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UKRAINIAN MILITARY FORCES have successfully established positions on the eastern side of the Dnieper River, according to a new analysis, giving rise to speculation that the advances could be an early sign of Kyiv’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank, reported on Saturday that geolocated footage from pro-Kremlin military bloggers indicated that Ukrainian troops had established a foothold near the town of Oleshky, along with “stable supply lines” to their positions.
Analysts widely believe that if Ukraine goes ahead with a spring counteroffensive, a major goal would be to break through the land corridor between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula, which would necessitate crossing the Dnieper River in the country’s south.
Responding to Ukrainian media reports proclaiming that the establishment of such positions indicated the counteroffensive had begun, Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Operational Command South, called for patience.
While neither confirming nor denying the ISW report, she said only that details of military operations in the Dnieper delta could not be disclosed for operational and security reasons.
Speaking on Ukrainian television, Ms Humeniuk added that it was “very difficult work” when “it’s necessary to overcome an obstacle such as the Dnieper, when the front line passes through a wide and powerful river”.
The Kremlin-installed head of the Kherson region, one of four parts of Ukraine that Russia said it was illegally annexing in September, denied on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had established a foothold on the east bank of the Dnieper, Russia’s state RIA Novosti agency reported.
According to RIA, Vladimir Saldo told its reporters that Russian forces were “in full control” of the area, and speculated that the images referenced by the ISW may have depicted Ukrainian sabotage units that “managed to take a selfie” across the Dnieper before being forced back.
After more than a year since the Russian invasion, recent fighting has become a war of attrition, with neither side able to gain momentum.
But Ukraine has recently received sophisticated weapons from its western allies, and new troops freshly trained in the West, giving rise to growing anticipation of a counteroffensive.
The fiercest battles have been in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is struggling to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of dogged Ukrainian defence.
On Sunday, Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed Moscow’s forces had captured two more neighbourhoods in the western part of Bakhmut, without providing further details or clarifying what areas were still in Ukrainian hands.
In the south, the Dnieper has for months marked the contact line in the Kherson region, where its namesake capital is regularly hit by shelling from Russian forces stationed across the river.
In addition to having established a foothold near the town of Oleshky, across the Dnieper delta from Kherson, ISW said that Ukrainian troops were also approaching the nearby village of Dachi, citing data from Russian military bloggers.
In Telegram posts on Thursday and Saturday, ISW said the bloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces had maintained these positions for weeks and established stable supply lines to them, indicating a lack of Russian control over the area.
Russia is also expected to launch more intensive attacks in the spring, but ISW reported that top Russian defence figures were showing signs that they may be pushing for a consolidation of existing gains in Ukraine, rather than costly new operations, as Moscow struggles with both material and manpower.
The think tank cited comments from financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group — a private Russian military company whose fighters have spearheaded the offensive on Bakhmut.
On Saturday, Mr Prigozhin’s press service posted comments he made on its official Telegram channel in which he argued that Russian forces needed to “anchor (themselves) in such a way that it is only possible to tear them out with (the) opponent’s claws”.
The interview was published shortly after western leaders meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany pledged to train more Ukrainian personnel and keep up their military support for Kyiv.
As Moscow seeks to bolster its troop numbers, the Ministry of Defence in the UK noted on Sunday in an intelligence briefing that Russian authorities had mounted a large-scale military recruitment campaign using social media, billboards and state television.
It said Russian officials were “almost certainly seeking to delay any new, overt mandatory mobilisation for as long as possible to minimise domestic dissent”, while assessing that this latest effort would likely fail to meet the defence ministry’s stated goal of recruiting
400,000 new volunteers.
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So after years of them hiring managers and accountants to fix the HSE, they’ve finally realised that maybe, just maybe, it might be a better idea to hire more frontline staff?
And we’re supposed to be impressed by people who run the country on 6 figure salaries finally figuring out what a 5year old could’ve told them?
@Bryan Kelly: next they need to get rid of the deadwood in the HSE and then he’s talking.
This is little more than spending more money in the HSE
@John S: I never mentioned anything about spending more money?
We spend more of our GDP on health than any other EU country and it’s in the toilet, because our politicians are incompetent gombeens. They’re a bunch of pencil pushers who believe they can fix all the problems so they believe pencil pushers can fix all problems.
The biggest problem we have in this country is the near worship of the white collar sector. Teachers and nurses get reduced to minimum wage but it’s impossible for the government to cut the salaries of unnecessary or incompetent managerial and admin staff, or to just fire them because of contracts? I’m not buying it, the government has shat all over contracts and even the law when it suited them, they just don’t wanna go after their buddies in admin.
Rot always starts from the top down. We need proper accountability for our politicians. When they can just be shuffled to another cabinet position with no loss of earnings every time they make a balls of things and destroy a public service, what incentive is there for them to do a good job?
