Battered by heavy shelling, laced with gunfire and then… everything falls silent.
Along Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea coast, Russian forces play a strange game, testing the defenses, spilling blood and heightening tensions, but failing to make significant gains.
The small town of Mykolaiv, located on a cove that would be a useful entry point for Russians to bring in troops and supplies, was on Monday retrieving the pieces of a weekend of heavy fighting that destroyed Ukrainian hardware and targeted civilians. .
Broken glass and burnt-out tanks were littered on the streets. The skyline was dominated by the unusual site of a raised road bridge, the structure raised for the first time in years to hinder further ground incursions.
And in the air, in addition to the sound of intermittent air strike sirens, the mystery of what Russia’s intrusive attacks in Mykolaiv and other Black Sea towns are trying to achieve.
They have clearly succeeded in instilling fear. Ukrainian forces were on high alert in the aftermath of the fighting, wary of the threat from saboteurs. As DailyExpertNews toured the city, we saw people being pulled from cars and thrown to the ground, presumably undercover cops.
Ukrainian troops tried to put on a brave face. While guarding the wreckage of military vehicles, clearly hit by a ballistic missile with significant firepower, one soldier initially claimed they were Russian before admitting they belonged to Ukrainian forces.
The fighting along this region of the Black Sea has been some of the most intense in Ukraine in recent days, with unconfirmed reports of Russian paratroopers on the ground and highly visible blasts illuminating the skyline.
But with similar strikes in other cities, it was almost the same picture. Intense Russian bombardment followed by a pause that allowed the Ukrainian side to claim victory.
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