During the offensive, the Ukrainian Armed Forces rely on "hundreds" of small mobile infantry groups consisting of 8-10 people.
Source. The New York Times writes about this.
The publication notes that this is a "difficult way to wage war", "slow and bloody" – such small units are concentrated on specific positions of the Russian Armed Forces. It can be one house in a village or a specific trench.
The article states that the village of Urozhayne, which is on the way to Melitopol, was surrounded by two lines of trenches connected by a "maze" consisting of tunnels. They allowed the Russian military to fire a shot in one place and then retreat and reappear in another. After the Russian fortifications are captured, they become the base for further offensive actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and allow them to effectively defend the achieved lines from counterattacks.
The article tells the story of one particular unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that stormed Urozhayne together with others. It consisted of a commander and untrained recruits. Their task was to capture a particular house in the village, which they accomplished in one day, and then moved on to capture the next.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are about 95 kilometers away from the sea, and there are still several Russian defense lines in front of them. The goal of the Ukrainian military is to cut off the Russian "land corridor" to Crimea, which runs through Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
The publication quotes a Ukrainian marine named Maxim, who says that "after the first and second lines [of Russian fortifications], a direct path to the sea will open up."
The liberation of Urozhayne became known on August 16. A video was posted on the Facebook page of the 35th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The representative of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Andriy Kovalyоv, said that Ukrainian troops were consolidating the lines reached in the village. Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Malyar also wrote about this.
Background. As a reminder, Ukrainian troops destroyed 12 tanks, 24 armored personnel carriers and 30 enemy artillery systems over the past day, reducing the Russian army by another 570 occupants.