GUEST BLOG: Ben Morgan – Who is leading the dance? Russia or Ukraine?

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The next couple of weeks will be very important.  Russia is mustering its strength for a final push and we can see that there is a clear strategy developing ‘on the ground’.  Time is running out for Russia, if they are going to seize all of Donbas they need to move quickly.  Ukraine is receiving international support, mobilising its reserves and building its military power. So the campaign is now becoming a high-stakes race, Russia trying to gain as much ground as it can before its tired and depleted army collapses. Ukraine fighting to ‘hold on’ while they use international aid to build enough military power to successfully counter attack and take back their lost territory.  

The key prizes at this stage are; Severdonetsk and Lysyschansk, cities on the Severskyi-Donets River and the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk approximately 50km to the west.  If the Russians hold Severodontesk and Lysyschansk they hold Luhansk Oblast (region) and Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the last major cities of the Donetsk Oblast still controlled by Ukraine. The Russian’s objective is a separate, ‘liberated’ Donbas Region (consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts).  Achieving this aim requires control of these cities.  The next few weeks are crucial to this campaign.

The race started weeks ago when Russian forces captured the city of Poposna, quietly holding it and waiting. Russia then tried to cross the Severskyi-Donets River looking for a close encirclement of Severodonetsk.  Russia’s initial moves were stopped by the Ukrainians who inflicted heavy casualties and forced a change in plan. Last week, Russian forces in Poposna started an advance north toward Severodonetsk and west towards Bahkmut. It is unlikely that the Russians want to take Bahkmut, but instead want to dominate the area around it. This area is important because it includes the junction of the M03 motorway that leads north towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and the T1302 motorway that runs east to Lysyschansk and Severdonetsk. This road is the main supply route for Lysyschansk and Severdonetsk. The M03 has been discussed before because it runs north and west from Bahkmut to Izyum, via Sloviansk. So it is an important road to control for the future operations of both sides.  

Next Lyman was taken by the Russians, another small town north of Severodonetsk. At the moment, Russia is trying to develop an offensive aimed south from Lyman.  This could be aiming to meet up with the forces launched from Poposna in the south that if they meet will form a line about 30km west of Severodontesk encircling and ‘cutting off’ the Ukrainian defenders.  Or these may be diversionary attacks, designed to keep Ukrainian forces away from Severodonetsk. Another option is that the attack from Poposna is a real attack designed to cut the Ukrainian supply line on the T 1302 motorway to Severodonetsk.  

On 27 May, Russian forces started trying to ‘break in’ to Severodonetsk.  Russian troops do not surround Severodonetsk; and are attacking frontally from the east supported by enormous amounts of artillery. This attack plan confirms that the Russians are under time pressure to take the city quickly.  A better military solution would be to take time and surround the forces defending Severodontesk, making supply or retreat impossible and enabling their destruction.  Instead they are throwing firepower and men at ‘nipping’ off small chunks of the city from the east.  

Do the Russians have the resources to achieve their objectives?  The answer is very uncertain, the consensus amongst analysts is that the Russians probably have enough combat power to take Severdonetsk and Lysyschansk, that taking Sloviansk and Kramatorsk may be achievable but that anything more is not.  Evidence of Russia’s military exhaustion is extensive from 50–60-year-old T 62 tanks being taken out of storage for use in Ukraine, to the age of enlistment in the military being raised to 50 and to NATO intelligence reports that show that Russia is running out of precision-guided missiles and has a shortage junior officers.   Further, the Russians are under pressure because they know that with time the Ukrainians will get stronger as the receive more international aid. 

On the other side, the state of Ukrainian forces is a difficult to assess, we know that like the Russians their frontline forces in the north and east have been continuously engaged for three months.  After this period of time, they will have lost people, junior leaders, weapons and equipment.  However, we don’t know how soon their reserves will be mobilised with new and more sophisticated weapons provided by NATO.  However, based on the campaign to-date we can predict that these forces join the battle, it is likely that they will be a match for Russia’s troops and able to take the offensive.  