We hold the people running the country to lower standards than we do people earning minimum wage in McDonalds.
I’d love to know where exactly the 1200 staff before the end of year are gonna come from !!!!
@Alexandra Ni Longain: University probably… nurses returning home….
@Alexandra Ni Longain: Out of thin air obviously.
@Matthew Kanoff: nurses don’t want to return home. Why would you come back to earn less, work infinitely harder in a tougher environment .
@Alexandra Ni Longain: my sentiments exactly. They won’t get 1200 nurses. No one wants to go work for them.
@Alexandra Ni Longain: Unfortunately we’re doomed to be back here again in another 12 months when it becomes obvious to all but those negotiating these agreements that there isn’t 1,200 nurses willing to work in the HSE.
As I type this I’m aware that most hospitals are currently recruiting nursing staff abroad, even as about 1,200 Irish nurses will graduate from universities this year. Isn’t that an amazing figure? They won’t, however, slot into the promised jobs negotiated in this agreement, the majority will follow the 1,200 who graduated every other year, they’ll emigrate.
What needs to be addressed, and isn’t, is why we have such difficulty finding nurses, why our graduate nurses would rather emigrate than work in their own Health Service? Why the turnover of nursing staff in our ED Departments, ICU and Dialysis departments has gone beyond crisis point and virtually every hospital has positions left unfilled.
An empty promise to pluck 1,200 additional nurses out of thin air, “Harry Potter” style is, frankly, condescending, insulting and just deferring the problem again.
@Alexandra Ni Longain: india and philipines. have you not been in the hospitals here the last few years?
@Arthur Wells: Staff from these countries, and more, like Poland, Spain etc. are filling some of the empty nursing positions in our hospitals, yet still many more are left unfilled.
This still doesn’t answer where an additional 1,200 nursing positions are going to come from if there are already dozens of unfulfilled positions in every hospital in the country, especially in specialist roles. Nor does it answer the question of why so many nursing graduates every year would prefer to emigrate than work in our Health Service, why so many specialist roles are unfilled, why so many young, inexperienced, unqualified staff are being shoved into ED Departments because there is nobody else.
@Jed I. Knight: Because the economy is tanked here, public infrastructure sucks, houses prices are through the roof and there is no great career prospects here.
Sadly, this would result in a lot of ambitious young doctor and nurse graduates who see the writing clearly on the wall and are emigrating en masse whenever possible and able to better pastures (i.e. Australia and the likes).
So the problem is actually multifold and involve both the hospitals and the wider country: how to create a conducive career and economic environment to retain these talent and not let it drain elsewhere?
That’s one strike the nation can do without
They always threaten strike but never strike…..it’s the same every time they ballot the members
@Paddy Flynn: yes but it’s the one strike where the members deserve what they’re looking for and more. Nurses talk about striking but don’t because they care too much and don’t want to let their patients or colleagues down.
@Elizabeth W: One of the few groups that would get mass support if they did decide to take industrial action. Respect to all in the profession. I don’t know how you do it!
@Elizabeth W: nurses care too much about their patients? These are the same nurses whose solution to A & E overcrowding was 2 extra days holidays?
Nursing unions are just as self entitled as any other union.
@Soccer T’s: I have a nurse friend who has 4 kids and took 4 months off for “back trouble for 3 of those kids during pregnancy. She does it cos she gets paid leave. They all do it she says. Nurses know how to milk the system. They aren’t saints like some make out they are
@Sinead Hanley: feck off! What do you know about nursing on the front line? I’ve been nursing 22 years and have only been sick when I had 2 hope replaced! Get your facts straight. Most nurses go sick when they need to. Besides, we only get 4 months sick pay, hardly worth milking it…
@Ann-Marie Cronin: Don’t you know that every idiot these days are experts on what people in the public sector do.
@John S: You’re preaching to the converted there with regards unions. Nurses do care about their patients and until you’ve sat down and spoken to an utterly exhausted (physically & mentally) nurse you can’t argue otherwise. They work upto 13/14 hrs a day sometimes with no breaks. The extra hours they do are done free of charge because good luck to getting time back. There could be two nurses and a carer looking after up to 30 pts and their safety concerns fall on deaf ears. The HSE say they’ll hire more 1200 nurses, they won’t find 1200 nurse that want to work for them. Until they sort out the top, they’ll never be able to fix it at ward level.
@Elizabeth W: It’s not just the top that they need to sort out unfortunately. At some point nurses will have to accept some personal responsibility for the position that they find themselves in. The people who work on the frontline are fully familiar with the unsafe working conditions, the years of broken promises and the ongoing difficulties with recruitment and retention. In voting by a 82% margin to accept this deal, the majority also think that they are going to conjure up these extra 1,200 nurses.
