I spent much of last week with the men and women of Ukraine’s equivalent of US Navy SEALs, elite divers from the 73rd Naval Special Operations Centre, on assignment with @thetimes. The 73rd conduct reconnaissance and sabotage operations deep behind Russian lines… 1/
…using stealth to infiltrate coastal defences underwater and mount surprise raids on high value targets. They have been wreaking havoc on Putin’s troops as Ukraine tries to drive Russia from its territorial waters. 2/
Operating in the black of night under the waves, a compass, watch, depth gauge and mental arithmetic are their only guides. Tugging on a rope strung out between them is their only form of communication under water. 3/
While the Ukrainian military’s land grab in Kursk has focused attention hundreds of miles to the north, the more strategic battle is being fought in the Black Sea — and it is one that Ukraine is winning, against all odds, with British and US help. 4/
When Ukrainian special forces drove the Russians from Snake Island on June 30, 2022, four months after the invasion, they secured a corridor for the country to export grain from the port of Odesa. 5/
Last September Ukraine established control over a number of oil rigs, which today serve as a launchpad for attacks on Russian targets in Crimea. 6/
Now, clearing the Russians from the Kinburn Spit and Tendra Spit is vital for unblocking Ukraine’s second-largest port, Mykolaiv. These two streaks of land jut across the estuary of the Southern Buh river, allowing the Russians to sever the port from the sea. 7/
On one mission this summer, four Ukrainian divers dropped over the sides of their boat, disappeared under the waves and moved towards the enemy coastline. 8/
Trained by UK and US special forces and equipped with the state of the art rebreathers, they swam in pairs, leaving no bubbles above them to give away their positions. The Russians never saw them coming. 9/
When the first pair reached the Russian-controlled coast, they soon realised they were alone. A technical malfunction forced the second pair to turn back. Alex, their commander, was watching through a drone feed but could not communicate with them without alerting the enemy. 10/
“In preparing our missions, we go through all the ‘what if’ scenarios,” says Alex. “What if the boat breaks down? What if the weapon fails? What if the explosives fail or half are lost? We talk through whatever we can imagine will go wrong. If we can, we continue the mission.”/11
Despite being down to two men, facing a battalion of enemy troops stationed in the area, the team leader decided to pursue his target. He found a gap in the barbed wire coastal defences that would save them precious time, and pushed on. 12/
“There were at least 500 soldiers in different locations. If the alarm sounds, they take up positions, start defending and looking for the divers,” Alex says. The divers had been ordered to take out an armoured Russian ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft system. /13
Hiding their diving equipment and moving inland undetected, the pair reached the road used by the Russians and planted their explosives. Then they waited. When the anti-aircraft vehicle rumbled down the road under cover of darkness, the divers pressed the detonator. /14
“We saw the vehicle blow up, as well as the ammunition that was inside. There was a crew in that vehicle, and they were transporting a shift that was supposed to rotate troops into their positions. We probably killed eight to ten Russians,” Alex says. /15
The Russians were stunned. So far from the front, they could not imagine they’d been attacked. “We were listening to their radio interceptions. They were blaming each other for not providing maps of their mines. The divers escaped unnoticed, swimming back to their boat. 16/
Among the operators of the 73rd Naval Special Operations Centre is Captain “Judy”, one of only a few women to have undergone a Nato special forces qualification, or “Q” course. 17/
You can read more about the 73rd Special Operations Centre in my full dispatch, here:
Ukraine’s western-trained ‘navy seals’ unleash wave of destruction
On assignment for @thetimes in Donbas, I met recon teams from Ukraine’s Black Forest Brigade, who call in Storm Shadow and HIMARS strikes deep behind enemy lines. Although the Russians are still driving forward here, the brigade is making them pay a heavy price… 1/
Lt Kostyantin is a Black Forest platoon commander, using UK and Ukrainian unmanned aircraft to hunt targets. On discovery, they pass the target co-ordinates back to other units equipped with UK and US long-range missiles launched by jets or multiple launch rocket systems. 2/
His teams are equipped with Tekever AR3 reconnaissance drones, supplied by Britain, which are catapulted into the air for take-off and can stay in the sky for up to 16 hours. Often their search areas are determined by the provision of western intelligence. 3/
Between assignments in Ukraine, I’ll now be reporting for @thetimes from the Balkans, another area where societies are struggling to break free from Russia’s malign influence. In Serbia, the situation has recently taken a turn for the worse. 1/
Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vucic has thrown his country’s future in the European Union into doubt by suggesting it could hold a referendum to instead join Brics, the global economic bloc hosted in Russia this week by Vladimir Putin. 2/
Belgrade has long performed an East-West balancing act, but with the war in Ukraine forcing the world to take sides, the scales are tilting evermore toward the Kremlin. Serbia refuses to join EU sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. 3/
I spent a week for @thetimes with Ukraine’s elite 47th Mechanised Brigade, equipped with M1 Abrams, M2 Bradleys and Paladin artillery. They told me they’re in “deep shit” in the Pokrovsk sector, where the Russians have advanced 6km towards the Donbas town in just over a week.
Gulf War era US Bradleys have proved perhaps the most effective fighting vehicle of the war, their armour saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives, and chewing up Russian BMPs and infantry with their Bushmaster 25mm autocannon.
But Ukraine doesn’t have enough, so relies on the brigade that lead the summer counteroffensive and held defensive lines at Avdiivka to hold at Pokrovsk. They are thinned out by casualties and exhausted, and they keep having to pull back when flanks held by weaker units collapse.
In Kharkiv for @thetimes, I encountered an astonishing act of heroism by ‘Drago’ (L), a 24 yr-old special forces officer in Ukraine’s Kraken Detachment. He was awarded a medal for valour for extraordinary actions while holding the Russians for 16 hours at the village of Krasne…
Elite Russian Spetznaz had crept into his unit’s rear, he told me: “You could see how professionally and well co-ordinated they were working; it was high-level stuff. They had the latest-model Kalashnikovs and night-vision devices. They covered their movement by accurate fire.”
Drago was recovering from concussion and second-degree burns at Kraken headquarters in the bombed-out city of Kharkiv as he described his encounter with Russia’s feared special forces.
The past week I was in Vovchansk, Lyptsi and Kharkiv for @thetimes during Putin's new assault on a city once home to 1.5 million people. I witnessed some incredible heroism by its Ukrainian defenders. First, in a foxhole with the 'Peaky Blinders' as they killed 40 Russian troops-
The foxhole is only 10ft wide and 4ft deep, scant cover for the Ukrainian special forces team when death comes straight at them. Russian jets incoming!” shouts Anton, who was a businessman before the war. Five men pile on top of one another.
The shelter smells of wet soil tinged with sweat, and severed tree roots jab at the bodies pressed against them, tearing unprotected skin. The ground shakes one, two, three, as huge long-range glide bombs impact.
I had the privilege to interview @ZelenskaUA in Kyiv for @thetimes and our @Channel4 documentary @C4Dispatches: The Hunt for Ukraine's Stolen Children, out tomorrow night. Fantastically directed by @paulkenyonTV, it exposes how the Russians abduct children as young as three...
...to 'reprogram' them as 'Russian patriots', while older boys are put in uniform, then trained as soldiers to fight their own country in Vladimir Putin's senseless war on Ukraine.
At first it was individual children being seized and taken from their families, Zelenska says during our meeting in a secure room deep in the bowels of Ukraine’s presidential administration. Then entire schools, hospital wings and orphanages were emptied by the Russians.