Today, we’re going to talk about what has happened on the battlefields after Russian forces left Kherson.
Several months later, that offensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces still remains the last major event when it comes to combat action.
The front line has stabilized since and battles are resembling World War I
with its pointless attacks moving the front line hundreds of meters at a time wasting resources of both sides.
However, all but some analysts, experts, and media are saying that it’s the calm before the battles to come.
Increased military aid from Ukrainian allies is a clear indicator of that.
Let’s see what’s going on at the front.
The fall of 2022 became the turning point in the war.
After Russian command squandered last of its offensive potential capturing Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, the Ukrainian Army,
by contrast, has saved up resources and liberated almost the entire Kharkiv Region in September.
To prevent that from happening on other parts of the front, Kremlin had to start a mobilization drive
and then change the top brass in charge.
General Surovikin insinuated almost from the outset that they would have to, as he put it, “make difficult decisions” in the south.
In November, before most of the mobilized forces could arrive in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army had liberated Kherson.
Pressured by the Ukrainian forces, the Russian units left the only regional center that they had managed to capture early in the war.
It might sound counterintuitive, but leaving Kherson was pretty much the only sensible decision made by Russian command
in this war.
Moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River, the southern group of the Russian armed forces protected themselves from
the enemy by the Dnipro’s wide stream and Kakhovka water reservoir.
Around 300 kilometers of the front were securely covered by one of Europe’s largest rivers.
To cross it, Ukraine would need an enormous amount of supplies and pontoon crossings,
which would be targeted by Russian artillery.
A lot of analysts are sceptical still about the Ukrainian Army attacking across the Dnipro River.
As a result, the main front from Zaporizhzhia to Kharkiv has shrunk to a measly 500 kilometers,
crisscrossed with trenches and full of mobilized people.
At the beginning of the war, Russian forces were attacking with the overall front of more than
1,500 kilometers and with manpower of around 150,000–200,000.
However, since December, it has been defending the front three times smaller than that and has only increased
its numbers thanks to the recruitment drive.
On top of that, the Ukrainian Army had to distribute its forces over more than 1,500 kilometers along the borders with Belarus
and Russia, fearing the possible invasion, provocations, or acts of sabotage.
According to Ukrainian soldiers, areas around Kyiv are ridden with multiple lines of trenches
and dugouts with an overall length of 1,000 kilometres.
So, to plan any successful offensive, Ukraine needs hundreds of modern armored vehicles, hundreds of artillery units,
and millions of rounds for them.
Tanks, though, have particular significance.
Western media outlets said that Germany had authorized battle tank supplies.
The Leopards are also awaited by Russian war correspondents. News sources claim that Ukraine will also receive Abrams tanks.
France and the U.K. have earlier officially stated that they will supply their tanks.
The French will provide AMX light tanks, while the Brits are slated to supply 14 Challengers.
It’s no longer news that the U.S. is sending more than 1,000 armored infantry vehicles to Ukraine.
Their main assault force is around 100 of heavy Bradley fighting vehicles.
Though technically not exactly a tank, its specs allow it to destroy even enemy tanks.
And still, it doesn’t take an expert to understand that it's not enough.
Given all the above, German Leopard tanks can barely be overestimated.
Why those tanks? It's not because the Leopard is considered to be one of the best tanks in the world.
The thing is, German Leopards are the most numerous tanks in Europe. Various modifications are used by almost
a dozen European countries, Canada, and Australia.
The deal is that if Berlin agrees to supply Leopard tanks, it will open up an opportunity for Kyiv
to get those tanks from Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, or Spain.
In principle, Germany can just say yes without supplying actual Leopards the Bundeswehr is armed with.
That decision can jump-start supplies from other countries.
Tanks are one of the most important and most painful aspects in this war.
At the moment, it's the most significant test of unity for Ukraine’s Western allies.
Whilst tons of that armor are going to be supplied to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Army is going to train the crews,
and put them into service, Russians would continue their assaults, even though, apart from causing more casualties,
it has little operational value.
As an example, the Russian army is attacking Donetsk suburbs of the Avdiivka and Mar'inka,
tiny towns with populations of 30,000 and 10,000 respectively.
Following 11 months of continuous attacks, the Russian army has captured half of Mar'inka, or what's left of it, to be precise.
