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Ukraine Update: Let's look at the state of the front lines, as Russia launches its winter offensive [1]
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Date: 2023-02-05
Here’s the map from November, which still works for today:
Related, here’s the latest map of Russian defenses:
This has been a pretty flat front line for a while. That is finally starting to change. Let’s go clockwise, from the north.
Svatove/Starobilsk
Ukraine’s northern campaign aims toward Starobilsk, the literal crossroads (and cross-rail roads) of Russia’s most important supply lines into Ukraine.
After months of grinding gains toward Svatove, Russia’s defensive lines and the seems the lack of cold winter proved too difficult to overcome. The mud has been awful, and it’s difficult to advance when relegated to roads. It’s just too easy to target them with artillery and ambush. Armor needs to go off-road to be most effective.
The attractiveness of this approach remains, however. Not only would cutting that Starobilsk supply line dramatically increase Russia’s logistical challenges, but Russia hasn’t invested in multiple lines of defenses (yet), like they have further south. This approach offers the last chance for the kind of lightning-strike territorial advances that we saw in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts late last year.
As of now, things seem to have stabilized after Ukraine’s liberation of Novoselivs’ke two weeks ago. With Russia on the offensive across the entire contact line (including here), it seems that Ukraine is either forced to, or is content with, simply playing defense.
Kreminna
After months of grinding their way forward around the forests and towns surrounding Kreminna, Ukrainian forces seem to have been pushed back several kilometers this past week. Mark Sumner had more on the tactical situation in his update yesterday, noting that just as Ukraine was hampered by mud on their march toward Kreminna, so too is Russia being hampered by it on its pushback. Regardless, Kreminna won’t be liberated anytime soon as Russia plays the aggressor.
Also look, Russia is employing strategy:
With Russia advancing north of Bakhmut, that push out out of Kreminna is creating the first real salient we’ve seen in month around Sivers’k. Now, the amount of territory isn’t big, it’s a blip on the big map. But it would allow Russia to essentially push Ukraine almost entirely out of Luhansk oblast (an important Russian political objective), as well as creep closer to the truly strategic twin fortress cities of Slovyanks and Kramatorsk.
Bakhmut
Once again, Mark’s update yesterday summed up the tactical situation nicely. For the first time in eight months, I finally believe the loss of the city is a real possibility, if not probability. The difference has been a change in Russian strategy.
While Wagner mercenaries continue to send people to die with head-on assaults on the city’s industrial eastern side (they’re near the winery again), they also deployed their prison fodder, supported by Russia’s better trained and equipped VDV airborne troops, to the towns surrounding Bakhmut, working on wrapping around the city and putting its two remaining supply lines close to direct fire control.
x It has intensified. The battle for Bakhmut. pic.twitter.com/VSQchMX9s6 — NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) February 5, 2023
Watch this:
x THREAD: I spent last week in #Bakhmut, reporting for @unherd. This video was shot in the centre of the city, 200m from the Russian🇷🇺 positions. Listen with sound UP.
I was fortunate to embed with Ukrainian🇺🇦 special forces, here are my thoughts (& photos) from the front here. pic.twitter.com/RURNJV09f5 — David Patrikarakos (@dpatrikarakos) February 3, 2023
Russia’s challenge, of course, is that taking Bakhmut isn’t particularly noteworthy. Yes, it pushes the front lines an extra kilometer or two out, but they’ll just run into the next layer of Ukrainian defenses. Is losing thousands of men per kilometer really sustainable for Russia?
That’s where the mobiks come in. Russia mobilized around 300,000 earlier in the year. About half of them were immediately sent to the front lines to stabilize the situation and arrest Ukraine’s big advance in Kharkiv in the fall. They may have been speed bumps, but speed bumps are effective. That’s why they exist. And it worked.
The other half of the mobiks were held back and “trained.” They are flooding into Ukraine today. With over 300,000 Russians now in the country, Russia can keep using their human-wave tactics pioneered by Wagner to scratch out incremental gains indefinitely. And when they eventually run out of mobiks, they can get more and don’t even need to pretend to train that next batch to do this:
At first, the first group, usually of 8 people, is put forward to the finish line. The whole group is maximally loaded with [ammunition], each has a "Bumblebee" flamethrower. Their task is to get to the point and get a foothold. They are almost suicidal. Their [ammo] in case of failure is intended for the following groups. The group gets as close as possible to the Ukrainians and digs in as quickly as possible. A white cloth or other sign is left on the tree so that the next group can navigate in the event of the death of their predecessors and find where shelters have already been dug and where there are weapons. During the fire contact, the "Wagners" detect Ukrainian fire positions and transfer them to their artillery. As a rule, 120-mm and 82-mm mortars work in them. Up to 10 mortars simultaneously begin to suppress the discovered Ukrainian position. Artillery training can last several hours in a row. During this time, 500 meters from the first group, the second group concentrates. It has lighter equipment. And under the cover of artillery, this group begins an assault on the Ukrainian position. If the second group fails to take a position, it is followed by the third and even the fourth. That is, four waves of eight people for one Ukrainian position.
