After Months of Failed Russian Attempts, Fortress Belt Remains Ukrainian

Despite months of attempted assaults on Ukraine's Fortress Belt, Russian forces have failed to take the barrier cities in front it, let alone threaten the Fortress cities themselves.

The Kremlin has resorted to claiming victories rather than actually achieving them, because that is the best it can do. JL

Yuri Zoria reports in the Euromaidan Press:

Russia is still unable to break into Sloviansk and the fortified towns shielding it, months into an offensive to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. Its troops keep leaning on guided bombs and small groups of infiltrating infantry, while Ukrainian forces counterattack and hunt the drone crews harassing their supply lines. Russian forces kept up offensive operations toward Sloviansk on 1 and 2 August without a confirmed advance, as Ukrainian units counterattacked. Ukrainian forces are striking Russian drone control points in the near rear south of Kostiantynivka, in part to protect their supply roads.

Russia is still unable to break into Sloviansk and the fortified towns shielding it, months into an offensive to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) found. Its troops keep leaning on guided bombs and small groups of infiltrating infantry, while Ukrainian forces counterattack and hunt the drone crews harassing their supply lines. In the latest fighting the attacker moved and the front did not.

As the frontline areas are heavily saturated with killer drones on both sides, Russia's full-scale invasion has settled into a war of position where the attacker can still bomb and probe but rarely breaks through, and every stalled push costs it more men for less ground than the year before. Eastern Ukraine's chain of fortified cities is the last major barrier before the open country beyond.

Russia's drive on Sloviansk holds nothing new

Russian forces kept up offensive operations toward Sloviansk on 1 and 2 August without a confirmed advance, as Ukrainian units counterattacked, ISW says. A Russian milblogger claimed Ukrainian troops hit back near Rai-Oleksandrivka, just east of the city. Russia's TASS state news agency claimed its forces had taken and were clearing Lyman to the north, but the assessment confirmed no such capture. 

The northern approach is not new. Lyman is the gateway to the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk area, and its defense has repeatedly blunted the claw Russia needs to close around the two cities. The current push is part of a Fortress Belt offensive that opened in spring and has crawled forward at heavy cost since.

Russia is using guided bombs to shape Sloviansk before its infantry moves. Vadym Lyakh, head of the city's military administration, reported a FAB-250 glide-bomb strike on the morning of 2 August. The strike fit a long-running pattern: level the buildings from the air to open a path the ground troops have not been able to take. 

Russia keeps bombing other Donetsk Oblast cities in what the assessment calls the Fortress Belt to prepare later assaults. Ukraine's National Police reported that two KAB-250 guided glide bombs hit Druzhkivka on 2 August, killing two civilians and wounding two more. Farther out, Russian forces also kept attacking around Dobropillia on both days and did not advance.

Kostiantynivka holds as infantry infiltrates on foot

To the south, Russian forces attacked around Kostiantynivka on both days without a confirmed gain, ISW noted. Ukraine's General Staff logged continued fighting, and Russian bloggers claimed only small local moves to the north.

The tactic is the same one Russia has run for weeks. A Ukrainian special-forces officer reported that small groups hide in basements and ruins, waiting for reinforcements, and a Ukrainian non-commissioned officer reported that troops use dense summer foliage to conceal the approach. It echoes the assault Russia has pressed into the city for weeks, flattening it and pushing men in on foot.

Map: ISW.

Ukrainian forces are striking Russian drone control points in the near rear south of Kostiantynivka, likely in part to protect their supply roads. Ukraine's General Staff reported a strike on one such point near Berestok on 1 August. The drones reach deep: Ukrainian troops described Molniya drones flying up to 20 kilometers and aircraft-type drones up to 40 kilometers, complicating nighttime resupply through Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.