They can see a breaking point, but not for Russia. That why they've reverted to their old tactics. It's now or never.FLBear5630 said:You act like this is a bad thing? Last Ukrainian? Everything written points to a Ukrainian breakthrough.Sam Lowry said:You're right about one thing--the Ukes know a breaking point is near. You wanted to see us fight to the last Ukrainian. Looks like you won't have to wait much longer.whiterock said:See Bear 8084's post. ISW is unable to visually confirm significant advances. As I noted, the advances claimed are not significant and Uke withdrawals to more easily defendable terrain are not necessarily a net-gain for Russia......Sam Lowry said:It's not yet clear that Ukraine controls Klishschiivka or Andriivka. They still have Yahidne and Opytne to deal with before surrounding Bakhmut. Ignoring it would be the smartest thing they've done in a long time, but the rhetoric from Kiev suggests they're about to repeat their mistake. Ukraine's best tank brigades (33rd and 47th) were slaughtered at Robotyne in the early days of the offensive. They adopted the attrition strategy out of necessity. They're now attacking that area with large numbers of tanks and again taking heavy losses. All of which suits the Russians just fine.whiterock said:The rate of advance has accelerate from meters per day, to a kilometer or two. That works out to 10-25km total for the past six weeks. It is tactically significant, as the advances around Donetsk and Bakhmut indeed are. It is not, however, anywhere near Russia.Sam Lowry said:You've been saying this for a couple of months. If the Ukrainians were advancing kilometers per day, they'd be in Russia by now.whiterock said:
Pravda today is confirming that Ukraine has now captured Avdiivka, on the northern outskirts of Donetsk City. It is of course symbolically significant that Ukrainian troops are on the outskirts of the capitol city of Donetsk province. But there is a far more important factor at play. Check the map.
The black lines are railways. When Ukraine seizes that rail yard in downtown Donetsk, or encircles and besieges Donetsk, all Russian units west of Donetsk are severed from rail communication directly to Russia. All supply shipments from Russia to units on the Kherson and Zapo fronts will have to be trucked over a single highway from Rostov to Melitopol, or on rail/truck lines via Crimea (which of course must traverse the Kerch Bridge AND the two Svash chokepoints, one of which was reduced to pontoon bridge a couple of weeks ago.
when Donetsk falls, Crimea is effectively under siege. Russia will, at some point, be forced by supply issue to withdraw their western armies to the Crimea.
None of that is imminent. But such things are subject to the "slowly, then suddenly" model of failure. Russia is losing ground by the kilometer every day. No single kilometer is terribly important. Until one is. Those rail yards in Donetsk are terribly important.
Ukraine COULD advance down from Donetsk and cross into Russian territory to cut the highway between Rostov and Melitopol. They have are no reserves to stop it, other than the grandpas and schoolboys that typically make up territorial guards units. Interestingly, there is an unverified report out today that Russia has rigged the bridges in/out of Melitopol with explosives. If true, that would suggest that Russia is starting to make contingency plans for the collapse of the center of their line in Donetsk, which happens to be a primary area of Ukrainian gains.
Imagine the spectacle of 200k troops or so on the Zapo front being supplied primarily across a pontoon bridge across the Svash, and there is no maintenance yard to supply broken down trucks with new batteries or tires because Ukraine blew it all up yesterday.
And the Uke heavy brigades have still not been engaged.......
More important is, it is amply clear from reports that the Ukes are doing exactly what I described several weeks ago - making cautious tactical movements to seize positions, then settling in and awaiting the inevitable human wave counter-attacks. Russians are obliging. The primary strategic objective of Uke attacks appear, however, not to be making the "big breakthrough" but rather attriting Russian artillery, which is being decimated. Russian communication and fire control procedures remain antiquated. They are emplaced and organized to do preparatory fires in support of Russian attacks, not respond to random fire missions, and of course the fuel and fleet to move tubes are in short supply.