We also know that the Ukrainians are ‘digging in’ to defend Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.  The cities are located on high ground and with preparation, will be a formidable obstacle.  In the ‘bigger picture’ the defence of Severodonetsk and Lysyschansk provides time to prepare defences in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.  Recently, the Russians drifted north, concentrating to attack Severodonetsk and were also drawn north of Izyum by the Ukrainian offensive from Kharkov.  This trend is interesting because it is a combination of Russian objectives and Ukrainian activity working together to  ‘shape’ Russian deployment.  Who has the initiative and is dictating the tempo and location of operations?  Is Russia driving the pace of the campaign? Or is it conforming to Ukraine’s strategy?  

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The Ukrainians need to time to build their forces and it is likely that they are aiming for offensive action in the summer that takes advantage of the good weather, dry ground and new weapons arriving from NATO.  A classic tactic is to defend and draw your opponent into attacking a fortified area.  This forces the attacker to their concentrate forces.  The defender has many advantages and, in the military, defence is often thought of as a way to attrit and ‘fix’ the enemy.  When the enemy is concentrating their force to attack your fortified area you know exactly where they are and the concentration of forces for an attack in one area means other areas have less.  

The Russians have not been able to force a crossing of the Severskyi-Donets River and may not have the bridging equipment left to try again.  The Russians are relying on the offensives from Lyman and Poposna to ‘cut off’ supplies and reinforcements.  However, these offensives are not progressing rapidly, advancing maybe a kilometre or two a day.  When the offensive from Poposna threatened the T1302 motorway the Ukrainians were able to counter-attack and push it back.  Simple maths says that it will take weeks to close the gap and trap the Ukrainians.  

Further, it is likely that Severodonetsk will hold as long as the Ukrainians want it too.  Today there are some reports that they are withdrawing in good order to Lysyschansk.  This city is on the western side of the Severskyi-Donets River, it will be easy to defend because to attack it the Russians need to either cross the river or advance from Lyman or Poposna. The first, option is very dangerous because it will be strongly opposed by the Ukrainians. The second option will take time and the assault force will have to cover a significant distance.  Neither is easy; and a Ukrainian withdrawal executed at the right time, balances imposing delay on the Russians with minimising casualties.

It should also be noted that on 28 May the Ukrainians crossed the Inhulets River, in the south between Mykolaiv and Kherson. A strong force led by 5th Armoured Brigade, a unit that has had a quiet war so far, being held near Odessa to counter any attack on that city and recently released for offensive use.  A powerful, relatively fresh unit is dangerous for the Russians in this area and there is a fierce battle starting in the south.  Most analysts see this operation as a ‘spoiling’ attack launched to prevent the Russians consolidating their positions in the Kherson / Mykolaiv area.  This is likely true; however it demonstrates a high-level of Ukrainian capability, river crossings are a very difficult operation.  Russia has tried a number of times to execute river crossings and failed.  

The Russians appear to be being forced by their political masters into a tough series of battles in Severodonentsk, Lysychansk, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Large cites that will be easily defended and hard to attack.  Even with all the artillery in the world, taking a city requires infantrymen to close with the enemy; and Russia simply does not many.  The limited infantry that they do have will be ground away in each city they attack.  The only way not to lose lots of infantry soldier attacking a city is to literally pulverise the city into rubble. However, the Russia soldiers are moving into Severodonetsk indicate that politically they need to capture the city more quickly than their artillery can destroy it. Essentially, the Russians are being forced to ‘put their hand in the mincer’ by political pressure to capture these cities. 

It appears that the Ukrainians are using the defence of these cities to ‘fix’ Russian forces and destroy them in defensive battles.  This is a tactic that was successfully used on a much larger scale by the Soviets in World War Two. The major battles that smashed German military power were Stalingrad and Kursk. Both examples of the Soviets using a defensive battle to draw in an enemy, force them to concentrate and attrit them before transitioning to offensive operations.  Likewise, both German offensives were driven by political objectives forcing tactical commanders to fight battles that simply ground their forces away as they attacked strong defensive positions.  