Artillery has even shelled the ruins several times during that period. Vuhledar became the next in line.
It's a small mining town of 15,000 inhabitants.
It, or rather neighboring Pavlivka, has been attacked by the mobilized forces from the so-called DPR, Russian paratroopers,
and even Pacific Fleet marines.
As a result, they failed to close in on Vuhledar. And now, when everyone has forgotten about it,
Alexander Khodakovski, commander of the East battalion, has announced a new Vuhledar campaign.
He says that all the mistakes have been taken into account and no one would attack Ukrainian positions head on.
But who's going to believe that? Vuhledar, like all of the Donbas region, is one uninterrupted defense line.
For example, there is a small town in the Donbas called Toretsk. The front hasn't moved there since 2015.
Even the full-scale Russian invasion hasn't budged it an inch.
After the Ukrainian Army’s Kharkiv offensive, the front has been locked in a stalemate
at the border of the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions.
There is an intense trench warfare going on, with Ukrainian command trying to cut supply lines
between the two main Russian defense nodes in this direction: Svatove and Kreminna.
Freeing them would open up planning to liberate all of the Luhansk Region.
In the meantime, the Russian forces are trying to push the enemy toward the Zherebets' River and capture Lyman,
if possible, to dig in at that mark.
BAKHMUT
Bakhmut has become the Russian forces’ only success and the main cause of pain throughout the war.
A whole fortified area around that district center of the Donetsk Region and its tiny suburbs.
Bakhmut has been attacked by the Wagner PMC over the past four months.
They have entered Eastern and Northern neighborhoods and are trying to flank it from the south to cut off the two supply
lines of the town garrison.
The front around Bakhmut is the only place where the Russian side has at least some success.
It's pretty telling that this part of the front lines is manned by the Wagner PMC, and not by the Russian Army.
The “Wagnerites” have been closing in on Bakhmut dozens of meters per day since August,
no matter what was going on around them: the Ukrainian Army’s Kharkiv offensive in the north or the Kherson one in the south.
The worst is their “success story recipe.” The mercenaries are pushing forward the convicts.
They are attacking the Ukrainian side’s trenches tide after tide, using pre-planned routes.
Their movements are coordinated by commanders using drones. They are charging at the Ukrainian defenses around the clock.
At that rate, the wounded are not getting any medical attention and are left to die on the battlefield.
That type of offensive could only be carried out by Wagner.
The army still shies away from recruiting convicts, whereas the PMC has all the Russian prisons unlocked to boost their roster.
Those mobilized people they can do anything imaginable with; they can even send them
to the most horrendous conveyor belt of this war.
To Prigozhin, the PMC owner, the mercenary army serves as a sort of an armed wing, an instrument of political influence.
We can remember Prigozhin’s squabble with the Defense Ministry, which flared up while the Wagnerites were attacking Soledar,
a suburb of Bakhmut, for two weeks.
The spotlight of Russian propaganda was on the ruins of what was once a town of 10,000 with salt mines.
To prove his primacy in capturing whatever was left of Soledar, Prigozhin personally went to the front line.
And he went down the captured salt mines.
Until finally the MoD admitted that Soledar was indeed captured by “courageous volunteers from the Wagner PMC.”
The Ukrainian Army took a heavy toll in Bakhmut, too.
There is no precise data, but sources with the German media outlets claim that the the daily casualties
of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are into three digits.
Even an argument erupted in Western media as to whether Ukraine should hold that town at such a cost.
The discussion has even elicited a reaction from the U.S. Institute for the Study of War.
According to their data, Bakhmut itself has no strategic value.
The Ukrainian forces can leave it. It wouldn't mean a defeat, but rather, it would just move the front line.
However, Bakhmut fortifications are important, according to experts.
It's here, at the gate of Bakhmut, that the Russian forces are exhausting the last of their offensive potential.
Despite the losses, Ukraine is still better off rooting themselves there until the last moment,
whilst way in the rear, other Ukrainian forces are putting newly supplied Western armor into service and are learning to operate it.
So far, the Ukrainian army has followed precisely this pattern.
Whilst separate units, each at their own position, are trying to hold the front as best as possible and to avoid encirclements,
special assault units are being formed in the rear.
