Ukraine Counteroffensive Update Sept 11 (Europe Edition): ‘We Crashed and It Burst Into Flames’

Overview

• Sweden and Ukraine to jointly produce combat vehicle
• Foreign volunteers who survived Bakhmut drone attack describe the explosion
• Milley tells BBC the “window is closing” on counteroffensive
• Ukrainian forces make headway in Zaporizhzhia
•  Footage shows Russian advances outside Bakhmut

Sweden and Ukraine will jointly produce CV-90 combat vehicle

Deputy Minister of Defense of Hanna Maliar announced on Sunday that Ukraine and Sweden will jointly produce CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle with better all-terrain performance with reinforced multilayer armor.

“The CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle is believed to be the best one in the world. Designed and manufactured in Sweden, it has everything that a modern combat vehicle should have, and its main advantage is taking care of the crew (three people) and the landing party (up to eight people) because such protection as the CV-90 has is not available in any other IFV,” said Maliar.

The plan is to manufacture 1,000 of the anti-tank vehicles, which has an automatic 40mm gun that can launch attacks at a distance of up to 3 km. Its maximum range is more than 12 km.

Foreign aid workers who survived Russian attack describe ordeal

After two foreign civilians, Canadian and Spanish, working for an NGO called “Road to Relief” were killed on Sunday in what Ukrainian defense officials said was a Russian drone attack, two survivors were being treated for burns in a Dnipro hospital and described the explosion.

Road to Relief said in a post on its Instagram account that the vehicle the four aid workers were traveling in “came under Russian attack” in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine on Saturday morning.

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In “a direct hit, the vehicle flipped over and (caught) fire,” it said. The workers had just departed from Slovyansk and were headed to Bakhmut to assess the needs of civilians “caught in crossfire” in the town of Ivanivske.

The NGO also said a German medical volunteer, Ruben Mawick, and a Swedish volunteer, Johan Mathias Thyr, “were badly injured with shrapnel wounds and burns but are now stable in separate hospitals far from the scene.”

According to Thyr, their British car was hit by a suicide drone.

“We crashed and it burst into flames. We were helped by soldiers who drove us to the hospital,” Thyr told a Swedish newspaper from a hospital bed in Dnipro.

Top U.S. General warns that clock is ticking on counteroffensive

The US's top general Mark Milley has said Ukraine has just six weeks left before changing weather conditions on the ground hampers its counteroffensive.

“There is still a reasonable amount of time, about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left,” Milley told the BBC on Sunday. After that, mud, rain and cold weather would likely have an adverse battlefield impact, Milley said.

Ukrainian Defense Forces (AFU) officials have insisted that the fight will push on into winter. Main Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) Head Kyrylo Budanov said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces will continue their counteroffensive operations into late 2023, and that cold and wet weather will not grind operations to a halt, as was partly the case last winter.

AFU makes progress in Zaporizhzhia region, footage shows

Footage posted online on Sunday and verified by the Institute for the Study of War shows that AFU forces have made gains east of Novoprokopivka (18km southeast of Orikhiv) in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Meanwhile, AFU spokespeople claimed advances on Sunday near Robotyne (1.5 square kilometers liberated) and unspecified gains near Klishchiivka, 7 km southwest of Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region.

Footage shows Russian attacks near Bakhmut, but no confirmed gains

Footage posted by a Russian military blogger on Sunday shows elements of the 57th Motorized Rifle Brigade (5th Combined Arms Army, Eastern Military District) operating near Kurdyumivka. The milblogger also claimed that elements of the 83rd Guards Air Assault (VDV) Brigade and 11th VDV Brigade are operating in the Bakhmut direction.

Footage published on Wednesday purportedly shows artillery units of the 106th VDV Division operating near Bakhmut.

In general, however, the ISW reports that these Russian attacks in the Donetsk region have been repelled, in particular around Andriivka (on the outskirts of Donetsk city) and in Keramik and Krasnohorivka, both about 20 km southwest of Andriivka.