For the soldiers at the front, it is now clear that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is in full swing. That’s what Swedish Christopher Forsbäck says, who recently completed an attempt to advance.
– This is evident from the size of the troop movements, the intensity of the artillery fire and what we use when we attack, he says.
The news that Ukraine had launched its counter-offensive was presented to the world through information from US intelligence services. For the Swedish soldier Christopher Forsbäck, months of planning for the offensive culminated in a night raid against the Russian defense lines.
His company managed to get into their positions, but met there unexpectedly stiff resistance.
– It is really well-developed defensive lines that we attack. They have mine lines and mine barriers, they have proper, predetermined, artillery points that they are shelling and there is a lot more artillery and more Russian soldiers than we expected, he says.
Forsbäck believes that the large floods enabled troop movements to strengthen strategically important defense sectors for the Russian army.
“Under Five Dead”
The initial attacks carried out have been on a smaller scale and with the mission of gathering intelligence on the most suitable locations for larger thrusts. Despite the unexpectedly stiff resistance, Forsbäck describes the company’s losses as “miraculously” low.
– We have miraculously low losses in the company I belong to. We have under five dead and not too many injured. It is a sign that the soldiers are relatively well trained and that their sergeants are savvy with how they manage their resources, he says.
He describes both combatability and morale as still high, when they are now awaiting new directives.
– The morale is very high, even if we didn’t manage to reach all our attacking goals this night, the morale of the boys here is unchanged. It didn’t go as we had planned, then we learn from it and try again.