Game of Chess. Situation at the front

UA:SOUTH continues to publish analytical materials of the Austrian military expert Tom Cooper. Today's focus is the situation in the Bakhmut, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson directions. The expert also answers the question of why there is so little information from the ZSU from the southern front.

June was a long month. One with lots of developments, and large amounts of work for me, and – although bad at predictions (which is why I’m usually avoiding them) – that itch in my small toe is telling me that July is going to remain that way. Certainly enough, was very busy the last few days, and thus have managed only a few ‘sporadic flash updates’ on the Facebook. Thus, it’s time for a ‘bigger’ update here…

STRATEGIC

Was short of starting this one with a discussion of idiotic, yet systematic incompetence in the Western politics, the specialisation of our oligarchy in ‘administering the status quo’, and the latent inability of the system to solve any kind of issues on hand. What a surprise then, it was France that ‘almost’ collapsed, the last few days, not so much the Russian frontlines…

But hey: I’m a pedantic sarcast and thus can’t avoid the conclusion that there’s something encouraging in these ‘issues in France’: mind that back in the late 18^thCentury it was exactly the revolution in that country which brought lots of stones into rolling…

….ah well, let’s go over to ‘war’…

AIR/MISSILE WARFARE

Early on 29 June, multiple detonations were reported from the Tokmak area. The same area was targeted later during the day, again. RUMINT has it that one of Russian forward ammunition depots and the S-300 SAM-site protecting it were targeted. Over the last few days, the PSU and ZSU also hit Prymorsk and the Berdyansk airport: the latter is a major forward operating base for attack helicopters of the VKS.

Nice point about this all is that nowadays the Russian Pantsyrs are ‘successful’ in ‘intercepting’ Storm Shadows, like this one:

….cannot but conclude that I find the Russian tactics of intercepting missiles with own vehicles, instead by missiles fired by the same vehicles – for a giant leap forward…

…and that I hope they might refine this, ‘soon’, and try with their hands instead…

In other news of this kind: during the night from 1 to 2 July, the Russians fired 3 Kalibr cruise missiles and 8 Shaheds at Kyiv: all were shot down, and all were shot down over the outskirts of the city.

BATTLE OF DONBAS

General… It seems the Western and Ukrainian military intelligence are assessing the Russians as having their largest concentration of forces in Ukraine deployed in the area between Svatove in the north and Severodonetsk-Lysychansk in the south. This appears to be ‘confirmed’ by OSINT-reports about the sheer number of VDV and VSRF units known as present in this area…

Kupyansk-Svatove-Kremina….while most of their ‘mil-bloggers’ are babbling about attacks of the famed 76^th VDV Division into the forest north of the Siversky Donets River, actually, the primary direction of the Russian counteroffensive in this area is crystalising further north. Or at least it is so that if they’ve made any kind of advance, then in the area west of the Highway P66, between Svatove and Kremina. Their series of severe assaults seems to have pushed the 66^th Ukrainian Brigade back towards the line of villages stretching from Kovalivka in the north, to Nevske in the south. The situation in this area remains tense, and even two weeks into this Russian operation, the volumes of the VSRF’s artillery barrages are still described as ‘insane’.   

Bakhmut…north…the Russian 106^th VDV Division deployed in the Soledar area is kept on its toes by Ukrainians grinding into its positions from north, west, and south-west.  On the south-western side, the 57^th Motor repelled another Russian counterattack and continued grinding into Berkhivka, the last three days.

Bakhmut…south… Ukrainian 22^nd Mech and 80^th Airborne have cleared the three small forests north-west of Klishchivka, and the 3^rd Assault and the 28^th Mech crossed the Siversky Donets Canal and approached the village from the west and south-west.

The Russians flew quite a lots of air strikes in this area, the last 3-4 days: mostly by Su-25s in ‘spray and pray’ fashion, but some by Ka-52s, too.

Avdiivka…On 26-27 June, Ukrainians have liberated the (completely ruined, as usually), village of Vesele, north of Avdiivka, but otherwise the focus of fighting in this area remained Kruta Balka in he East, and Vodyane in the South.

SOUTHERN ZAPORIZHZHYA (& SOUTH-WESTERN DONETSK)

General…the battlefield here is now reminiscent of a ‘game of chess’. See: one commander does ‘this’, to which the enemy reacts with ‘that’, to which the first commander reacts with ‘this’….and so they’re all the time trying to ‘outmanoeuvre’ each other….

