Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
How are things HW? Havent heard from you lately? Are your inlaws ok?
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Still not much to update unfortunately, other than the fighting still goes on around them. If you look at the map on
https://liveuamap.com/, they are at North of Kharkiv city by the border and their village is directly on the left flank of the red on that map, Kozacha Lopan. There's a red blotch there that needs to get pinched out. So close, but so far.... arghhhh.
It's frustrating (but also encouraging) seeing how much the map has been "cleaned" in recent weeks in that area north of Kharkiv city, but never seems to include the village of KL. You can also see the 2 main roads near them, T-21-17 and M-20. Both those roads are/were main supply routes from Belgorod towards Kharkiv, which then allowed Russians to shell Kharkiv and head further east towards Izium. The Russians have identified KL as an important holding ground, as losing that region pretty much shuts down that supply route and puts Belgorod within artillery range with the new Western weapons (theoretically). They probably think they can take it all back at some point, but really, the RU army has no sensible plan and they are pretty much hanging around KL in a last ditch effort. It's so dumb, useless and needless. But that's the reality of the situation.
My MIL told us recently that she actually feels some comfort when she hears artillery and fighting, as that means she knows the UA army is closing in. She actually starts to lose hope when it's quiet (there are days when nothing happens) as she begins to think nobody is coming to save them. Crazy to think that way. The emotional swings they are undergoing are insane, to say the least.
Honestly there is so much crazy stuff going on in KL we have learned about but never makes the news since it's not the "big" headlines everyone is following. What my in-laws are doing to survive is straight up crazy some days.
The good news is that with all the "cleaning" going on in that area north of Kharkiv, I really do feel it's only a matter of time before they are liberated. I'd feel less optimistic if there was nothing going on and all the focus was on Kharkiv city itself and the Donbas. The bad news is that there is no timeline, and the Russians aren't giving it up easy. I have to hold off until they are liberated (for obvious ongoing security reasons) before telling about some of the stuff that goes on there. We also know what those
brave Russian soldiers do when they retreated from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy Oblasts (ie. mining the area and pillaging everything). That is happening in most areas north of Kharkiv city and in Kozacha Lopan itself.