"FROM THE ANALYST"
MAJOR MOVE IN THE EAST
The final collapse of Russian resistance in the ruins of tiny Andrivka village - a place of barely 20 homes now pummelled into ruins running along two tiny streets, has greater significance than seems possible.
The fight was hard not because the village was defensible - anywhere else and it would have been long taken, but because the Russians had the railway embankment- some 6m high and 20m wide at its base, to defend from. They had also built a bunker under it which the Ukrainians couldn’t get down to. From this they resisted for weeks.
However in the past fortnight as I reported previously, the Ukrainians managed at great cost to breach the railway embankment north and south of the village. Russia tried over and over again to break these bridgeheads even using T-90 tanks, but in the past days with the last resistance eliminated in the space of northern Klieshievka to the rail line, Ukraine managed two more breaches.
With four breached positions the Russians knew their position in Andrivka was completely untenable. Ukraine offered a surrender option to those who remained and some 70% took it up - the remaining force included officers and they were eliminated.
There are key elements to what happened next. Ukraine managed to secure the embankment along the whole sector and push beyond it with resistance fading.
The reason is simple enough. For days now the Russians have been complaining about lack of ammunition, no food, no counter-battery fire and a feeling they were being left out in the open while everyone else stood back.
This strategy is not uncommon on the Russian side. What they do is look at the situation and consider it no longer worth the investment in resources once they’ve used what’s been allocated. They effectively saw the tree branch off while their men are sitting on it. They let them go through hell as an unwitting sacrifice, literally leaving them to die, while they get on preparing the next defence line. It’s unbelievable in its callousness, but that’s Russia for you, human life means nothing. Soldiers are a commodity, nobody at the top knows who they are or cares. For that matter only those in the trench with you, are probably the ones who might.
The Russians have suffered a setback here they really won’t want to deal with. Crossing that railway line is the last major obstacle to a wide flat area south of Bakhmut that puts the city in increasing danger of being operationally surrounded. Ukraine isn’t going to go in and fight house to house, ruin to ruin. Russia politically, can’t let it go - it’s been it’s only success this year. They are nervously watching the Ukrainian advance - and wondering when the hits will come from the north of the city. The salient containing Soledar to the north looks ripe for extinguishing.
In the south Ukraines forces are now regarded in the west as having possibly ten days left to make any real difference. If they don’t it’s going to be a tough winter on that salient around Robotnye. The mud will come by Octobers end and last well into December. The last winter was mild and muddy, this one could well return to the deep freezes of the past, but the modern climate is not what it was, nothing is certain.
Right now high pressure and good weather persist. But it won’t last forever.
A huge success in the East and hard fought, the heroes of Ukraine have won a victory worth its name.
Slava Ukraini
