Russian invasion of Ukraine

From "The Analyst":

LYMAN FRONT: NEW REALITIES FOR RUSSIA

The Russians constantly try to push their salient towards the Sherbets River, desperate to take the three villages centred on Torske.
Even though they have had to spend most of the past fortnight recovering, they have never entirely stopped.
You will recall from last week that the Ukrainians managed a rather successful counter attack and took back key positions in the centre of the salient, mostly in fortified tree lines. Without any resources to push back the Russians simply accepted the situation.
It does seem that during the process of reorganising and refit, the Russian command came up with a new strategy having finally learned that endless meat wave assaults weren’t cutting it and loses were simply unsustainable. Ukraine beat them off every time.
The first attacks would face Yampolivka and Terny in the north-centre of the salient and be entirely infantry based, while a second attack of armour would start a couple of days later towards Torske in the southern half of the salient, after the Ukrainian forces had moved away to fight off the northern infantry assault.
The Russians used armoured assault groups to deliver troops into the forested areas and then began their infantry attack in the northern section. These deliveries were done at very high speed so that the vehicles barely stopped and retreated once their troops were disembarked - they didn’t hang around for Ukrainian drones to find them.
Ukraine confirmed it lost a couple of small positions but that the Russian casualties had been extremely high and the defences were well prepared for them.
Then came the mechanised attacks in the south towards Torske. The first wave was three APC’s and a pair of tanks travelling in a column, it did not go well. The Ukrainians with fresh artillery started to make things difficult and the Russians then ran into a tree line choke point the Ukrainian forces had mined very heavily. The Russian tanks had to move slowly to ensure their mine rollers worked, but in doing so became sitting ducks to artillery. The entire operation became mired in the mines and soldiers disembarking the disabled carriers fled, having failed to reach anywhere defensible or engage the Ukrainians. Cluster munitions ended their careers in the military.
It was noted that all of the Russian vehicles were equipped with EW equipment designed to counter drone strikes- but that didn’t stop the artillery.
The Russian attack failed, largely due to artillery.
This is an important turning point as the Ukrainian forces had become super-reliant on drones as a substitute and the Russians have been developing EW and systems like the ludicrous looking, but oddly effective, turtle tank to overcome them. Artillery cares about neither.
Yet again Ukrainian drones can return to their primary role of artillery hunting and killing - because when it comes down to it, as a long term strategic goal, the devastating losses of Russian artillery in the last year have made significant inroads into their offensive capabilities. There are no stocks left in strategic stores, nothing to refurbish, little being made , and what they have is in the field. This is why they have become so dependent on the Grad MLRS - cheap and easy to make as a vehicle and the rockets are simple if inaccurate, they work on volume not precision.
Ukraine’s war against Russian artillery has been vital to holding the line in the past year. Russia is in the odd position of having more shells than it knows what to do with and insufficient artillery to fire it with. Long gone are the days of 60,000 rounds hitting Ukrainian forces every day. Russia’s whole armed strategy has always been masses of infantry backed by masses of artillery, and one part of that previously successful duo has been substantially reduced with the advent of drones.

Slava Ukraini !
 
Gazprom shares collapsed on the Moscow Exchange after it became known that the company would not pay dividends based on operating results in 2023.

Gazprom's quotes sank by almost 6% and fell to 145.03 rubles — the lowest since October 2023. Against the backdrop of the decision of the Russian government, the largest shareholder of the gas monopoly, to prepare a directive to refuse payments, Gazprom's capitalization fell by 144 billion rubles, or almost $1.6 billion, in just over an hour.

Gazprom de facto has nothing with which to pay dividends: last year, for the first time in 25 years, the company closed with a net loss, and its size — 629 billion rubles — became a record in the three decades of its history. After the loss of the European market, Gazprom's exports fell back to the level of 1985 (69 billion cubic meters) and tripled compared to pre-war levels.

Unable to sell gas, Gazprom was forced to freeze wells and in two years lost a quarter of its production, which last year was the lowest in its history.