The real question is – How soon can the Ukrainians transition to offensive operations? This is a tough question and relies on how quickly international support can be provided to Ukraine.  Remember, that there is a big difference between a politician’s commitment and the equipment arriving in Ukraine.  It seems likely that they will be planning for the summer.  If they can draw the Russians into a defensive fight in the north-east and hold them there then they may be creating the conditions for an attack in the south.  Recapturing Kherson would be a substantial victory, and re-taking Mariupol would be even better driving a wedge between Donbas and Crimea, breaking the Russian land bridge and providing a significant political victory.  So keep watching the south. 

In summary, if Severodonetsk falls the war is far from over and the next few weeks will answer a number of questions.  The first and foremost of which is – Who is setting the tempo?  Are the Russian’s fighting smarter and starting to win? Or are the Ukrainian’s leading them into attacks that will deplete their strength and set them up for a counter-offensive?  At this stage we don’t know, however over the next week or two we will find out.   

 

Ben Morgan is a tired Gen X interested in international politics. He is TDB’s Military analyst.

33 COMMENTS

  1. Great commentary! Thanks
    I suspect the way the Ukrainians will eventually go on to the offensive will be by hitting the Russian rear with longer range missiles supplied by the US while at the same time using western 155mm howitzers to out range the Russian equivalent.

    • Nope, not sorry but your are completely wrong, and Ben Morgan as well.
      It looks like the US will supply (reluctantly) a single battery of the smaller version of these volley missile launchers. That’s only 9 of them. These are GPS guided missiles which will be blinded by Russia jamming Satelite coms, if they make it to the front. Russia will likely destroy them either on transport or while they are setting up on site. They will make no difference.

      • Agreed. Biden has already had to back down on sending long range missiles to Ukraine, so I actually find the article above rather more wishful thinking than anything useful… The only real motivating factor for uncle Joe is whether the evidence of his, and his families profiting from backing neo nazis to take control of Ukraine.. If he can be assured that the evidence has been destroyed, the n the Ukraine is on it’s own.. I’m not getting the feeling that the Europeans have the stomach for a full scale war… I would hazard a guess that they aren’t underestimating the size of the Russian military like the writer above… As Paul Buchannan pointed out months ago, the size of the forces Russia was amassing wasn’t enough to take the whole country, but that statement contained the tacit acknowledgment that they had more than enough troops, and weaponry to do so if they chose.. This isn;’t a war of conquest. It’s an action to create a buffer zone to stop Russia being surrounded by missile batteries, which is what every country that has joined NATO on the border has had installed. If the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan were to go over to nato, then all the major populated areas of Russia will be within range of hundreds of missiles.. It’s not rocket science.. It’s self defence.. Btw, I’m not a Russian sympathizer, but I think it’s time the Americans s stopped playing god with the rest of the world… Only 13 years of peace in their entire existence.. Time to give the imperialist dream a rest..

  2. “Unless the defending forces are fully under armor or extremely well dug in, as they had been for eight years at the Donetsk frontline, they have no hope to hold out against Russian artillery. Since the Russian army broke through the immediate frontline the Ukrainians have lost the protection of fortified dugouts and are on the run.”

    “You ask how the fighting is going,” said Oleksandr Kolesnikov, the commander of a company of soldiers fighting in the forest, interviewed on an ambulance gurney outside a military hospital in Kramatorsk. “There was a commander of the company. He was killed. There was another commander. He was killed. A third commander was wounded. I am the fourth.” https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/ukraine-arty.html#more

    Raping of the truth is a huge part of the NATOs Ukraine proxy war ,,, “This is not just brazen journalistic malpractice, this is actual atrocity propaganda. ” https://consortiumnews.com/2022/06/01/caitlin-johnstone-official-behind-media-reports-of-russian-atrocities-fired-by-ukrainian-parliament/

    The atrocity’s started with Nuland, Biden, Clinton, NATO and their then coup installed Kleptocrat Poreshenko, with his racist puppet coup government launching it’s anti-terrorist-operation/ATO against Russian Ukrainians who were resisting the persecution against them ,,, this operation created ‘free fire zones’ over designated areas/towns. 6000 dead in 10 months,,, 2014.

