Russian Troops Being Sent Our Way
Our Mission’s Aid Delivery Footprint now appearing in News Headlines
On July 26th, validated reports revealed that Russia is reinforcing the southwestern flank of the combat zone in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which is near where our Mission Team was based as recent as July 22nd.
Ukrainian officials referred to our Mission Team as being “the tip of the spear” because we would go where humanitarian and medical aid was needed the most, which was in the active combat zones and specifically where Russian troops had only very recently withdrawn from – but this new information indicates that the Russians may want that territory back. “The movement of military equipment, ammunition and personnel continues to flow into the Kherson region”, indicating that greater conflict is expected there in the coming weeks, which makes our aid delivery all the more important for these desperate Ukrainian villagers.
The new information coming from the Ukrainian Operational Command South is reporting that Russia is moving significant quantities of military equipment and supplies, along with an undisclosed number of additional troops from military facilities in the Crimean Peninsula, which has been under Russian control since 2014, to the Kherson region. Reports indicate that the Russians are using both rail and highway routes to move these military resources in what is being described as one of the larger re-supply operations since the invasion began.
Speculation is that these supplies are needed because either Russia is expecting a major Ukrainian counter-offensive in this region – where they would need this equipment for reinforcing defensive positions, or that Russia is planning on its own counter-offensive, and this equipment and supplies would serve more in an offensive capacity, presumably in an attempt to regain control of land that the Ukrainians had forced them out of in recent weeks.
Less than two weeks ago, when our Mission Team was in Lviv meeting with Governor Maksym Kozytsky and other Ukrainian officials, the nationwide status of humanitarian aid needs was evaluated and those results found that at that time, humanitarian, medical and military aid was most needed in the active combat zones in the southern one-third of the country (which included the Mykoliav, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions) and specifically in the small villages and towns that the Russian forces had been most recently forced out of in the southwestern combat zones. In two of those villages, our Mission Team arrived less than two hours after the last of the Russian troops vacated the villages.
Ukraine’s Southwestern Theater of War: July 18-26, 2022
During the week of July 18th, our Mission Team established aid supply depots in Odessa and Mykoliav, then began delivering medical supplies and other aid to military camps and the small villages inside the blue circle, that Russian forces had vacated mere hours earlier – our last deliveries in this zone occurred on July 22nd. This entire region is classified as an “active combat zone”.
Blue arrows – Mission Team aid delivery routes
Red arrows – Russian troop movements
According to validated Ukrainian government sources, beginning on July 24th, the Russians began moving heavy military equipment, ammunition and other supplies, along with thousands of troops from their bases in Crimea. What is yet to be determined is their purpose: is it to better defend against Ukrainian counter-offenses – or is it to launch their own counter-offenses in an attempt to regain control of the villages they were recently forced out of.