Opponents cannot benefit from previous successes in the area of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka, analysts emphasized
22.08.22 Translated from Ukrainian into English
The Russian army in Ukraine has a very serious problem – in the east of our country, it cannot turn tactical successes into operational ones.
Occupying forces will likely never be able to commit enough resources to any single offensive operation to regain the momentum needed for significant territorial gains to lead to operational successes, according to a report by the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
“The failure of Russian troops to capitalize on previous successes in the area of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka is an example of a more fundamental Russian military problem – a demonstrated inability to turn tactical successes into operational successes,” the article emphasizes.
Analysts emphasized that the invaders could not always take advantage of tactical breakthroughs to maneuver in the rear areas of the Ukrainian forces or destroy significant sections of the defensive lines of our troops, therefore they constantly give the defenders of Ukraine the opportunity to tactically retreat and restore defensive positions, against which they must then launch new attacks.
“This phenomenon helps to explain the extremely slow pace of Russia’s advance to the east and strongly suggests that the Russians will not be able to take much more positions in the coming months, unless the situation develops in an unforeseen way,” ISW predicted.
We will remind you that Russian troops invaded Ukraine in the early morning of February 24 without declaring war. Fierce fighting is going on in the eastern part of Ukraine.
Ukrainian soldiers give the invaders a worthy rebuff. 45,200 enemies have already been destroyed.
The tactics of both sides remains clear. While the cockroaches try desperately to conquer more terrain, they use up troops and ammo for gains that aren’t worth the sacrifices. On the other hand, UA forces hold their lines until the pressure becomes too great, thereby retreating to another defensive position. This saves lives and ammo.
The question is; how long can the cockroach army sustain this strategy before becoming too depleted of meat puppets and ammo? As the cockroach generals replace experienced troops more and more with greenhorns, convicts and other general trash, and use older, more worn-out and obsolete equipment, their gains will be less and sacrifices greater.
Amanda Haring in her Atlantic Council article said rather unhelpfully:
“Russia’s war in Ukraine will be long and drawn out. The outcome of the war depends on how long the West will sustain the effort with weapons and financial support. It all hinges on public opinion in the end.”
She may even be right. The level of support Ukraine is receiving is only a fraction of what she needs to destroy the orcs. As you say, they are disgusting cockroaches; very hard to eliminate and able to replace themselves.
The Russians have totally lost their momentum.
The only thing they had going for them ws artillery and now Ukraine is cramping down on that.
Russia is now dancing to Ukraines tune. fearing an offencive in Kherson they moved their reserves there and now have noning for donbass. I half way hope Kherson was just a feint and now they can start pounding back in Donbass.
Now that the UAF and the UkAF have a measure of freedom to manuver, they need to build a special assault force to conduct break throughs operations at key vulnerable areas.
This should be a a division sized unit with at least three manuver Brigades with a Artillery brigade and an Engineer battilon attached and it’s own Division Head Quarters. The artillery Brigade must have a battalion of long artillery and a battery of M-270 MRLS.
The mission is to;
Isolate-cut off the object.
Reduce- destroy the enemy forces ablity to resist.
Devistate. Once weakened they are assaulted and broken.
Defend- the area is fortified.
Phase 1) A vulnerable part of the line is identified such as the Izum pocket, The objective area is throughy reconed (Called IPB intelligence preperation of the Battle field.) The IPB process identifys key command and control, supply and logistice nodes, air defense, transportation routes.
The on site long range artillery destroys supply bases and restricted transportation routes such as bridges and railroad trestlis and keeps them restricted as well as other key targets.
Phase 2) The Assaults Division moves into the area operations quickly. Speed and surprise are essencial.The assault division’s artillery in a massive blow hit the previously identified key targets. With command and control disrupted. short on ammo and air defenses reduced the airforce and artillery closely support a massive advance by the manuver brigades. The manuver brigades secure the objective and then quickly begin fortifing.
Phase 3) Keeping the Assault Division moble is essencial. Before the enemy can organize a counterattack strong territorial defense brigades replace the Assault division. Th division withdraws to rear assembly area and begins to reorganize and prepares for the next assault. After Action Reviews are conducted at all levels to determin what went right and what went wrong
Even bofore the assualt begins the IPB process begins for the next objective.
I recomend Izum because;
1) It is an important symbol.
2) It can be isolated by the Severodonetsk river.
3) Securing the entire south bank of the river would give the UAF a strong position to defend behind with a minium of combat power. With the northern flank secured freed up forces can be used to fight else where.
4) It is small enough to be a good training operation fo the assault division. The UAF have a weakness in their organization by not have bragades organized into divisions. This needs to be looked at in order to conduct offencive operations. The sector HQ is to far away to control qiuckly changing situation that part and parcile with the offence. This sounds easy but it is not. a LOT of things have to happen and happen quickly which takes years of training.
Speed surprise and violent Combind Arms execution are critical to the success. Long drawn out artillery duels favor the RUF and get nowhere.