    Its atrocious no one cared for the victims then … https://www.bitchute.com/video/9wLAU5WBIk2E/

  3. I suspect that when the time comes to recapture Severodenetsk, that it will be realtively simple for the Ukrainians since it will be little more than a pile of rubble providing little strategic advantage to the Russians.
    The greater concern for me is whether the Ukrainians can actually generate enough additional grunts and whether the West are willing to continue supporting Ukraine with both weapons and sanctions.
    The Germans in particular have already shown great reticence in both these areas.

    • Nope. As of today Severodenetsk is mostly in Russian control. Ukraine troops fled with little resistance.
      Some are holed up in the industrial area but you should pity them, they have no chance. Most of the city is intact. The west are or already have had enough. The bullshit needs to stop.

  4. AND NOW HERE’S A VIDEO OF SOME KITTENS.

    stalingrad and berlin were both piles of rubble jays, their capture was far from simple.

    • I did say relatively.
      Without buildings to shoot from, the task of cleaning out the enemy is a whole lot easier and by the time it comes to that, the back of the Russian offensive will be well and truly broken.
      If the use of T62s is any indication, Russia is already starting to scrape the bottom of some of it’s barrels.

      • Russia has less than 15% of it’s troops in Ukraine.
        Russia has about 20,000 modern tanks.
        Russia has enough troops and armaments in stock for 2 years.

          • Only in your dreams. The wests propaganda is changing. Reality on the ground cannot be denied. Try to keep up.

          • Ahh – so you admit that this is a planned conspiracy by the US to deliberately weaken the Russians, and that Ukrainians are being used as cannon fodder?

        • Absolutely none if what you said is true. Prior to the war, only about 3k of their fleet were operational withe the rest being in cold storage, lacking modern optics or gyro stabilisation.
          Even a significant chunk of their operational tanks lack reactive armour, modern optics, etc with a big chunk being the 60 year old T62 design.
          With regards to the 1 Million troops, that is active and reservists across all three branches. They have more than half their infantry committed to the theatre and cannot reasonably commit many more without mobilisation otherwise they risk leaving their other strategic interests exposed.

        • You’re right. You know it. I know it. Anyone who is able to read and think outside the Western mind-prison knows it. The history and facts on the ground for more than a decade support our reading of it.

          You can’t inform the uninformed who have been repeatedly told (brainwashed) that they’re “informed and anything else is un.dis/misinformed”.

  5. For those interested in fighting in the Ukraine versus Russia can highly recommend the following book.

    “Order in Chaos” the memoirs of Herman Balck. German Panzer Group General.

    And read the same mistakes being made by both the Ukraine and Russians. History does repeat.

  6. it may or may not be a good book but I distrust anything that comes from former nazi generals trying to excuse getting their arses kicked by the untermenschen….
    and I’d treat anything from the other side during the soviet period with equal distrust.

    • Actually it is a good book from an operational command learning viewpoint. But if you prejudge it as not worth your attention than desist from reading it.

      NATO and US warfare doctrine is based on the very old 1900 Prussian concept of mission command. So aptly displayed by the memoirs in the book. From WW1 “jager” battalions to WW2 “Panzer” divisions

      For example the Stalingrad fiasco would never have occurred if mission command had prevailed with the on the ground and at the front generals directing to local conditions. Once the Russian pincers movement was detected, the 6th Army should have been withdrawn back to the defense line (a distance of only 40 kilometers) and used to attack the pincer movement exposed flank. The whole defense line could have driven forward through the pincers North and South arms and retaken Stalingrad.

      However the operational field command was overruled by the strategic referenced General Staff (under Hitler).

      As they say, those who wont learn from history (by simply reading a book) will repeat it. Ukraine should have withdraw from the Lisichansk salient and formed a defense line west of the Russian pincer movement and attacked back eastwards, when rested and reequipped, and before the Russians established a defense line on the pincers movement flanks.

      • yes I know about stalingrad
        you just seem to be recapitulating the old it was all adolfs fault line
        frankly
        shoulda
        coulda
        woulda
        didn’t
        is a line german experts have been pushing since the yanks got nazi generals to write the history of the eastern front.

        the fact is the soviets had the resources to fully utilise ‘deep warfare'(what we erroneously refer to as ‘blitzkreig’ the germans never had the neccesary resources so were on a loser from day one,.

        may I recommend TIK ytube channel if your interested in stalingrad or market garden he knows his stuff though his grasp of politics is not the best.

