Military operations map of the Russian-Ukrainian War as of May 1, 2023
In the near future, right after Ukraine’s victory, I’m about to launch a new series of military-historical tours called “Along the Warpaths.” Some of them will pass through regions where fortification structures have been located for centuries to defend the southern borders of Ukrainian lands from the Ottoman attacks, and today, ironically, have become the theatre of military operations to protect from the russian horde. Starting in 2014 with the occupation of the Ukrainian Crimea, and turning after eight years of armed confrontation in the east of Ukraine into a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, this war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, hundreds of cities and towns being completely destroyed, and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes. The world has not known such a catastrophe of civilizational values and World Order since the First and Second World Wars, the scale of human grief and destruction is really astonishing.
Military operations map of the Russian-Ukrainian War as of May 1, 2023
One of these fortifications, the Ukrainian Defensive Line, was built from 1635 to 1638 according to the project of German General Johann Weisbach. It blocked the Muravsky path to the Ottomans who attacked Slobidska and Left-bank Ukraine. It was an extension of the Izyum Line as a military-engineering system of earthworks, wooden structures, forest abatis, and bridges, total over 285 km long. The Ukrainian Line consisted of 16 fortresses and 49 redoubts, located approximately 20 km apart, and connected by a high earthen rampart with a deep moat. Each year, 20,000 Hetman, 2,000 Slobidskih, and about 10,000 Polish Cossacks worked on its construction. The Ukrainian Line lost its defensive importance in the 1770s when a new, the Dnieper Line, was built to the south of it.
Seeing multiple wars, in 2014, the location of the Ukrainian defensive line became a stronghold of defence against barbarism and infringement once again. Eight years of war with Russia escalated into a full-scale War with the horde invasion began on February 24, 2022, from three geographical directions. Failing their airborne operations at the airports of Gostomel and Zhulyany, dozens of kilometres of armoured vehicles rushed to Kyiv from the north, crossed the Crimean isthmus from the south, and started a massive offensive from the east.
Counting on the promised quick victory, the Russian military encountered fierce resistance from the civilians, territorial defence units, and the professionalism of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Unable to cope with planning and logistics, the enemy’s miles-long convoys of Soviet armoured vehicles and troops were quickly destroyed by mobile units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which had full real-time situational awareness. It was provided by units of radio, radar, and satellite intelligence, observation posts equipped with CCTV, and newly formed air reconnaissance units equipped with civilian quadcopters. As a result, the enemy shook and having suffered huge losses was forced to retreat in the northern direction, withdrawing the remnants of its troops from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv, shifting the emphasis to the eastern and southern directions.
Then there was a brilliant counterattack to liberate the Kharkiv and partially Luhansk regions, a two-month special operation to de-occupy the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, and many other heroic pages of the Ukrainian liberation struggle. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Russian occupation forces found their inglorious death on these lands, most of them remaining whole or storn to pieces lying in fields, forests, and agricultural grounds, turning into animal feed and fertilizer for the black soil of Ukraine.
“Whoever comes with a sword will die by the sword.”
Today, as I write this post, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and all Ukrainians are preparing for a major counter-offensive military operation to outright liberate the russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and restore internationally recognized borders in 1991 in accordance with the UN Charter and a number of other international legal acts. After the victory, as soon as the borders open, I’m going to provide our first military-historical tour across the places of military glory, the route and description I’ll post on this website soon. Follow my updates, and subscribe to my profile on Instagram and Facebook, you should definitely see the consequences of the most Modern Warfare of the 21st century.