Having lost the gas war with Europe, Putin turned to China, offering to build a second pipeline, Power of Siberia-2, with a capacity of 50 billion cubic meters, in addition to the Power of Siberia pipeline. But Putin is unable to get Beijing's approval, despite assurances of "friendship" and "strategic" partnership "without borders". Putin did not receive a new contract, and Xi Jinping never mentioned Russian gas in his official statements.

Even if Gazprom manages to negotiate a new pipeline with China, it will only worsen its financial situation. Beijing does not want to invest a single yuan in the project and has offered to pay the multibillion-dollar construction bill itself.

Gazprom will not receive dividends for many, many years. The company does not have enough operating cash flow to cover the investment costs, and the debt burden is growing rapidly, points out Evgeniy Suvorov, an economist at CentroCredit Bank.

@ukrainejournal
 
From "The Analyst":

FULL FRONTLINE UPDATE

KHARKIV
There’s a lot of deviation between the Russian claims, neutral claims and Ukrainian claims over who controls what and how deep the grey zone of contact is. Russian sources always claim the grey zones as their own, but this level of diversion is indicative of a very tense, very complex and fluctuating situation where neither side has a firm handle on what’s going on.
Baring in mind how much effort the Russians put into this front they’re really not doing very well or getting very far.
We have to allow for the fact they had the luxury of not being disrupted before they crossed the frontier and Ukraine had to give ground even to target them with artillery, being banned from firing over the border - which is something the Russians have been using to their distinct advantage with supply trucks and artillery.
Frankly there is a lot of surprise that Russia hasn’t made more progress. The lack of Russian APC’s and tanks is noticeable. It’s very much an infantry and drone offensive.
Even further north west the Russians are putting some 15,000 ‘poorly trained and incoherent troops’ on the Sumy section of the front.
Vovchansk is a mess, hundreds of civilians dead in the streets, widespread executions and torture chambers reported every day. This is no ‘war of liberation’ as the Russians would call it.

SHEREBETS RIVER

The land east of the river has seen a small decline in fighting. The area and salient west of Kremina, towards Torske, has been quieter in the past days.

BILAHORIVKA

There’s been reports of heavy MLRS use from the Russians. However the Russians haven’t moved.

CHASIV YAR

The Russians have gained a little land into the Canal Zone micro-district. However their losses again, disproportionately high for land gained.
They are still nowhere near the main part of the own and have not crossed the canal.
Further south and east however at Ivaniske, the Russians have made gains taking further control of a key road. They now have 90% control of Ivaniske.
However - the Russians are moaning like mad about Ukrainian artillery dramatically upscaling its rate of fire.
The Russians are trying to take the underground canal sections because they can get over them through the woods and use them to undermine the defence.

KLIESHIEVKA

The Russians claim to have complete control, but they don’t as both neutral and Ukrainian mappers and analysts say that simply isn’t true - they’re the ones using geolocated information.
Even so the village is just a pile of dust now, there’s nowhere to hide. The Russian losses here are said to run at 1:10 in Ukraine’s favour. It’s a place of constant attrition.

AVDIVKA

The Russians have seemingly slowed to a stop here having come up against obstacles almost everywhere.
Only in the southern sector out of Pervomaiske have they made small gains.
The Russians do now control Pobeda and they continue to push slowly towards Constantinivke.

URAZHINE & ROBOTYNE

The first hasn’t changed form this mornings briefing, and there’s been a lot of fighting at Robotyne. Dormiver a week the Russians have been pushing and getting nowhere.

KRYNKY

Russian forces have been attacking hard at Krynky but apparently getting nowhere.

So there’s the current situation.
My thoughts on Kharkiv are that the Russians have bitten off more than they thought. It’s been a lot more vicious and harder going than they expected.
The consequences of that are that they will be forced to suck in more of their resources more quickly as the struggle gets harder.
In fact the more Ukraine pushes back or makes it difficult for them, the more Russia needs to use to avoid being ignominiously pushed out.
That’s the trouble with these things, they take on a will of their own and Russia hates being seen to lose so to be kicked out of this region so soon isn’t acceptable. That means they have to fight hard and long and use more resources. More indeed than they set out to, just to stand still. If Ukraine gets permission to hit over the border the picture could change quickly.
 

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.