Wounded Ukrainian Soldiers Say Heavy Losses In Push To Retake Kherson

A Ukrainian soldier wounded during early fighting in the new offensive in the Kherson region is being treated at a medical facility in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are pushing to retake territory seized by Russia. (For The Washington Post/FTWP) Comment on this story Comment SOUTHERN UKRAINE — In dimly lit hospital rooms in southern Ukraine, soldiers with severed limbs, shrapnel wounds, broken arms and broken knuckles recounted the bleak disadvantages their units faced in the first days of a new offensive to drive Russian forces from strategic city of Kherson. The soldiers said they lack the artillery needed to dislodge Russia’s entrenched forces and described a yawning technological gap with their better-equipped rivals. The interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to recapture occupied territory so sensitive, Ukrainian military commanders have barred journalists from visiting the front lines. “They used everything on us,” said Denis, a 33-year-old Ukrainian soldier whose unit fell behind a Russian-held village after a long barrage of cluster bombs, phosphorus munitions and mortars. “Who can survive an attack for five hours like this?” he said. Denis and eight other Ukrainian soldiers from seven different units provided rare descriptions of the Kherson counteroffensive in the south, the most ambitious military operation from Kyiv since the expulsion of Russian forces from the perimeter of the capital in the spring. As in the battle for Kyiv, Ukraine’s success is far from assured, and soldiers’ accounts indicated a long fight, and many more casualties, ahead. “We lost five people for every one they did,” said Ihor, a 30-year-old platoon commander who injured his back when the tank he was riding in crashed into a ditch. Ihor had no military experience before Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. He earned his living by selling feed to pig and cow farms. His replacement as platoon commander also has no prior military experience, he said. The soldiers were interviewed in gurneys and wheelchairs as they recovered from injuries sustained in last week’s attack. Some spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action. Others, like Denis and Ihor, agreed to reveal only their first names. But most spoke clearly about the disadvantages they faced. Russian Orlan drones exposed Ukrainian positions from more than a kilometer overhead, they said, a height that meant they never heard the drone of the aircraft tracking their movements. Russian tanks emerged from newly built concrete fortifications to blast the infantry with heavy artillery, wounded Ukrainian soldiers said. The vehicles will then shrink back under the concrete shelters, protected from mortars and rockets. Anti-battery radar systems automatically detected and identified Ukrainians targeting the Russians with missiles, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire in response. Russian hacking tools hijacked the drones of Ukrainian operators, who saw their aircraft drift helplessly behind enemy lines. Ukraine has discouraged coverage of the attack, resulting in an intelligence backlog at a potentially pivotal turning point in the nearly seven-month conflict. Battle for Kyiv: Ukrainian bravery, Russian blunders combine to save capital When Ihor fired at Russian soldiers with his Kalashnikov rifle this week, he said, it was the first time he had fired at a human. “You don’t think about anything,” he said. “You understand, if you don’t, they will.” Despite the challenges, Ihor said he is eager to return to the front lines once he is healed. “My people are there. How can I leave them?’ he said. Other soldiers will not return to the battlefield. Oleksandr, a 28-year-old former construction worker, lost his arm in a mortar blast during the counterattack last week. He writhed in excruciating pain in his hospital bed on Sunday, saying he felt a sting from the fingers and hand that were no longer attached to his body. Oleksandr said the Russian artillery fire was relentless. “We were just getting hit all the time,” he said. “If we fire three mortars, they fire 20 in return.” Ukrainian soldiers said they had to carefully manage the use of their ammunition, but even when they fired, they had trouble hitting targets. “When you give the coordinates, it’s supposed to be accurate, but it’s not,” he said, noting that his equipment dates back to 1989. Oleksandr had never traveled to Kherson before the war, but said the goal of driving out the Russian invaders was worth sacrificing a limb. “It’s our country,” he said. