Why Ukraine May "Strangle the Russian Army's Frontline Troops"

If Ukraine can continue its offensive momentum in two or three southern axes of advance, it may be able to strangle Russian forces manning front line defenses and force them to retreat. JL 

Rebecca Romman reports in Business Insider:

Russian generals will know Ukraine is making progress, even if the West doesn't. "Substantial progress" is being made. Where intelligence analysts see distances on maps of southern Ukraine, military planners see something very different. They apply military math and calculate that Ukraine does not need to advance 50 miles to "crush the Russian army and strangle the troops in frontline fortifications"— 10 miles will suffice to make headway. Gloomy Russian military bloggers agree with the assessments of Ukrainian success,  "the bastards are rapidly advancing."

Victory for Ukraine is closer than the West thinks, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Despite Western media's bleak take on Ukraine's counteroffensive, "substantial progress" is being made.

The Washington Post called the counteroffensive's development "grim", the Economist called it "sluggish", and the Hill said it was "stalling."

Despite these pessimistic analyses, Jan Kallberg of the CEPA says that Russian generals will know Ukraine is making progress, even if the West doesn't.

 

Where intelligence analysts see distances on maps of southern Ukraine, military planners see something very different. They apply military math and calculate that Ukraine does not need to advance 50 miles to "crush the Russian army and strangle the troops in frontline fortifications"— 10 miles will suffice to make headway, wrote Kallberg.

Ukraine can break significant ground by bringing Russia's ground line of communication under its guns and achieve fire control of the land corridor to Crimea, he wrote.

When Ukraine liberated Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia on August 22, it was a major breakthrough because of Russia's furious attempts to hold it. 

From here, the Ukrainian counteroffensive needs to advance 7-10 miles to disrupt Russia's east-west transport routes, inhibiting the Russian army's ability to mobilize and fight.

 

That said, when Ukrainian forces on Wednesday raised the national flag in the settlement of Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, they had advanced only six miles south of the frontline town of Orikhiv, from where the counteroffensive began on June 4.

But while the counteroffensive has been slow thus far, it could be gaining momentum. Ukrainian forces believe that the most challenging line of Russian defenses in southern Ukraine is behind them, and the advance will now be more efficient, Reuters reports. 

Ukraine is now closing in on its goal of covering all the terrain between them and the Sea of Azov, splitting Putin's army of occupation in two, CEPA reports.

"Ukraine will speed up advance on southern front"

Ukrainian soldiers of the Separate Assault Battalion 'Skala' enter the embattled village of Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, in this screengrab taken from a handout video released on August 25, 2023. Separate Assault Battalion 'Skala' of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 

Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS

On August 26, a commander fighting in the south told Reuters that Ukrainian forces will now be able to advance more quickly.

 

As Ukraine narrows in on this sought-out territory at several spots along the frontline, its rocket artillery could strike the Russian land bridge from different angles.

"Next, we have (the town of) Berdiansk, and then more. I made it clear to my fighters at once: our goal is not Robotyne, our goal is (the Sea of) Azov," the Ukrainian commander, who uses the call sign "Skala,"eponymous with the battalion which he leads, told Reuters.

Ukrainian troops had now entered territories where there were only "Russian logistics" groups and where he made clear he expected Russian defences to be less difficult to break through.

The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, has also confirmed this week that Ukraine had finally battled its way through Russia's first defensive line.

 

In its latest assessment, the Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, per CNN, Ukrainian forces "advanced closer to the Russian second line of defense in the Robotyne area … further widening their breach of Russian defensive lines in the area."

Gloomy Russian military bloggers appear to agree with the assessments of Ukrainian success.

One Russian blogger writing about the upturn in Ukraine's fighting fortunes said: "The bastards are rapidly advancing, covered by artillery strikes."