In a June 27 article entitled “25 Tanks and Fighting Vehicles, Gone In a Blink: The Ukrainian Defeat Near Mala Tokmachka Was Worse Than We Thought,” the establishment’s Forbes magazine broke ranks with the British-American war propaganda offensive, and gave a fairly honest account of the debacle that Ukraine’s Armed Forces experienced in its counteroffensive in southern Ukraine’s Zaporozhye Oblast. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/06/27/25-tanks-and-fighting-vehicles-gone-in-a-blink-the-ukrainian-defeat-near-mala-tokmachka-was-worst-than-we-thought/?sh=786413fa7918)
The article by David Axe states: “An attempt by the Ukrainian army’s 47th Brigade and 33rd Mechanized Brigade to cross a minefield in southern Ukraine on June 8 was even more disastrous than we knew.
“Analysts recently have tallied even more wrecked and abandoned 47th Brigade M-2 infantry fighting vehicles. At the same time, a Ukrainian photographer on or before Saturday got close enough to the site of the failed assault to snap photos of the Russian minefield that trapped the Ukrainian battlegroup, ultimately destroying dozens of 47th and 33rd Brigades’ best Western-made vehicles and killing or wounding many Ukrainians.”
The NATO aim was for its proxy Ukraine Armed Forces 47th-33rd battlegroup to capture Mala Tokmachka in Zaporozhye Oblast; roll south, capture the Russian strongpoint in the town of Robotyne, 5 miles to the south; then break through Russian lines in Tokmak; and capture Melitopol, 25 miles away, cutting in half the Russian force in southern Ukraine, Forbes reports.
Russia mined the whole path to Mala Tokmachka, Ukraine’s first objective, with hundreds to thousands of traditional TM-62 mines. Forbes avers, “The recent photos of the … battlefield depict unexploded TM-62s lying just a few feet apart in the minefield equivalent of a thick carpet.” The Russians also deployed Kamov attack helicopters to strike Ukrainian columns.