@Elizabeth W: I agree with you. Nurses are the heart and soul of our struggling health service. I agree nurses deserve better albeit without a strike being necessary. There are too many agency nurses now and the state won’t fund enough long term nursing jobs.
@Elizabeth W: try being an intern doctor with all the same problems but less pay than nurses and have to take care of multiple wards while working more than 24 hours a day at least twice a week.
I have to admit, as health ministers go, I like this guy. At least he’s trying to tackle the issues. That is definitely the first positive comment I’ve made about any politician in the last 2 years at least!
@Soccer T’s: to be fair you’re not the sharpest tool in the box when your believing FG on everything
Crisis averted? 1,200 nurses and midwives to be hired by end of year…
That is because 2000 will leave here to go to Saudi Arabia or the UK? We never get more nurses as we only get new nurses to replace the ones that left but that is never said because it would tarnish the false belief of progress?
Can The Journal revisit this story at the end of the year?!!
I agree with Paul. Please review this story at the end of the year, Journal. Have we reached 1200 and how many are Irish nurses? If our nurses leave to find better pay and working conditions while their former positions are taken by foreign nationals, the core issue has not been resolved. I hope this “plan” has more success than the “plan” the “plans” instituted to solve Dublin’s housing shortage, Mr. Varadaker (sp?).
This is all “hot air” speak, if the health service is to work the top management and pen pushers needs to be tackled, otherwise throwing good money after bad..
If we could replace every unnecessary manager and general backroom staff member for want of a better word with a doctor or nurses we have the best health system in the world. I was in the regional hospital visiting a friends last week and the amount of admin staff for want of a better word was unreal. Time for compulsory redundancy in our health system of staff like this, but we all know that’s not going to happen because in effect our health system is set up to facilitate the staff who work in these hospital rather than the patients.
@mickmc: did you ask the Admin staff what they were doing?. You’re just a big radio listening sheep….
@Alan McCartney: Yeah…all those admin staff. Saving lives and everything.
Managerial and admin positions rose 10% during austerity with a 3% decrease in frontline staff.
Maybe take your own advice and stop just listening to whatever Enda and co tell you.
@Alan McCartney: Who do you think I am? The Queen of England. “And what do you do?” They wonder around there all day every day with a clip board in their hand basically getting in the way of the doctors and nurses. I’m not suggesting they’re not doing what they’re being paid to do, the question is, is the job they do actually necessary.
Think that they are simplifying it a little..even if wages /allowances etc are increased..the cost of living here is still too high..plus the sheer stress of frontline nursing,without the necessary backup measures..lets do a fact check in 12 mths time to see how many positions have been filled..or even when the same positions are advertised..being cynical…I expect that they wont be advertised until the very last moment …
Harris said that? Must be true so…..
Get ready for an influx of 1,200 nurses and doctors from eastern european countries, philipines and India…
Sad that only people from poorer countries are willing to stay and work here.
@Arthur Wells: What a horrible comment. I can tell you when I was very Ill in hospital and in massive pain that they couldn’t give me any more pain medication for it was a lovely nurse from the Philippines who held my hand at night when I was wore down by the pain all day and couldn’t cope with it anymore. It was also Philippine nurses who gave my son excellent care in the neonatal unit in Holles street when he was born.
@Carina Clarke: your sentimental account is all great and well but the fact of the matter is that Irish trained health care professional graduates are leaving and the spaces are filled up by people from countries where the origin of their qualifications are dubious at best.
This is a short term fix but will have long term adverse ramifications. Give it 10 years and this will change the work culture and lower the standard as a whole.
There is a reason why United States, U.K and Australia doesnt recognize their qualifications, but for some reason Ireland thinks short term lowers its bars just because there are spaces to fill.
While welcome news if followed through I suspect they will also hire a raft of new managers to maintain the ratio of indians and chiefs, I hope I’m wrong.
They don’t get it. Nobody wants to work here. The only reason inmo members voted yes because if we didn’t there’d be zero chance of pay deals going forward. Next step is to align nurses salaries with physiotherapists and occupational therapists. Maybe then, they might have some chance of keeping and hiring staff nurses.
If we didn’t pay agencies €250 million per year we cud hire 5,000 nurses and give them 50k per year. If we didn’t give corporate legal firms millions per year we cud hire legal people to work for the State and still save loads and if we did away with bullshit tendering rules we cud save billions!
@Alexandra Ni Longain:
Exactly! The pay and conditions are still rubbish!
@Paddy Flynn:
Agency nurses provide an invaluable service in hospitals. The issue is not that the state won’t fund enough long term nursing jobs. The posts are there. Nurses don’t want them.
have your say