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I am Ukrainian. My country has been invaded by Russia. In this video I will tell you what happened on the six-hundred-sixty-sixth day of the war.

Day 666: Dec 21

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Kherson region.

In light of the increased hostilities along the eastern front, Ukrainian operations in the Kherson region started playing an increasingly important role. In fact, the last month has proved that Ukrainian operations on the eastern bank of the river are of strategic significance because Russians are forced to deploy their reserves to this region instead of devoting them to their offensive campaign.

The strategic importance became apparent approximately 2 weeks ago when Russians suddenly increased the intensity of ground operations by up to 20 times and started conducting one mechanized assault after another. Last time, I showed combat footage where Ukrainians destroyed more than 10 pieces of heavy equipment in one day, which at that time constituted 10% of all losses in heavy equipment over all preceding days, so the increase in intensity was sudden and huge. Some analysts concluded that Ukrainian operations and the threat of potential expansion are interfering with the Russian offensive campaign, which is why they decided to solve this problem once and for all.

At first glance, it seems surprising that Russian forces were unable to push Ukrainians basically back into the river. However, if we look at the topographic map, we can see that the Ukrainian bank of the river is significantly higher than the Russian bank. The average difference in elevation is around 50 meters. Such a strong position allows Ukrainians to control the vast ground in front of them and help the marines to hold the bridgehead. In fact, Russian soldiers report that they are very often suffering from Ukrainian tank fire from the other bank when they try to attack Krynky.

The inability of the Russian forces to hold the eastern bank of the river has been a point of concern for every Russian military analyst, without exception, and the Russian commanders responsible for this region continuously endured harsh criticisms. During his annual forum, Vladimir Putin tried to address and downplay the situation by saying that he personally ordered the High Command to create this trap and allow Ukrainians to enter it. He added that this was a great success because Ukrainians lost dozens of soldiers, while Russians only had several men wounded.

Such an out-of-touch comment discredited everything he said before because even judging by the publicly available footage, the verified Russian losses of heavy equipment are already at around 150 pieces, while the losses in personnel are in the thousands. By the way, 150 pieces of heavy equipment is almost as many as Russians lost in Avdiivka, which confirms that Ukrainian operations are undermining Russian offensive capabilities tremendously.

Over the last 10 days, Madiar has also released a lot of combat footage showing how they have been destroying one Russian assault unit after another. The most valuable target over the last day became yet another heavy thermobaric artillery system TOS-1. Ukrainian fighters from the 35th Marine Brigade also have a drone detachment that works with marines even closer. The videos show how they destroyed multiple tanks and armored fighting vehicles. The manines from the 36th, 37th, and 38th Brigades are also active in the region and showed several videos with the destruction of 2 tanks and 2 armored fighting vehicles. Other detachments are more focused on the Russian rear and counterbattery fire and destroyed multiple Russian Grads, Uragans, Giatsynts, D-20 howitzers, as well as ammunition depots, personnel concentrations, and other equipment.

Overall, the fighting in Krynky is extremely tough, and the Russian attacks here are as intense as in other hot spots. Nonetheless, Ukrainians are successfully leveraging the high ground to provide the fire support necessary for the marines that are operating in Krynky. The surge in intensity means that Russians are not comfortable with the Ukrainian bridgehead and try to eliminate it by any means. However, as you saw from the combat footage, so far, it only led to high losses and benefited Ukrainians. The fact that Russians are constantly reinforcing this area and losing their forces means that they cannot use them for their offensives in the east, alleviating the pressure on the Ukrainian defenses and undermining Russian plans.