Ukraine: Frontline Firing Still Light (Thankfully)

As I reported last week, we’re into another of these periodical lulls in frontline firing. Each day, Russia’s forces are still popping off a few mortar and artillery shells, along with usual grenade launcher, machine gun fire and occasional dropping of grenades from UAV, but the overall volume of fire is down. This slackening of fire usually last but a few weeks, and then we get a predictable upsurge – Russia’s propaganda machine then claims Ukraine’s about to launch an offensive, or some other ridiculous fake news story.

However, it should be noted there is supposed to be a ceasefire in operation and the now regular use of artillery and mortar fire is leading to increased military and civilian casualties – + damage to property. And every shell and bullet can kill.

As seen below, last weekend, Sept 18th & 19th, the OSCE reported explosions were well below the current averages and overall firing wasn’t heavy. Now, this reduced weekend firing may have been linked to the farcically corrupt DUMA elections taking place in Russia. Large numbers of people and no doubt a good many soldiers were given free travel to go vote in Russia (those of them who had acquired the illegal Russian passport). So, Russia may have wanted it to be all quiet on the western front.