7/18/23 

Russia’s build-up of forces in the Kupiansk area of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region is raising concerns that Kyiv’s forces will have to draw reserves away from its nascent counteroffensive in the south and east of the country to blunt a new Russian push.

Ukrainian commanders have warned that some 100,000 Russian personnel have massed on the Lyman-Kupiansk portion of the front line, backed by some 900 tanks and 370 multiple launch rocket systems.

“The enemy deployed airborne units, the best motorized infantry units there,” Serhii Cherevatyi, the deputy commander for strategic communications of Ukraine’s Eastern Military Grouping, said on Monday. “As additional support, there are the combat army reserve, territorial troops, ‘Storm-Z’ companies.”

In its Monday evening bulletin, the Institute for the Study of War suggested that the threat posed by the new grouping is limited.

“Russian forces likely are engaging in offensive operations in this area of the front in an effort to exploit Ukrainian operational focus on other sectors of the front and draw Ukrainian reserves away from critical areas of the theater,” the think tank explained.

But the ISW also suggested that the forces marshalled on the Kupiansk front pose a limited threat, despite their large numbers.

“The poor quality and composition of Russian troops currently deployed on this line, however, will likely hinder Russia’s ability to achieve more than tactically significant gains or make an operationally significant breakthrough,” the bulletin wrote.

“Ukrainian and Russian sources have both reported the deployment of convict-formed ‘Storm-Z’ assault units to the Kupyansk direction, and ISW has previously assessed that ‘Storm-Z’ units have low operational effectiveness due to poor morale and discipline.”

Cherevatyi told Radio Liberty on Tuesday that the Russian forces around Kupiansk are neither well-prepared nor well-motivated. The tanks supporting them, he added, are largely old Soviet-era vehicles, and the grouping will have limited effectiveness despite its large size.

Pavel Luzin, a Russian political analyst and visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, told Newsweek that the presence of Russian forces there was far from “unexpected” for the Ukrainian military. “And I don’t think all of these troops are combat capable; a significant part of them are combat support forces and occupation forces.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Hanna Maliar, Kyiv’s deputy defense minister, admitted this weekend that the situation in the area “has somewhat worsened” amid the new Russian offensive, though she said Ukrainian troops “courageously overcome these circumstances and destroy the enemy.”

Maliar suggested that Russia’s new focus on Kupiansk is a response to Ukrainian gains in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts, where in recent weeks Kyiv’s forces have been gradually spooling up their long-awaited counteroffensive.”The Russians panicked at our advance in the direction of Bakhmut,” Maliar wrote on Telegram. “Because it, although gradual, is daily and we occupied almost all the dominant heights around the city.”

“Therefore, the situation is predictable,” Maliar wrote. “The enemy moved to [diversion in the] Kupiansk direction, as he had done more than once, but without success. Battles are going on. Our headquarters work 24/7 and promptly respond to the situation.”

https://www.newsweek.com/storm-z-convict-units-russian-offensive-kupiansk-kharkiv-luhansk-isw-ukraine-1813634