteriorate.

[…] Military analysts from the Ukrainian group DeepState estimated, on June 16, that the fighting in Kostantinovka was following ‘the worst-case scenario’ for Ukraine. They also added that the city represents the ‘gateway’ to the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk urban area, with the two cities being only separated by the city of Druzhkivka, which plays a vital logistical role in the fighting. If Kostantinovka were to fall, they said, “the logistics of defense forces in this area would be profoundly disrupted, creating new difficulties for all movements (…) and merely staying in Kramatorsk would become extremely dangerous.”

Read more:

NYT and Telegraph SURRENDER to the Truth, Report on Russian Siege of Konstantinovka and the Advance for the Final Donetsk Battle: The Kramatorsk-Slavyansk Fortress Belt

The post Exhausted Troops, Supply Routes Under Constant Fire: French Reporters from Le Monde, on the Ground in Slavyansk-Kramatorsk, Experience the Ukrainian Collapse in the Donbas (VIDEOS) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Author: Paul Serran