doesn't your own acknowledgement of Russian shelling across the border constitute direct Russian military involvement, I mean limited or not, my point has been all along that some of this has been "helped" along by Mr. Putin's forces?? I never made any statement regarding the quantity, just that there has been some "quality" help given???
I am going to come back on this and this so called "August Miracle".
Throughout June, July and August, there were regular instances of border violations by Ukrainian forces with bullets and shells landing on RF territory. There was some damage and some civilian injuries and at least one death. All of this was well and fully documented at the time. Details are on this thread and include visits to scene by OSCE and NATO officials.
Russia made clear in early July it would respond with counter battery fire if these continued and I would not be surprised if they followed up on the threat.
This however is not the same as indirect fire support and even (for the sake of argument) there was some IFS the range would have been limited in its depth to a very few operations and have had no effect on the big battles of July and August in the towns of the Southern Front.
The only battle where IFS may have been an option for affecting the outcome, would have been the Southern Cauldron which was the only major engagement up against the border. I still find this doubtful as when the collapse came after nearly two months and large numbers of troops defected in early August, they escaped by crossing the border into Russia and away from the militia. Well in my experience, people run away from the guns and not towards them and so this makes the IFS argument look shaky to say the least.
On top of this, SDF is still supposed to be a military forum and so expect to read rather more than "Russian Troops" and "the border".
If people want to make serious allegations, then give me the precise date, the precise location, the unit designation that fired and the precise target location and designation. In addition I would expect to be told the kind of artillery used, the munition employed and details of the consequences for the target.
Without these details, its just weak spin and propaganda.
Likewise the "August Miracle" I really dislike when spin doctors try and re-write history and find it especially dumb when they try and re-write a very well documented recent past.
By calling the collapse of the Southern Front the "August Miracle" I read an attempt to try and convince the unwary that this collapse came out of the blue and was wholly contrary to the previous progress of the campaign. Well I am sorry, but I will not mince my words, but such a claim is a LIE! and anybody making it a LIAR!
We saw the collapse of the southern front start from events in July and through August. We saw the Ukrainian Army fail to storm the cities of Donetsk and Lughansk, despite overwhelming numbers and firepower. Nobody was blaming the Russians for that. Further we saw the Ukrainians stalled in every major engagement, starting with the Souther Cauldron, continuing into Shaktarsk, Torez, Krasny Luch, Saur Mogila, Snizhne, Amvrosiivka and of course Ilovaisk.
The fact of the matter is that in none of these engagements, did the Ukraine manage to either take and hold the target settlements, they failed to destroy or even seriously damage the Novorossiyan formations they were fighting. At no point during any of these battles were there claims of Russian interventions. In fact Kiev was trying to spin that it was winning, despite the opposite be manifestly obvious.
Not only did the Ukraine forces lose, they lost hard in these battles, time and time again (details and links in this thread or available from source archives). By late August the Novorossiyans were able to push back and the weakened Ukrainian units on the south folded and were routed. Novorossiyans were able to pus recon forces south all the way to Sea of Azov and secure the entire Donetsk/Russia border.
Not only is there full evidence of how Novorossiya collapsed the Ukrainian southern front without direct Russian intervention, the version of the story put out by Kiev is absurd to the point of the ludicrous. If the Ukrainians were winning and only defeated by massive Russian intervention, then it would have been physically impossible for a Russian force of that significant size to have crossed the border, done the damage, but leave absolutely no physical trace of itself. Again, this is supposed to be a military forum, so please can we have discourse that is based in obvious reality.
Once again I wince at talk of "Russian Troops" without any details of organisation, dates, locations, activity in theatre etc etc.
Remember every adult, including granny, in the warzone has a smart phone with camera. Had combat forces been deployed, it would have been impossible not to have been seen and recorded many many times!
Sorry to sound intemperate, but this sort of thing which is effectively trying to steal/deny the laurels earned by brave fighters, does make me rather angry.
