How Ukrainians Are Making Progress Despite Russian Defenses In Depth

It is conceivable, in hindsight, that Ukraine's success at Kharkiv and Kherson a year ago created a false sense of optimism among Ukraine's military and its NATO allies. The ease with which the Russians were routed may have caused NATO to lose its sense of urgency. This led to a slowing of aid, especially armor and fighter jets, for which the Ukrainians are now paying in blood, as the delays gave Russia the time it needed to create almost impenetrable obstacles.

Incremental progress is being made by the Ukrainians, despite their disadvantages, which is remarkable in itself. But it is apparent that the US and NATO allies are going to have to rethink their earlier assumptions about what works on the modern battlefield. JL

Igor Kossov reports in the Kyiv Independent:

Russia prepared a defense in depth across dozens of kilometers, guaranteeing that the counteroffensive will be longer, bloodier, and require bigger sacrifices of men, machines, and munitions. Ukraine said there are 150,000 Russians along that part of the front and so far, they haven’t broken. Even in the face of all this, Ukrainian units are making progress. They approached the village of Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast, setting up to the east of it. They’ll need Robotyne to liberate Tokmak, which they’ll need to move on Melitopol.

As I recover from a back injury I somehow picked up poking around the Kupiansk axis this week, I want to touch on the biggest military topics going — Ukraine committing to its main push on the ground and the long-range exchanges in the skies above. 

 

There’s a lot to get through, so this one’s gonna have to be a bit of quick-fire. 

 

The counteroffensive’s main effort seems to be driving south through Zaporizhzhia Oblast, like everyone expected. We’re bringing up reserves to turn up the pressure on Russia’s first defensive line south of Orikhiv.

When there’s news like “Ukraine commits main force,” people tend to expect things to start happening quickly. The heap of these expectations has been steadily growing since the spring. Of 2022.

 

But now, these expectations are being put to bed, tucked under a blanket of sober analytical pieces about how this will be a slow battle of attrition for the Ukrainians.

Let me paint you a picture: Weeds and shrubs choke the fallow farms of no man’s land in the soupy summer air. They camouflage the Russian positions shooting at you from up ahead. And underneath them, there are the mines. Like, a lot of mines.

Like, three to five mines per square meter.

 

You have to clear the mines to get to the Russian trenches to empty them out. But you’ve got very little air support and with the sharkish Kamov attack helicopters hanging about, you have to be very sparing with the fancy Western vehicles it took you more than a year to start getting.

 

In that time, Russia prepared a defense in depth across dozens of kilometers, guaranteeing that the counteroffensive will be longer, bloodier, and require bigger sacrifices of men, machines, and munitions. Ukraine said there are 150,000 Russians along that part of the front and so far, they haven’t broken.

 

Even in the face of all this, Ukrainian units are making progress. They approached the village of Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast, setting up to the east of it. They’ll need Robotyne to liberate Tokmak, which they’ll need to move on Melitopol. 

 

They also liberated the village of Staromaiorske, near Donetsk Oblast’s border with Zaporizhzhia Oblast, causing a few tantrums among the Russian military bloggers. 

 

Even further east, the area around Bakhmut looks to be where Ukrainian forces are kicking the most ass. The Eastern Grouping says it’s advancing hundreds of meters per day, with the biggest progress seen south of the city. 

 

(Let’s not forget that as of May, Russian fortifications were a lot less robust behind Bakhmut than they are elsewhere.)

 

Ukrainians even claimed they kicked the Russians out from positions near Avdiivka, the town on the edge of Donetsk. 

 

Their movement can be a bit stop-and-start, but the experienced veterans in these brigades are making quicker progress than some of their comrades on other axes. Many of them have been at it well before the counteroffensive even started. 

 

Words like “advancing” and “progress” are maybe a bit too positive to accurately describe the brutality of the fighting in the area. 

I was smoking a cigarette with a group of soldiers who just came from there. A guy with a livid purple scar running all the way down the center of his stomach, described trying to recover the mess that had once been his commanding officer. When I asked about Russia’s supposed shell famine, his buddy just laughed. 

 

Desperate to slow them down, Russian forces are striking towards Svatove, Lyman, and Kupiansk. Attacks against Kreminna are “endless,” as our reporter in the area was told. 

 

The military said last month that Russia has an assault force of over 100,000 troops in the Lyman-Kupiansk direction, with over 900 tanks and hundreds of artillery and missile launchers.

 

Some of the guys on the ground in Kupiansk think the number is bullshit. A Ukrainian officer there told me that if the Russians shoved 100,000 men into that area, their logistics would quickly collapse. 

 

But the fighting is intense. Soldiers told me that two weeks ago, the intensity was verging on ludicrous before slowing down for a bit. But there are indications from this week’s reports that it’s picked up again. Russia has made incremental gains towards Kupiansk, which sits close to the borders with Luhansk Oblast and Russia. 

 

Even worse, soldiers and civilians alike complained how many people in the area are covertly or overtly pro-Russian. Trying to defend someone who’s reporting your coordinates to the enemy weighs heavily on morale. Look for my article about it soon