The Times: Russia Launches Offensive On Kharkiv With New Tactics

The Ukrainian Forces were caught by surprise.

At the initial stage of the new offensive in the Kharkiv region, the Russians used a completely new tactic, which was one of the reasons for its success in the first days of the battle.

This was told to The Times by a fighter of the Kraken special unit with the call sign "Drago", who was among the first to meet the Russians at the border.

According to the special forces soldier, he and his brothers helplessly watched as Russian troops accumulated on the other side of the border for several weeks. Ukrainians simply did not have the opportunity to launch a preventive strike because of the ban on the use of Western weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation imposed by donor countries.

"A lot of Russians gathered there, and we could destroy them on the way, but we have little ATACMS, and we have a ban on their use. We had to wait for them to cross the border,” Drago said and complained that this US policy had cost his unit certain casualties.

However, not only this contributed to the Russian success in the early days of the invasion. According to the soldier, the Ukrainians expected a typical frontal attack from the aggressor using armored vehicles, but were caught off guard by the new tactics of small infantry groups that penetrated between the strongholds of the Defence Forces and entered the rear of the Ukrainians.

In addition to this, on the first day of the invasion, the Russians deployed their elite special forces units to suppress resistance near the border as quickly as possible. Ironically, Russian elite special forces stumbled right into the First Airborne Assault Company – specialized night fighters in the service of the GUR (Ukrainian Defence Intelligence). Together with others, they were relocated from Donbas to reinforce the mobilized soldiers who covered Kharkiv.

“They walked through swamps and forests almost unnoticed by our attack drones. Neighboring units were newly formed: people who had not yet had combat experience. They were next to us, trying to hold the line of defense, but 20 enemy fighters approached us in the rear," Drago said.

The Drago team of six fighters was divided into two groups and squeezed in a trench with two dugouts. They were surrounded by a predominant number of Russians and had to break out of the encirclement. After a fierce battle, when the trenches were already burning, and the situation seemed hopeless, the fighter called the artillery fire to his position, hoping that he would be able to survive in the trench.

It worked. Artillery killed at least three of them (Russians) and they retreated. Then our reinforcement group with machine gunners arrived," he said.

With the arrival of reinforcements, the fierce fighting continued. Both sides suffered heavy losses. At a certain point, the rifle battle was fought at a distance of 5 meters.

In this battle, near the village of Krasne, which is located 3 km from the border, elite special forces units of Ukraine and Russia clashed. The battle lasted a total of about 16 hours and won critical time for more Ukrainian special forces and air assault brigades to take up positions in the village of Liptsy - south of Krasne.

If the Russians had broken through to the height in Liptsy, they would have been able to launch artillery attacks on Kharkiv, as in the first months of the war.