Bakhmut has already been effectively encircled. Uke artillery already covers all lines of Russian communication. Klishchiivka is high ground which affords visual observation of all of those lines, so now any vehicle which attempts to enter/leave Bakhmut will be destroyed. I doubt Uke will make a serious attempt to take Bakhmut. They'll bypass it and let the Russians either surrender, or exhaust themselves in breakout attacks.
Same cannot be said for Donetsk. Uke will need it for symbolism, and for the rail yards.
If you want to see accelerated progress, keep your eye on the northeast. There's no mention of it in Western media, but the Russians are advancing at a half dozen or so points and have crossed the Zherebets River into Nadia and Serhiivka in the last couple of days. From there it's a straight shot to Borova and the chance to sever the Ukrainian line east of the Oskil.
as for your sources on the Uke offensive.... Here's what ISW has been able to confirm, usually with imagery.
Ukrainian forces launched a significant mechanized counteroffensive operation in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 26 and appear to have broken through certain pre-prepared Russian defensive positions south of Orikhiv. Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and several prominent milbloggers, claimed that Ukrainian forces launched an intense frontal assault towards Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) and broke through Russian defensive positions northeast of the settlement.[1] Geolocated footage indicates that Ukrainian forces likely advanced to within 2.5km directly east of Robotyne during the attack before Russian forces employed standard doctrinal elastic defense tactics and pushed Ukrainian troops back somewhat, although not all the way back to their starting positions.[2]
Russian sources provided a wide range of diverging claims as to the scale of both the attack and resulting Ukrainian losses, indicating that the actual results and Ukrainian losses remain unclear. The Russian MoD claimed that up to three battalions engaged in a "massive assault" near Orikhiv, but ISW has not yet observed visual evidence to suggest that such a large number of personnel (a full brigade) were involved in the attack.[3] One prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces used over 80 armored vehicles, and other milbloggers more conservatively claimed that the number was closer to between 30 and 40.[4] Various Russian milbloggers additionally made disparate claims about how many armored vehicles Russian forces destroyed.[5] ISW has also not yet observed a large number of heat anomalies from NASA's FIRMS / VIIRs sensors in this area of the frontline of the sort that have historically accompanied large, mechanized pushes.[6] The disagreement amongst several prominent Russian sources, who have generally tended to offer more mutually consistent claims about the size of and losses resulting from previous Ukrainian attacks, indicates that the situation remains less than clear and that Ukrainian forces may have been more successful than assessed by Russian commentators.
The battlefield geometry around Robotyne, as well as the force composition of the Russian elements defending there, offer important color to speculation surrounding the Ukrainian attack and gains. Geolocated footage from July 27 shows two Ukrainian Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and a T-72 tank either disabled or abandoned about 2.5km due east of Robotyne, which is a point that is about 2.5km south of the current frontline.[7] This geolocated point is beyond the forward-most pre-prepared Russian defensive fortifications in this area, indicating that Ukrainian forces managed to penetrate and drive through tactically challenging defensive positions. This kind of penetration battle will be one of the most difficult things for Ukrainian forces to accomplish in pursuit of deeper penetrations, as ISW has previously assessed. The defensive lines that run further south of Robotyne are likely less well-manned than these forward-most positions, considering that Russian forces have likely had to commit a significant portion of available forces to man the first line of defensive positions that are north and east of Robotyne.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-26-2023
In other words, Uke has penetrated the strongest point on the Russian line, at an apparent cost of a handful of tanks & armored vehicles, requiring a full-scale Russian counter-attack.
This comes after 7 weeks of constant probing and fixing attacks, each of which sparked immediate Russian counterattacks (pulling Russian troops out of defensive fortifications....). During this time, Russian forces have received no reinforcements, no rotations, and their ammunition supply lines have been constantly interdicted, severely restricting available food, water, ammo, meds, etc..... By contrast, the Ukes are receiving uninterrupted supplies, regular rotations and reinforcements, and have nearly western standards of field hospitals and medical evacuations.
You should pause at this point and consider how much longer the Russian lines can hold before they break. The commitment of the Uke heavy brigades means the Ukes assess the breaking point is near.