Vasylivka… the 128^th Mountain has repelled a series of vicious Russian counterattacks, the last few days, but still found the time to mop the area north of Zherebyanky and then to continue its push into that village. The last time I’ve got hear from this ‘corner’ of the frontline, it was in the process of grinding through what’s left of the 429^th Motor Rifle Battalion, VSRF, in Zherbyanky: this was then reinforced by the BARS-32, but all the Russian reinforcements moving towards the Vasylivka area (the town is held by the 810^th Naval Infantry Brigade), are heavily hit by Ukrainian UAVs, artillery, and HIMARS/MLRS’.  

Note: there are reports about some sort of Ukrainian advance east of Zherbyanky, too: roughly in direction of the road connecting villages of Nestrianka and Myrne. Guess, some of this is based on such actions like destruction of a Russian Polye-21 EW-system there, yesterday, or hits on the VSRF’s artillery, few days earlier. The area is open and massively mined, though, and I’ve heard, seen or found nothing confirming any kind of Ukrainian advances in this direction.  

Orikhiv…On 28-29 June, a Russian counterattack aiming to push Ukrainians back into the minefields north of Robotyne failed. This had severe consequences – for the VSRF. Early on 30 June, the ZSU infantry (who else…) infiltrated Novopokrovka, then assaulted from ‘knife range’ causing the Russian garrison to flee in panic. The 58^thCAA reacted by re-deploying Spetsnaz there (probably the 45^th Brigade), which saved the situation in so far that they’re still holding the southern side of the village. However, ZSU then (on 1 July) infiltrated the seam between the BARS-3 (defending Robotyne) and the 70^th Motor Rifle Regiment (defending the area between Robotyne and Verbove). Once again, the Russian positions collapsed, enabling Ukrainian reinforcements (38^th Brigade?) to drive a wedge in direction of Novoprokopivka (defended by the 1430^th Motor Rifle Regiment). It’s unclear how far this one went, but it’s clear that the Ukrainian action lasted for at least 48 hours, without interruption, exhausting the Russians (but own troops too) as result. What is sure is that as soon as the Russians re-deployed a part of the 22^nd Spetsnaz Brigade and a few tanks in block this Ukrainian move, the main position of the 22^nd was hit by another Ukrainian infiltration, this time into the Russian eastern flank, in direction of Verbove (defended by the 417^th Recce Battalion)…

Total result is nicely depicted on the following map by Don Hill:

Amid the ‘total EMCON’ imposed on the ZSU units in all of southern Zaporizhzhya of the last few days (i.e. everybody is – strictly – prohibited from ‘reporting’ anything at all), that’s something like the ‘last stand’ of what I ‘know’: meanwhile, these ‘news’ are more than 48 hours old, and thus, and in conclusion, I can only assess that with this the ZSU has opened its attack on the 2^nd Line of the Russian defences (indeed: on a joint of the 2^nd and the 3^rd Line), while the Russians are certain to be running yet more of their counterattacks…

Staromaiorske-Staromlynivka…Ukrainians have spent the last few days grinding themselves into that forest west of Staromaiorske, and from there with infiltrating Russian positions west (on Pryyutne) and east on (Staromaiorske). The 47^th Artillery continued exterminating whatever can be identified as ‘Russian and having a tube on it’…

That said, it seems that – after a break of a few days – VKS’ Ka-52s are back in force, and then striking quite a number of Ukrainian vehicles, even if I’m not sure whether their ‘targets’ are ‘still operational’, or ‘just abandoned wreckage’.

Kherson (city)….Over the last week, the ZSU has established a firm bridgehead stretching all along the southern bank of the Dnipro, from Dachas north of Oleshky to the northern frindges of Bilohrudove and Hola Prystan in the south. The Russians reacted by all means at their disposal, from TOS-1s and air strikes, to severe artillery barrages and claimed the bridgehead along the Antonovsky Bridge as ‘destroyed’, but their mil-blogger industry is still in panic and reporting severe losses of VSRF’s artillery. Do not really understand all the Russian ‘panic’, then Ukrainians are still ‘far away’ from widening their bridgehead to the full length of the Konka River, and thus reaching the northern outskirts of Oleshky, just for example, not to talk about actually crossing the Konka…

Cannot avoid the conclusion that I’ve still got far too little info but to understand what exactly is going on there.

The content is published with the permission of the author. First published here.