During the last week Russian forces managed to breach into the rear of the Ukrainian defense line:
During the last three days Russian forces achieved a major breakthrough. After the heavy bombardment of Ukrainian positions with over 1,300 FAB bombs Russian detachments moved north of the salient (green) they had built between the semi-encircled cities Pokrovsk and Konstantinivka.
They have reached and breached the well built second Donbas fortification line (in yellow) which had been dug over the last year.
biggerThe Ukrainian supply line along the T-05-14 road between Dobropilla and Kramatorsk has been cut. Beyond that line is open space.
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Prepared ditches and other positions are no longer manned. Russian troops can infiltrate through the thinly manned lines. Ukrainian drone units, which are supposed to cover the holes in the frontline, are getting suppressed by Russian bombing and counter drone forces. Confusion sets in once Russian diversion teams appear in the rear.The Ukrainian army has ordered parts of its 'elite' Azov forces from Izyum in the north towards the Pokrovsk area to counter the Russian breakthrough. They will be too little too late to make a difference.
At least six brigades of Ukrainian forces were pulled from other parts of the front in an attempt to check the Russian breach of the line. Some were ambushed while on the way others while taking up their new positions. Theose who arrived did not manage to change the map.
Pulling these forces from other parts of the frontline will leave holes in those parts for Russian forces to further attack through. The breakthrough will thus be repeated elsewhere. This process can be repeated and repeated until the whole Ukrainian defense breaks down and the army retreats in panic.
Only a few of the western defense analysts have seen this coming. One is Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting. He has good relation with many Ukrainian officers and has regularly visited units at the frontline.
Below are excerpts from a long interview with him that was published yesterday in Rzeczpospolita, the Polish 'paper of record'.
Ukraine lacks troops, not equipment
Excerpts (machine translated, edited for clarity):
You recently returned from another visit to Ukraine. What is the current situation at the front?
The Russians continue to maintain the strategic initiative along the entire length of the front. Apart from very local counterattacks, the Ukrainians are retreating. The Russian Federation forces are very strongly advancing on several axes, especially in the area of the Battles of Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, the village of Novosilka, and recently in Zaporozhia, that is, in the deep south.
It is worrying that Russia's territorial gains, especially in July, were quite significant and larger than in previous months. The Russians have advanced 10-12 km along several axes. This is something we haven't seen before. If there were any territorial conquests before, they were concentrated around one area. Now we have several areas where the front is starting to leak.
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What to expect in the coming weeks?
I assume that in the future, the Russians will slowly bleed the Ukrainians to open the front and further accelerate the march to the west and north towards Kramatorsk and Slavyansk. At the moment, our main scenario is that what the Russian troops are doing now will not change.
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How many Russians are there now?Some 650 thousand, of which some 40 thousand have arrived since January. The Russians are able to recover losses very quickly. The withdrawal of a company or battalion that has suffered losses of several tens of percent, and the restoration of its personnel takes a maximum of two weeks.
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What are the main problems on the Ukrainian side?[…] when it comes to the Ukrainian soldier, the biggest problem is that he's just… not there. And this is due to the fact that the scale of desertion and abandonment of units without consent is very high. This creates a dangerous situation: if you take into account the loss of soldiers on the front line, desertion and abandonment of units without consent, the number of soldiers on the Ukrainian side decreases month after month. Although officially the Ukrainians mobilize 20-30 thousand people every month, most of them do not get to the front line.
This is a very big structural problem that has remained unresolved for a long time, and there is no indication that it will change soon. Other issues include the quality of command, the personal equipment these soldiers receive, the characteristics of Ukrainian commanders-in-chief, and the phase of the war.
In what sense?
The situation is quite different with an army, when the army is winning and there is a greater chance, or at least hope, that the war will soon end, than with an army whose morale is running out for days and which is retreating every day or week under the onslaught of Russian troops. This can probably also be translated to the other side. Russians are more likely to enlist in the military because they expect this war to eventually end because the Russian army is winning. …
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What else is visible at the front?
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Over the past year, the Ukrainians have defended their positions using drones, artillery and infantry. However, there are currently so many Russian drones that Ukrainian units often refuse to use artillery, since unmanned vehicles are constantly circulating in the area of its deployment. In areas of the front where artillery nevertheless opens fire, a response in the form of Russian counter-battery fire occurs within one to two minutes, and over the next few minutes swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles appear in the area, which track and destroy the detected guns.In addition, the Russians conduct extremely effective counter-drone actions, focusing on the fight against both Ukrainian intelligence and strike drones. Since most of the Ukrainian logistics currently relies on unmanned aerial vehicles, their systematic elimination is a serious problem. At the battalion level 70-80% of logistics efforts go to the supply of UAV units, and only 20-30 percent to support the infantry. Preserving the capabilities of UAVs is a higher priority for Ukrainians than ensuring the actions of linear units.
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Where will this war be in six months?This, of course, is very difficult to predict. Our baseline scenario assumes that the previous pattern of actions will continue, but we observe that the front is beginning to gradually "leak". The Russians have imposed a war of attrition on Ukraine, and Kiev decided to take up the challenge, which at some point could lead to a sharp acceleration of events. Perhaps we are now entering the first stage. It remains an open question whether the crash will occur or whether the Ukrainians will decide to move additional strategic reserves and specialized drone units to stop the Russian flow of unmanned aerial vehicles. The Ukrainian Command of unmanned Systems appears to be closely studying the actions of the Russians, and in the coming weeks and months, it will prioritize the destruction of Rubicon drone units and other Russian unmanned formations.
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As for the implementation of a strategic operation, the purpose of which would be to reverse the negative trend that the Ukrainians have been in for two years, there is currently no chance. The Ukrainians are too short of troops. Although, given the character and personality of General Sirsky, I would not be at all surprised if limited offensive operations were undertaken.Could more help by the West make a difference here?
In my opinion, no. The fundamental problems faced by Ukrainians are Ukrainian problems. This applies to: the quality of command, the number of soldiers on the front line, the methods of using forces, both manpower and drones. etc. [..] The transfer of hundreds more ATACMS missiles to the Ukrainians would not change the nature of this war. After all, to recapture a town, you need infantry, supported by drones and artillery. And the Ukrainians are short of infantry, artillery is effectively defeated – Western equipment is not a panacea for all the problems of Ukraine. The main problems that Ukraine faces must be solved by the government in Kiev, and not by Western states.
As the Ukrainian forces lack the ability to launch a meaningful counterattack their best chance to prevent a further rapid loss of personnel and capabilities is to radically shorten the frontline.
A retreat of some 20 kilometers from the current lines, giving up on semi-encircled cities and moving behind natural barriers could nearly half the length of the front that has to be covered. It would double the density of its defenses.
While such a move would be unlikely to change the long term perspective of the war it would enable Ukraine to hold out longer.