Ukraine Counteroffensive Update for Oct. 9 (European Edition): ‘These Morons Have Interfered’

Overview:

• Car bomb kills top secretary of local United Russia Party in Kherson
• Russian artillery injures civilians in Kherson
• AFU makes some advances in Western Zaporizhzhia and near Bakhmut
• Weather conditions slow down fighting in the South
• Mines reappear in previously cleared land near Robotyne
• Russia sends more reserve units to Bakhmut area to reclaim lost ground
• Medvedev again offers answers to questions that nobody is asking him

Local leader of Putin’s party killed in car bomb in Ukraine

The Moscow-appointed governor of the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said via his Telegram channel that the local leader of Russia’s ruling United Russia party died in a car bomb attack on Saturday.

Vladimir Malov, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s local boosters, died in a Ukrainian hospital after what Russians are calling a “terrorist attack.”

“My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased,” Saldo wrote of Malov. “The authorities will do everything necessary to provide them with moral and material support, and the military and law enforcement officers will do everything necessary to punish the perpetrators of the crime.”

Until Oct 4, 2022, the Ukraine-born but Russia-allied Saldo served as the head of the civilian-military administration of the occupied region prior to his current position. Saldo himself has been the target of attempted partisan assassinations.

The Ukrainian government has not commented on the attack. However, the Ukrainian Resistance Center has claimed responsibility on behalf of partisans.

Artillery attack on residential area injures nine-month-old

On Saturday night a barrage of Russian artillery injured almost a dozen people in Kherson, including an infant, AFP reported.

“Kherson experienced another terrible night,” the region’s governor Oleksandr Prokudin was quoted by AFP as saying, adding that the Russians “repeatedly shelled the city and settlements… Eleven residents were injured. A 27-year-old woman and her nine-month-old daughter were hospitalized in moderate condition.”

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A 33-year-old Red Cross medic was among the hospitalized victims.

Prokudin posted a video on Telegram of the damage to a local residential apartment building:

Operations: Zaporizhzhia Region

Geolocated footage posted on Sunday suggests that elements of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) made some minor advances north of  Novoprokopivka (14 km south of Orikhiv), as well as near Kopani in the same vicinity, according to a Russian military blogger.

Operations: Donetsk Region

The AFU’s General Staff reported that its forces achieved partial success northeast of Andriivka (7 km southwest of Bakhmut). Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attacks near Andriivka and Kurdyumivka (11 km southwest of Bakhmut).

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), both Russian and Ukrainian sources are saying that poor weather is impacting operations across the theater:

“Russian military bloggers claimed that deteriorating weather conditions in the Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia directions are impacting Ukrainian offensive operations as well as Russian aerial reconnaissance operations. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash reiterated that poor weather may impact drone and aviation operations but that the weather will not halt Ukraine’s counteroffensive.”

Russia’s ex-president calls Americans “morons” for aiding the “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine

Never missing a chance to remind people that he is still allowed to speak on behalf of the Kremlin, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev offered more irreverent and irrelevant commentary about Ukraine and escalations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the weekend.

“The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been going on for decades, with the US the key player in it,” Medvedev said on Twitter. “But instead of actively working at Palestinian-Israeli settlement, these morons have interfered with us, and are providing the neo-Nazis with full-scale aid, pitting the two closely related peoples against each other.

“What can stop America’s manic obsession to incite conflicts all over the planet? Looks like, nothing short of a civil war on the US territory.”

Russian troops replace mines previously cleared by Ukraine

The ISW noted on Sunday that Russian military bloggers have been reporting stepped-up efforts to mine and re-mine areas along the Robotyne-Verbove frontlines. These operations have, according to the Russian bloggers, slowed the movement of supplies for Ukrainian forces and other cargo.

“Although enemy armored vehicles are increasingly appearing in the Rabotino-Verbovoye [sic] section, the enemy has reduced the movement time due to mined areas,” a Russian blogger wrote.

Moscow goes all-in on Bakhmut deployments

Radio Free Europe quoted the press officer for Ukraine's forces on the eastern front, Ilya Yevlash, as saying that Moscow is mobilizing more reserve units to the Bakhmut front to try to regain territory around the liberated city, a strategically critical location.

“The enemy continues to use counteroffensive units in this direction to prevent us from developing our offensive from entering the operational space and from liberating this flank. He uses all his available forces and reserves because he understands that the loss of this flank can still have quite different consequences for him,” Radio Free Europe quoted Yevlash as saying.