The Week
Ukrainian forces and volunteers handed Putin one of his ‘most comprehensive routs’ in a small town
Peter Weber, Senior editor – March 17, 2022
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has largely stalled on all fronts,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a public intelligence assessment early Thursday. “Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, sea, or air in recent days and they continue to suffer heavy losses. Ukrainian resistance remains staunch and well-coordinated. The vast majority of Ukrainian territory, including all major cities, remains in Ukrainian hands.”
One Ukrainian town, Voznesensk, is still in Ukraine’s hands because Ukrainian soldiers and local volunteers repelled a Russian attempt to capture it, in “one of the most comprehensive routs President Vladimir Putin’s forces have suffered since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine,” The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, based on reporting in the strategically located southern town of 35,000.
“Judging from the destroyed and abandoned armor,” the Ukrainians “eliminated most of a Russian battalion tactical group on March 2 and 3,” killing an estimated 100 Russians and capturing or destroying 30 of 43 Russian tanks and other vehicles, the Journal reports. “The Ukrainian defenders’ performance against a much-better-armed enemy in an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking region was successful in part because of widespread popular support for the Ukrainian cause — one reason the Russian invasion across the country has failed to achieve its principal goals so far.”
Conservatively, more than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed since Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion, “a staggering number amassed in just three weeks of fighting,” The New York Times reports. “Pentagon officials say a 10 percent casualty rate, including dead and wounded, for a single unit renders it unable to carry out combat-related tasks,” and “Russian casualties, when including the estimated 14,000 to 21,000 injured, are near that level.”