From "The Analyst":
CHASIV YAR UNDER HEAVY PRESSURE
Having taken the forested area east of the town at huge cost, the Russians have been able to conceal their troop buildup within it.
The problem the Russians have is that to reach the forest they have to run the gauntlet of open fields under constant Ukrainian fire. Their plan once sufficiently established, would be to strike northwest toward Bohadanivka, which would then open up the ability to surround the east bank canal district of Chasiv Yar from the north.
To counter Ukrainian strikes on their troops in transit who were suffering horrendous loses, as many as 24 at a time as they were inside and outside of a single APC crossing the open fields, the Russians began a heavy aerial bombardment of Ukrainian positions in Chasiv Yar.
Without air defences the Russians established a sufficient level of air superiority to deploy close support Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft, something that had previously been impossible in recent months. So much so that some analysts thought they’d been withdrawn from service (Russians never fully withdraw anything that works from service, they just store it somewhere).
Having bombed the canal district to rubble the Russians finally attacked Bohadinvka from the forest. Ukraine was forced to withdraw of face their forces being cut off.
However the Ukrainian side controls the hills to the north of the village and have strong defences there. That being said, as Avdivka proved, heavy bombing can overcome the best defended areas.
Rather than attack these defences the Russians attacked southwest towards the canal district as feared, aiming to cut Ukrainian access to one of the two bridges that supply them there.
The Russians are also attempting to move through the forest to the southeast of the canal district and north of Ivaniske. They have managed to get most of the way through the forest and are close to the Severtsky-Donetsk canal. Once they complete this move the canal district becomes more or less untenable. That will force a Ukrainian withdrawal and then place the defence line along the canal itself. Heavy bombing and artillery attacks will quickly render Chasiv Yar a devastated ruin.
The Russians are becoming far more inclined to be mobile and avoid the frontal assaults that cost so many men. They don’t care about the loses of equipment or manpower though, as long as they gain territory, and these new tactics are designed to maximise gains while Ukraine has no anti-air and is short on artillery.
The weakness in these attacks is they too, can in fact be outflanked and the Russians have difficult terrain to supply their forces, much of it open to drone strikes and constant harassment. Drone dropped mines during the night have been another constant problem for them.
The sad fact is the Russians have uncontested air space. This is proving decisive over time. Without air defences things are hard. In addition the Russians are using spy drones deep into Ukrainian territory- again a lack of air defences - which only this weekend allowed attack drones to locate an S-300 and three Mig-29’s (two of which were operational), at the airbase near Dnipro and destroy them. These had previously been well out of range of Russian precision strikes.
The US aid cannot come soon enough.
The Russians seem to have such momentum despite their losses, that they can potentially take Chasiv Yar before enough aid arrives to change the equation, something they will now be even more determined to achieve while they have such an advantage.
Ukraine can only do its best to hold on long enough.
Slava Ukraini !
Going to be a really tough few weeks for Ukraine whilst russia make big pushes with the US aid taking weeks to arrive.