Those are the most experienced warriors, who are getting all the new equipment, and they are learning to use it to the fullest.
They were the main attack force in the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives.
The Russian side hoped for quite some time that continuous pressure on Bakhmut would force the Ukrainian Army
to deploy this precious backup there, but the gamble doesn’t seem to have paid off.
If Ukraine is being provided with such heavyweight armor, it most probably means that the Ukrainian Army
would find who to man it with and who to train on it.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Now, just ahead of the anniversary of this war, most analysts and pundits are expecting new offensives.
Importantly, Ukrainian analysts admit that due to delays in armor delivery and time needed to master it, there is a possibility
that Russian command could make the first move.
They have gradually trained their draftees and activated tanks and IFVs.
The Ukrainian Army will have to withstand that attack, attrite the assault forces,
and only then bring in trained soldiers using new vehicles.
According to Ukrainian intel, the Russian Army could attack from three directions.
First from the Luhansk Region toward Kharkiv, second from south toward Zaporizhzhia.
The front line is less than 30 kilometers away from this city.
Interestingly, Zaporizhzhia is listed in the Russian Constitution as Russian territory following the sham referendum.
I wonder if there ever was such situation when a country annexed a territory of another country
“ad absentia,” without even a shadow of control over that territory.
The third possible offensive target is the Donbas. Reaching administrative borders of the Donetsk Region has been
one of the goals of the “special military operation.”
After his failed attempt at “de-Nazification,” Putin hasn't officially stated that goal, but it is mentioned by the official propaganda.
That would also mean attacking well-fortified Ukrainian positions.
Over the past eight years of war, especially after February 24,
all of the Donbas has become arguably Europe’s largest fortified region.
In the meantime, Russian war correspondents are hard at work trying to present that as a success.
They don't even care what a load of hogwash they're saying anymore.
For example, VGTRK war correspondent Alexander Sladkov was very creative with figures from the Russian Defense Ministry
report in his Telegram channel.
Just to note, in those reports, MoD spokesman Lt. Gen.
Igor Konashenkov claimed that the Russian Army had destroyed 8,000 tanks and armored vehicles and counting.
Sladkov tallied the number of “destroyed” vehicles, artillery pieces, and airpower units.
After that, he stated with the utmost gravitas that the Russian Army had destroyed 23 enemy armies.
That is, all of NATO forces in Europe.
A separate grisly chapter of that invasion is Russia’s missile war against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.
Roughly once every two to three weeks since October, the Russian command has been bombing Ukrainian
energy infrastructure targets: heat and power stations, power distributors.
The Russian propaganda is not even trying to hide that it's being done to plunge Ukrainian cities into cold and darkness.
Ukraine had to introduce austere power saving measures due to constant aerial attacks on its infrastructure.
There was a complete blackout twice, when most of the regions went without electricity, heat, and water for several days.
But Ukraine has endured. Ukrainian air defense propped up by new western missile systems is successfully shooting down
most of Russia's cruise missiles and Iranian kamikaze drones.
Whenever that defense fails, Ukrainian energy workers are quickly restoring key infrastructure facilities.
Most of Ukraine’s small, medium-sized, and large businesses, schools, kindergartens,
and hospitals have synchronized their livelihoods with rolling blackouts.
The whirr of power generators has become part of the soundscape in Ukrainian cities, along with the noise of passing cars.
To the surprise of the Russian propaganda and warmongers, Ukrainians didn't start rioting against their government
with demands to send messengers to Putin to start peace talks.
On the contrary, every Russian missile, every destroyed house only exacerbates the hatred of Ukrainian citizens
toward the Russian army.
And it is ramping up the donations made to the Ukrainian Army.
That's the state of affairs as of this recording.
We're going to be monitoring the situation further, hoping that the end to all that madness is near.
There is only one sensible action in this insane war: the withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine’s territory,
the disarmament of all mercenaries, the return of all contract soldiers
and conscripts to their barracks and all the mobilized fighters home.
There's only one type of victory Russia can achieve in this war: the victory of common sense.
The common sense here is to leave another country and to stop wrecking your own in the name of killing more
of the other country’s citizens.
Destruction and death from both sides is not something anybody needs,
and they don't lead to anything of value and should be stopped as soon as possible.
Let the common sense finally prevail.
See you tomorrow!