Military correspondent of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Alexander Kots in the city of Alyoshki.
Photo: Alexander KOTS
AGITATION OF THE ENEMY
Radio Bayraktar. The music of the Ukrainian peremoga, ”the radio tape recorder fished out in the hiss of the FM band a couple of tens of kilometers before the Dnieper.
Outside the car window, poisonous yellow rapeseed shimmered in the sun to the horizon, turning into a blue sky. Zhovto-blakytny landscape – to match the independent cacophony that burst into the air. Extravaganza of “patriotic art”. For every taste – from chanson to hip-hop, from ballads to ditties, from hard rock to cloying pop … And that’s all – about the heirs of Bandera, who in the “Bakhmut Fortress” chop into thin slices of the hated Muscovite. Concentrated Russophobia, wrapped in a musical wrapper, from which, after 15 minutes of listening, it begins to reduce the cheekbones.
The songs are interspersed with brief and clear instructions on how to report the location of Russian units, their movements, the amount of equipment and personnel. Such periodically caught by the Russian special services. Those who are lucky are simply expelled to the other side at the last checkpoint. If you like working for the Kiev regime, do it on the territory that it currently controls.
ISLANDS OF BAD LUCK
The last time I drove along these roads was last year, before leaving Kherson. They have changed a lot in the past few months. At the entrance to the Dnieper, craters from shells and mines have noticeably increased, along the roadsides – the skeletons of burnt cars. Obviously, with the occupation of the more profitable right bank, the enemy intensified shelling of settlements on the left bank. This is what destruction is about. in frontline villages.
And recently there was information on the Web that the formations of the Kyiv regime landed on our shore and almost created a foothold.
– Yes, from time to time they make “raids”, land, try to gain a foothold, – an officer I know confirms to me at one of the defense lines near Aleshki. – Recently, fifty saboteurs landed on seven boats. The purpose of these suicidal actions is not clear. Naturally, such attacks are reflected immediately. It was more difficult to smoke them out of the islands.
In the middle of spring enemy sabotage groups began to land on numerous islands, where the people of Kherson liked to relax in peacetime. There are dachas and camp sites, which the enemy quickly took a fancy to. And getting up along the channels to our shore, he attacked the observation posts. There is no great strategic value in such sorties. But this is daily sabotage work, which is aimed at intimidation, psychological pressure. And then our aviation came to the rescue.
– They began to process their oporniks with planning 500-kilogram ammunition. First, they gouged the place of deployment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Cherkessky Island, then on Bolshoi, – my interlocutor says. – And then they began to systematically clear the islands with our groups, blocking the channels through which they calmly drove before. And artillery worked out along their coastal strip. As a result, all approaches to the islands are under our control. But they still try to feel us.
“BEHAVE BAD”
Talk about some bridgehead on our coast near Kherson arose in anticipation of the publicized “counteroffensive” of Kyiv. Say, the forward detachments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are already preparing to cross the Dnieper in order to cut off our garrison on the Kirnburn Spit, and he will either have to break out of the encirclement with a fight, or surrender to the enemy. I talked with friends who are deployed almost opposite Ochakov. They don’t have any panic. And they are skeptical about the idea of a counteroffensive from Kherson: “Well, how many of them will drown while they are crossing to our shore!”
At the wheel of my car, I go almost from the Kirnburn Spit along our coast to the north. This road has also changed a lot. Lots of roadblocks. They have already been taken by NATO satellites and posted on the Web. But this is only the visible part of our defensive lines along the Dnieper. Civilians, by the way, became noticeably more. Apparently, many are returning to their homes. In contrast to the Zaporozhye region, where people are taken from the front-line settlements to Berdyansk.
A familiar route that either approaches the shore, or goes away from it – Naked Pier, Kokhany, Podlesnoye … At some point, high-rise buildings of Kherson itself are shown on the opposite bank. Obviously, this road is under enemy fire control. But it is actively used by civilians.
Finally, Alyosha. This is the last town in front of the Antonovsky bridge. There, the overpass goes to our former crossing. I don’t see any enemy activity here either.
Alyoshka. The overpass goes to the former crossing over the Dnieper.
Photo: Alexander KOTS
– They landed a couple of times to the right of the bridge, in the area of dachas, but did not linger for a long time, – says a familiar paratrooper officer. – Yes, and it makes no sense to consolidate in small groups. It’s just useless to transfer people. But they behave, of course, impudently. See what and how quickly we react. I think if they manage to push through our defenses in Zaporozhye, then they can start to put pressure on us here too. But so far this is just speculation.
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