In a report from Bakhmut today, a Ukrainian soldier says even the VDV is using those tactics. It’s bad enough Wagner uses their recruited prisoners this way, but if that’s how they’re using VDV, that’s … it’s just unbelievable.
By the way, this is why Ukraine needs cluster munitions. The U.S. may not have any left, they were being dismantled over the previous decade, but if any exist, nothing would be more effective in slowing this Russian advance tactic.
Avdiivka/Donetsk City
I honestly don’t understand how Russia hasn’t been able to push Ukraine out of the immediate area around the capital city of their Donetsk region. What magical defensive tactics is Ukraine employing, that has allowed it to resist since 2014.
Russia has been fairly aggressive in this area the last month or so, with nothing to show for it.
Look at that moonscape.
x #Ukraine: The Ukrainian 110th Mechanized Brigade destroyed three BMP IFV and at least one other armoured vehicle of the Russian Army in the vicinity of Avdiivka, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/qGsNDM9bFG — 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) January 28, 2023
Nearby Mar’inka similarly holds despite being leveled to the ground.
x The city of Marinka near Ukraine's Donetsk was entirely erased from the ground by Russian troops.
It was a frontline between Ukraine-controlled and occupied parts of Donbas since 2014. In 2022 its ruins were gradually captured by Russians.
📹Butusov, 28.01.2023 pic.twitter.com/zpd4CT7cB5 — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) January 29, 2023
Russia has run out of local proxy forces from their occupied Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” (although since their supposed annexation, I guess they’re not that anymore). If Russia wants gains here, it’ll have to feed its mobiks to the grinder.
Pavlivka/Vuhledar
I wrote this area up last week. Tactically, nothing has changed since. What we do know, however, is that even Russia’s supposedly “elite” units are not so elite anymore after suffering serious battlefield attrition.
x Recently captured soldiers from the 🇷🇺155th Guards Naval Brigade near Vuhledar. This is supposed to be one of the elite units of the Russian Armed Forces.
This brigade got restaffed 3 times due to heavy losses. All of these men are mobilized just before fall, poorly trained. pic.twitter.com/cTeyuOsLBe — NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) February 5, 2023
Meanwhile, Russia’s incompetence continues to be Ukraine’s greatest ally.
x 2/4 Kyrylivka is located approximately 14 kilometers southeast of Vuhledar. The central part of the town - educational and administrative buildings was turned into an assembly area where enemy forces gathered before dispatching to the frontline. pic.twitter.com/vp6vsBGbPR — Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) February 5, 2023
x 4/4 The estimate varies between 30 and 200 killed.
While russians pretend that nothing happened and even didn't bother to mention it, make sure to retweet this, so we can help them to find out what happened. — Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) February 5, 2023
Zaporizhzhia/Melitpol
After a weird Telegram offensive two weeks or so ago, where Russia pretended to make big gains in this corner of the map, turns out it was all bullshit, perhaps an attempt to draw Ukrainian force into the area.
Of course. Ukraine would know if their forces in this area were under attack. And if there was any question, one quick drone flyover would put any questions to rest.
Russia has gone nuts layering this area with defensive trenches. It clearly sees its precious “land bridge” between Russia and Crimea as critical must-hold territory.
If you’re Ukraine, that’s a daunting challenge, one that will require not just dozens of Western battle tanks, but hundreds. And given the limited stock of European Leopard tanks, and the abysmal state of European ammo and supplies, it’s likely going to fall on us, the United States, to provide the heft to punch through this corner of the map.
I laughed:
x F-15 first kill: MiG-21
F-14 first kill: SU-22
F-16 first kill: MiG-21
F-18 first kill: MiG-21
F-35 first kill: cargo UAVs
F-22 first kill: a balloon
The future sucks — Oded Berkowitz (@Oded121351) February 5, 2023
Some of you might remember Vasya. We got an update:
x Meet Vasya, a heroic recon dog.
He was caught in a trap near russian positions, but bit off his paw and returned to his unit. Vasya got a new paw today.
Beware, ruscists. Ukrainian dogs of steel are here to prey on you. pic.twitter.com/z12fW9oHi2 — Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 2, 2023
The thought of Russia at the Olympics infuriates me.
x Every athlete of the russian Olympic team is an individual promoter of these: pic.twitter.com/WtpuzAfdoi — Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 2, 2023
I wouldn’t want to be an Olympic corporate sponsor if the IOC doesn’t reverse course. The global pressure to withdraw will be brutal. The Baltic nations and Poland are already talking about boycotting. I sure as hell won’t watch if Russia and Belarus are allowed to participate.
x Ukrainian U20 decathlon champion Volodymyr Androschuk died in a battle near Bakhmut on Jan 25.
A promising athlete and a true hero, he could have been able to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris, if russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine
Why do russians still have this privilege? pic.twitter.com/QlYuRoOGg8 — Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 5, 2023
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[END]
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