Ukraine Blog 30 - Popasna Popped and the Melitopol Mess
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
I received
a lot of questions on where we are currently with the war. All eyes are
currently on the last part of Luhansk oblast not occupied by the Russians, Sievierodonetsk
and Lysychansk. Truth is that it doesn’t look good for Ukraine there. Not that
the situation changed to any point that it will lead to a Russian victory in
the war, but be prepared for my most negative update since this all started.
Ever since
the Russians withdrews from Chernihiv, Sumy and Kyiv oblasts, the focus has
been on the development of a “cauldron” where the Russian army would encircle Ukraine’s
Joint group of Forces. The encirclement would start from Izium in the north and
Huliaipole in the south. Due to a ferocious Ukrainian counteroffensive in
Kharkiv oblast and relentless Ukrainian artillery strikes in Izium, the
Russians have now abandoned this plan. They now further downscaled their
objective by encircling only Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
The Russian
breakthrough happened a couple of days ago when Russia captured the small town
of Popasna which was heavily contested for weeks. Something really interesting
has happened here. Due to their insane battlefield losses, the Russians have
been forcing to consolidate the remnants of several of their Battalion Tactical
Groups (BTG’s) in new BTG’s. This is something even the Russians still
understand, despite their overall stupidity and incompetence: You have to
organize your fighting force in viable fighting units at all times. You just can’t
gather a bunch of people and expect them to fight an offensive operation. This
might work in defensive war, but for offensive operations you need an organized
unit structure. The Russians consolidated remnants of their airborne troops
(VDV) into the units of the Wagner mercenary group. Apparently this worked out
pretty well for them.
In addition
the Russians finally deployed one of their supposed state of the art new weapons
systems: the BMPT Terminator.
This
vehicle is designed as a “tank support vehicle.” It doesn’t have the turret
with autoloader system (that causes the famous flying Russian turrets), but has
a small turret with four 130 mm Ataka-T GWS launchers and two 30 mm high
intensity 2A42 autocannons and some additional grenade launchers. This is the
perfect weapon for urban warfare and I’m convinced that when this weapon is
operated by a trained and skilled group of soldiers (which is always a big question
mark when it comes to Russians), its effect can be devastating.
After the Russians
captured Popasna, they immediately started to advance north and west and for
the first time the Russians started to fight how I expected them to fight: very
concentrated advances with armor supported by a very high rate of concentrated
artillery strikes. This is actually the type of advance the Russian army trains
for in their heavily choreographed drills and I expected them to be quite good
at this.
I do expect
the Russians to fully encircle Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. However, that will
mean only the start of their problems. Both cities have been heavily fortified
over the past eight years. Urban combat will be as bad as in Mariupol and will
further drain the Russian forces who are now down to the last reserves. I
expect Ukraine to continue to be able to deliver artillery support, even when Sievierodonetsk
and Lysychansk are encircled. But it’s fair to say that never before since the
start of the invasion on February 24th, the Ukrainians have been
under this kind of pressure. Russian casualties during the Popasna advance were
still insanely high, but the Ukrainian losses were also big. On the famous blog
of Oryxspioenkop, Ukrainian and Russian loss tallies are almost equal now.
Both
Ukraine and Russia have also initiated “harassment” warfare. It means they both
start operations in different theaters other than the main front to force the
attacking party to allocate resources to mitigate potential threats elsewhere.
The Ukrainians
crossed the Siverskyi Donets river in Kharkiv oblast (they actually can cross
rivers without being blown to pieces) and have now a stable bridgehead on the
other side of the river, putting the Russian supply lines to Izium under fire
control. Ukrainian American supplied M-777 howitzers have been causing havoc on
the Russians around Izium in the past couple of days.
The
Russians on the other hand launched small cross-border raids in Sumy oblast.
They by far haven’t sufficient forces to occupy land there, but even those small
scale attacks force Ukraine to allocate much needed resources there. In
addition, the Belarussian army is maneuvering aggressively on the northern border
with the same purpose. Luka will never attack, but just the threat of an invasion
forces Ukraine to keep forces there. Difference here is that Ukraine has plenty
of motivated personal, now close to a million and the Russians are struggling
so much that they now even recruit men in their forty’s and fifties.
So will Russia
win the war with the Popasna victory? No, far from it. One of the biggest the surprises
of the past week has been the re-appearance of the Ukrainian air force over the
battlefields providing large amounts of much needed Close-Air-Support (CAS)
missions to the troops. It means that Ukraine has re-gained air superiority on
the battlefield.
(2) IgorGirkin on Twitter: "🇺🇦✈ https://t.co/SpteYMtzp8" / Twitter
(2) IgorGirkin on Twitter: "🇺🇦✈ https://t.co/fYLPRzTCox" / Twitter
It’s assumed
now that the presence of British Starstreak and French Mistral MANPADS’s has caused
such a high risk to Russian aircraft, that Russian pilots not even dare to
cross the border any more and only still operate manned aircraft above the
areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts they controlled before February 24th.
This is a major problem for the Russians. Not only is it a morale boost for
Ukrainian troops on the ground, it will make it very hard for the Russians to
gain battlefield control. Let me emphasize this. Ukraine is now down to a
couple of dozen operational aircraft and it’s fighting the worlds third largest
air force: an absolute embarrassment for the Russians.
Trouble is
also appearing for the Russians in the areas that are under their occupation. In
Melitopol and Kherson there are now large scale sabotage actions, assassinations
of collaborators and Russians.
Especially
around Melitopol, the emergence of an insurgency can be in large attributed to
the Azov battalion that stood their ground in Azovstal in Mariupol. Although
they have now surrendered, their resistance forces the Russians to allocate
much needed resources in Mariupol and made sure they were pinned down for
months. This gave Ukrainians in other occupied areas the time to organize a structured
and well organized type of resistance. Russia is now in the worst nightmare of
any invading force: fighting a conventional battle on front lines, while
fighting an insurgency in the rear areas you conquered. And an insurgency around
Melitopol is absolutely needed to thin out the Russians that are facing the
Ukrainians further north in Huliaipole. An Ukrainian counterattack a couple of
days ago was defeated decisively by Russian artillery fire. Not because the
Ukrainian tactics were bad, but Huliaipole is in an area that covers a large
part of Ukraine that consists of wide open plains with very little options for
cover and hiding. That’s why the war is currently in a stalemate there. Any
advance will be costly for both sides.
But I expect
the insurgency in the south to grow stronger by the day. This type of warfare will
drain the morale of Russian soldiers faster than on a conventional battlefield.
On a conventional battlefield you see who’s your opponent. In an insurgency,
anyone can be your opponent, even the little kid of eight years old that can suddenly
throw a hand grenade. That’s why they shouldn’t have continued the advance from
Popasna. Instead they should have focused on consolidating the territory they
already conquered and call it a day. But what drives the Russians right now has
long been a mystery for me.
Доброго вечора, ми з України!
Niels
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