        • As I said. It is interesting to read the difference between what the front line operationally responsible generals wanted versus what the German High Command decided should happen. You want to pick holes in it, go for it.

          if the Tik channel is you go to reference, no wonder the subtle nuances of history pass you by. Having sat Lewis’s reasoning for Paulus request to withdraw the 6th Army back to held defense lines being denied, backs up my ascertain that the German High Command (and Hitler) were not in receipt of all the facts know to the operational generals. Lewis, in his YouTube explanations simply glosses over the denied Paulus withdrawal request as “jeez those dump Germans”. He does not see the disconnect between the operational generals and the high command generals as detailed in the Balck memoirs.

          Market Garden was a Montgomery folly where he did not wait till the 30 army corps were fully in place to support the paratroopers. He also underestimated the time it would take for the 30 corps to travel up the single available road where any vehicle breakdown (with land alongside the road to boggy to allow motorised transport to bypass any stricken vehicle) would stall a column, (sounds like the Russians on the road to Kiew? – as I said we don’t learn from prior mistakes).

          China is going to need to take heed of the lessons learned, from the market garden folly, in Taiwan. It needs to have a very difficult sea borne invasion landing and gaining a foothold (on the eastern side of Taiwan where there are invasion beaches) whist the paratroopers arrive to add boots on the ground. Get it wrong and the paratroopers will be exterminated due to no heavy weaponry available.

  7. Lysyschansk will be a tough nut. Russia will have to flank attack this hill top city. No frontal attack from across the river, suicide. My guess Russia will bring up more artillery and just level the place, like Mariupol but probably much worse. This will be hell for the Ukrainians. When this city falls, and it will, it’s all over.

    • All over my backside the more the filth russian advances the more it exposes them to Ukrainian attacks from the flanks.

  8. This about covers it.
    Netflix
    Love Death and Robots.
    ‘Night of The Mini Dead.’
    https://www.netflix.com/watch/81520600?trackId=255824129&tctx=0%2C0%2CNAPA%40%40%7Ca2b017d2-0120-4e5a-a613-11b3dce2fe19-47839783_titles%2F1%2F%2FLove%20Death%20%2F0%2F0%2CNAPA%40%40%7Ca2b017d2-0120-4e5a-a613-11b3dce2fe19-47839783_titles%2F1%2F%2FLove%20Death%20%2F0%2F0%2Cunknown%2C%2Ca2b017d2-0120-4e5a-a613-11b3dce2fe19-47839783%7C1%2CtitlesResults%2C80174608
    Good work for giving us an informed perspective on the nuts and hideous bolts of a cadre of useless old children spitting and shouting at each other because they never had enough cuddles from mum @ Ben Morgan.
    Old children are a dangerous iteration of the human creature. They become very difficult to predict, perhaps literally impossible. We’ll see.
    Nasty, psychopathic old children with access to terrible weapons and all that’s required is a personality deficit to use them.
    If there’s one thing I could say about good drugs ( recreational) is that they can give the likes of dangerous Old Children an alternative perspective on what might seem an only choice given an unfortunate scenario such as this.
    Did you read in The Guardian where British Colombia is decriminalising recreational drugs for three years. To see how that goes. I know how it will go. It will be curative and transformative. And can I say ; British Colombia looks absolutely other worldly and wonderful.
    The Guardian.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/31/canada-decriminalize-drugs-british-columbia-overdoses
    War, is two things. Dumb shits on one side and greedy fuckers on the other. Somehow, we must learn, early on, how to distinguish the terminally stupid and the sociopathically greedy and egomaniacilly deranged from the rest of us.
    This is fabulous.
    Original video of Edwin Starr singing his famous song: “War” [Original Music video from 1969]
    ‘War’
    https://youtu.be/01-2pNCZiNk

  9. Russia do not have these targets physically surrounded, but they do have total fire control surrounding them. The areas are dug in and fortified because these unit have had years of terrorising and shelling their fellow Ukrainians. But no reinforcements or supplies can get through. Their only defence is how many unwilling civilians they’ve been persecuting for 8 years they can hide behind.

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