A current look at the map in the east of Ukraine:
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The above maps are of the eastern front in Ukraine on April 3 and May 3. Opening them side by side one can see two significant moves by Russian forces. In the north the forces are moving west towards Chasiv Yar which is a high ground controlling anything further west of it.
On the southern part of the map, north of Avdiivka, the Russian forces have taken Ocheretyne and Keramik.
Both movements together let one anticipate a larger two pronged plan:
- From Chasiv Yar a move west roughly along the H32 road towards Konstantynivka.
- From Keramik a move north roughly along the H-20 road.
This would form a pincer which would envelope the large mining conglomerate around Niu-York, west of Horlivka. The area has been on the frontline since 2014. It is thus heavily fortified. Surrounding it is much more convenient and less bloody than storming it outright.
The Economist had a talk (archived) with Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence.
He seems to have already given up on Chasiv Yar:
Ukraine’s immediate concern is its high-ground stronghold in the town of Chasiv Yar, which holds the keys to an onward Russian advance to the last large cities in the Donetsk region (see map). It is probably a matter of time before that city falls in a similar way to Avdiivka, bombed to oblivion by the Russians in February, says the general. “Not today or tomorrow, of course, but all depending on our reserves and supplies.”
Russia has already won a tactical success in the south-west in the village of Ocheretyne, where a recent Ukrainian troop rotation was bungled. Russian forces succeeded in breaking through a first line of defence and have created a salient 25 square kilometres in size. Ukraine is some way from stabilising the situation, while Russia is throwing “everything” it has to achieve a bigger gain. The Russian army is not the hubristic organisation it was in 2022, says the general, and is now operating as a “single body, with a clear plan, and under a single command”.
Mr. Skibitsky is in a generally gloomy mood:
General Skibitsky says he does not see a way for Ukraine to win the war on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to push Russian forces back to the borders—an increasingly distant prospect—it wouldn’t end the war. Such wars can only end with treaties, he says.
It is good to finally see some realism reaching Kiev.
Some Russian forces are ready to (again) enter Ukraine from the north to threaten the cities of Sumy and Kharkiv. I see this as a diversion attempt, not as a serious operation to take those cities. It is binding Ukrainian forces in the north while the eastern frontlines are too thinly occupied to hold off further attacks.
One fixation of the Ukrainian side has been the Kerch bridge which connects the larger Russia with Crimea. It was hoped that any destruction of the bridge would hamper the Russian logistics. But a map of the new railway tracks Russia has build on the northern side of the Sea of Asov shows that there are now several redundant ways to supply Crimea. A destruction of the Kerch bridge now would be a just-for-show moment without any significant consequences for the Russian positions.
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