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had recaptured two villages in the Kherson region, and one of his aides posted a picture of the Ukrainian flag flying over the village of Vysokopillya over the weekend. “The flags of Ukraine are returning to the places where they should be,” Zelensky said in a video clip. But it was impossible to gauge the progress Ukrainian forces had made in their push to drive the Russian invaders out of Kherson. The region, which was seized by Russia earlier in the war, is a crucial part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coveted “land bridge” to Crimea, the peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed in violation of international law in 2014. As bloody as the fight was, Ukrainian soldiers said they saw no alternative. “If we don’t stop them, they will just rape and murder our people like they did everywhere else,” said Oleksandr’s roommate at the hospital, a 49-year-old conscript who asked to be called by his nickname. , “Pinochet”. Pinochet said his knee was broken by shrapnel from a mortar fired when a drone spotted him in last week’s counterattack. He said that while Ukrainian casualties are significant, the side conducting an attack always loses more soldiers. “There’s nothing we can do about it,” said Pinochet. “And we can still win.” Russian electronic warfare was also a constant threat. The soldiers described finishing their shifts and turning on their phones to call or text family members — a decision that immediately drew Russian artillery fire. “When we turn on the cell phones or the radio, they can recognize our presence immediately,” Dennis said. “And then the shooting begins.” Despite a ban on media visits to the front line, there were signs that Russia’s grip on Kherson may be loosening. In the hotly contested Kherson, Ukraine is pushing to retake occupied territory In a statement on Monday, a Kremlin-backed occupation authority said plans for an organized referendum in the Kherson region, a harbinger of Russian annexation, had been put on hold due to security concerns. The Russian statement was later retracted, but it gave the Ukrainians hope and suggested that, at the very least, the counteroffensive was causing some disruption to the Russians. Kyiv hopes the Kherson counteroffensive will boost national morale and show Western governments that billions of dollars in economic and military aid are paying off, even as sanctions against Russia have pushed up energy prices and inflation and raised fears of an even more expensive winter. Ukrainian claims of recapturing villages such as Vysokopilya could not be confirmed, although soldiers interviewed said they were able to advance into some villages previously controlled by Russia. These soldiers refused to name the villages, citing instructions from their superiors. A team of Washington Post reporters who traveled three miles from Vysokopilia in northern Kherson on Monday were blocked from entering the village by Ukrainian troops and were unable to ascertain its condition. A local official said Ukrainian and Russian forces were still fighting for control. A clear picture of Ukraine’s losses could not be independently assessed. Dennis, sitting upright in his hospital bed, said nearly all members of his 120-strong unit were wounded, though only two were killed. A 25-year-old soldier being treated for shrapnel wounds said that, in his unit of 100 soldiers, seven were killed and 20 wounded. Ihor, the platoon commander, said 16 of the 32 men under his command were wounded and one was killed. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers have been transferred to various hospitals in southern Ukraine to free up the main medical facilities near the Kherson region for incoming patients. The Post is withholding the names of hospitals treating soldiers because such medical facilities have been targeted by Russian forces during the war. On the brink of Russian attack, the city of Bakhmut clings to freedom On Sunday, a hospital in Mykolaiv, a town near Kherson, came under Russian shelling. The facility’s pediatric clinic was so severely damaged that it was no longer functional. As for casualties, Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Institute for Foreign Policy Research, said Ukraine needs to make sure it maintains a fighting force large enough to repel Russian advances in the east, given Moscow’s much larger armed forces. “If they have big losses and it continues for a long time, it could be a problem,” Lee said. Ukraine’s reliance on inexperienced soldiers is also a vulnerability, but not solely within its own forces. At the beginning of the conflict, Russia and Ukraine fought with professional military units. After suffering heavy losses in the eastern Donbas region, each side began deploying volunteer or reservist units with less experience. The Kherson counteroffensive is now testing Ukraine’s forces in new ways, Li said. Ukrainian soldiers who faced Russians in recent months gained new battlefield acumen “but a lot of that experience probably involved holding defensive positions,” he said. “Conducting offensive operations is much more…