Ukraine: the war goes on regardless

By Richard North - March 5, 2022

It is nine days into the February War, and eight after the bridge over the Irpin River was blown to hinder the Russian assault on Kiev. And only now do we get an acknowledgement on CNN that the convoy on its way from Belarus, down the west bank of the Dnieper, has been stalled not only by “direct attacks” but also “a destroyed bridge in the convoy’s path”.

This is according to an unnamed “senior defence official” who told the broadcaster: “We certainly believe that the Ukrainians blowing up that bridge absolutely had an effective (sic) on stopping and curtailing the movement of that convoy”, who added: “But we also believe that they have hit the convoy at other places as well in direct attacks”.

This intelligence also seems to have penetrated the corporate mind of Sky News. Under a story headed: “Russian convoy ‘enormously large traffic jam'”, this broadcaster tells us – presumably using the same official as its source: “The impact of [the Ukrainians] using explosives to demolish bridges has meant that the force hasn’t had the kind of engineering mobility to maintain pace”.

In addition, just to make life more difficult, the Ukrainians have flooded an area of the marsh plain of the Dnieper reservoir, to the south and west of Kozarovychi, through which runs route P02 down which the convoy must travel (pictured).

And here lies an interesting conundrum. In a previous piece, I asserted that the bridge spanning the Teteriv River at Ivankiv and the P02 had been blown up by the Ukrainians, citing this as my source.

However, yesterday this video of the convoy route came in and it shows (at 1 minute 12 seconds) that the bridge is very much intact. But, revisiting my source, I find it states: “Ukrainian military blew up a bridge near Kyiv and stopped a column of Russian tanks coming from Ivankiv”.

The key words are near Kyiv” – the text does not specifically say that the bridge was at Ivankiv. Then, I refer to another YouTube video dated 25 February which refers to a “bridge near Ivankiv”, but the pictures show quite clearly what I now know to be the Irpin bridge.

Thus, the alternative route which I hypothesised for the convoy was never needed, and traffic is seen in yesterday’s video travelling freely down route PO2. Now, as it encounters the flooding at Kozarovychi, the Russians might wish it had taken the alternative route.

But it was on 26 February that it was being predicted that the convoy would break through with tank columns from Ivankiv, matched by a parallel thrust from Chernihiv, to encircle and possibly enter Kiev. And here we are, a clear six days down the line and neither thrust has succeeded. That is a measure of the Ukrainian success, so far, in the defence of Kiev.

And still the action continues. From yesterday, we have a report that the Ukrainians have shelled a Russian forward base near Kozarovychi, indicating that the convoy is far from secure.

Moreover, further down the line, the battle has continued. While Irpin itself seems to remain secure, after the last Russian attack on Wednesday, yesterday a report told us of a new Russian push from Bucha, just up the road, towards Kiev. Later, UAV footage came in of the fighting, showing Russian vehicles on fire.

Then we got more news from the area, telling is that Ukrainian special forces had fought Russian airborne forces of the 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade in Hostomel, still further up the road, close to the head of the convoy.

One report spoke alarmingly of the 31st Airborne troops holding hostage nearly 40 civilians hiding in the basement. All seems to have ended well though, as at least 50 of the Russians were claimed to have been killed. The Ukrainian defences were said to remain strong in the area.

Still later, we got word from Illia Ponomarenko, defence reporter from the Kyiv Independent. He had been in Irpin to witness the Russians apparently randomly shelling apartment blocks, but was able to report that Ukrainian forces had driven the Russian out farther from Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel. There was, he said, in the early evening Ukraine time, “a lull in fighting now”.

To the east of the Dnieper, the news wasn’t all bad either. In the contested Sumy region, the Ukrainians stopped enemy vehicles bound for Kiev. Head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration, Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, published a photo of the damaged Russian equipment.

Nor, to the south-east of Sumy, are the Russians having it their own way. We are told that Ukraine forces have started a counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region, with the aim of pushing them back to the border. To the south-east of Kharkiv, Russian forces have reportedly reached the town of Izyum, but battle has been joined. Whatever might be the reality, the Ukraine army is not coming over as a defeated force.

Despite this, there are reports of setbacks and worrying developments. A heavy battle with the enemy’s overwhelming forces, we are told, is underway near the city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov coast.

So far, Ukrainian defenders are keeping up the defence and not allowing the enemy to enter the city. But the mayor reports that the city is cut off from heating, water, and electricity, while people are running out of food and medicine. He is pleading for help, and asking for a humanitarian corridor.

However, even in the south there have been other successes, such as the defeat of the Russians at the Kylbakino airfield near Mykolaiv, on the crucial south coast, not far from the captured town of Kherson.

In fact, there seems to have been energetic action all yesterday in the general location, with a report that Russian troops had been dislodged from Mykolaiv. Said the head of the Mykolaiv Regional Administration, Vitaliy Kim, “We knocked them out around the city. The battle continues on the outskirts”.

Additionally, Ukrainian troops have blown up a bridge connecting the region of Odesa to the Moldovan breakaway republic Transnistria. This has been done to prevent the 2,000 Russian soldiers stationed there from joining the assault on Odesa.

On a separate note, the air war seems to be far from over. Yesterday, Ukrainian air defences shot down a Russian Mi-8 helicopter, which was possibly trying to recover the pilot of a downed Su-25 attack aircraft, also shot down by the air defences.

Commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, says: “Our military hold the sky over Ukraine. Another enemy fighter SU-25 was destroyed along with the pilot. In total, 34 enemy aircraft and 37 helicopters were shot down during the open war”.

So it is that, after a day of drama and intense action, Kiev has been saved for another day, the Russians have been beaten back in other areas and engaged in yet others, while taking continued losses. And yet, most of those those actions, actual and planned, were almost entirely unrecorded by the UK media, a media that managed to devote acres of coverage to the action by Sainsbury’s in renaming Chicken Kiev.

The only interest shown by the BBC, and The Times to the pivotal actions in the Irpin area is in the damage to apartment blocks and houses, despite the latter claiming to have “teams of journalists on the ground in Ukraine”.

Oddly enough, while the media obsesses over the nuclear disaster averted, covered yesterday by this blog, the Telegraph front page today shows a picture of the downed Irpin bridge, but only as a backdrop to a family group struggling across the wreckage, in an attempt to escape the bombardment.

Only in the small print are we told that the bridge was “deliberately destroyed several days ago to impede the Russian advance”. I suppose, when it comes to the media, we should be grateful for what we get. Meanwhile, the war goes on regardless – barely reported.