27 Aug: Genius. Ukrainians Use Thermal Tech to BREAK THROUGH MINEFIELDS | War in Ukraine Explained

🔴 Support via Online Store: 🟠 Support via Patreon: 🔵 Support via YouTube Sponsorship: 🔵 Support via Thanks button donation under the video (next to “like“ and “share“) 🟡 Support via 1-time donation: ⚠️ Watch RFU in 20 languages: @RFU/channels I am Ukrainian. My country has been invaded by Russia. In this video I will tell you what happened on the five hundred fiftieth day of the war. Day 550: Aug 27 Today, there are a lot of updates from the Tokmak direction. Here, after Ukrainians established total control over Robotyne, they immediately started pushing further. The main target of Ukrainians became the next village on the line – Novoprokopivka. However, the fastest way to the settlement was not the shortest. Russian forces created several fortifications between Robotyne and Novoprokopivka. Ukrainian fighters reported that they were destroying Russian personnel with regular and cluster shells in large numbers. A fighter from the 24th Assault Brigade reported that Russian daily reinforcements reached 60 trucks of troops, so Russian losses on this small section of the front line are mind-boggling. And such a desperate attempt to slow Ukrainians down is not surprising – if Ukrainians take Novoprokopivka, they will reach the second line of defense. That is why Russians are holding onto these several trench networks and regularly bomb Robotyne to prevent Ukrainians from accumulating forces enough to conduct a powerful attack. Geolocated footage confirms that bombing happens on a regular basis and some state that Russians conduct up to 8 such attacks per day. Unfortunately for Russians, Ukrainians attacked from a different direction. Due to the constant shelling of the southern part of Robotyne and continuous counterattacks from the Russian side, the Ukrainian command saw that advances in this region would come at an unnecessarily high price. Ukrainians continued imitating attacks near Robotyne to play along with Russian expectations, while in the meantime, Ukrainians gradually accumulated forces in the tree lines east of Robotyne. As Ukrainians liberated a lot of fields, Russians did not notice the accumulation of a critical number of troops until it was too late. Ukrainians started pushing south parallel to the Robotyne-Novoprokopivka line and gained ground relatively quickly. Soon, Russian sources published footage showing how Russian artillery was shelling Ukrainians more than 2 km south of the previous positions. The reason why Ukrainians managed to advance here so rapidly is simple. If we look at the topographic map, we can see that Ukrainians moved into the lowlands. Even though Ukrainians were at a tactical disadvantage, Russian forces did not create enough strong points to repel Ukrainian attacks confidently. Russians counted a lot of the mine fields, however, Ukrainians developed a great tactic to tackle this problem much more easily. As it is very hot during the day, metal absorbs this heat visibly greater than the ground. So, Ukrainians would launch drones with thermal cameras during the day to create a map of mines. This approach allowed to identify trails with virtually no mines or the point at which the mine field is very narrow. Next, Ukrainians would send demining equipment to create a safe pathway, get across the minefield, and assault Russian positions. Ukrainians here also experienced more freedom of operation, as the Russian artillery was too focused on shelling the southern part of Robotyne. After repeating the processes for several more days, Ukrainians approached Novoprokopivka from the east and conducted the first assault on the village. Two days ago, Russian sources reported that the Russians 56th and 108th regiments lost key positions in the eastern part of the village, which is why Novoprokopivka could already be considered lost. Despite the raised alarm by some Russian media sources, it is too early to consider Novoprokopivka as fallen. Nonetheless, over the last several days, the area of operation of Ukrainian forces shifted south by up to 4 km. If Ukrainians gain a stable bridgehead inside the village and push Russians out of the western side, Russian forces will automatically lose control over all trenches and fortifications north of Novoprokopivka, and, what is even more important, Ukrainians will reach the second line of defense on a 12-km section simultaneously. This is very bad news for Russians because as Ukrainians can attack any section, Russians need to stretch their forces evenly and, inevitably, thinly and keep as many troops as possible everywhere at all times. Ukrainians, in turn, just need to find or create a weak link and penetrate the line. Once passed, Ukrainians can clear the line by attacking it from 3 sides.