Don's Weekly, 23 September 2024: Part 2

by Donald Hill

(….continued from Part 1…)

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Western Luhansk

Russia didn’t advance in Kupiansk but advanced two more kilometers towards the Oskil river by Pishchane. The Russians also destroyed the bridge across the Oskil river at Sadove.

A mine and a few drones operated by the 3rd Assault Brigade take care of a Russian turtle tank with a mine roller and a BTR.

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Terny

Russia made small gains around Makiivka and advanced almost five kilometers to Nevske.

East of Torske, Ukraine advanced about a kilometer on a three kilometer front and captured three Russians. An 11 minute video of how the Ukrainians captured them by posing as Russians.

Russian armored vehicles were destroyed while attacking.

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Siversk

After a failed assault, some Russians hid in a trench for seven days. A Ukrainian drone discovered and attacked them. After reloading and returning, one survivor was unhurt and offered to surrender. After receiving water and a note, he slowly made his way towards the Ukrainian lines. His brotherly Russians shelled him with mortar fire for humanitarian purposes, but he made it to a Ukrainian position. This is the short version and this is the long version.

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Bakhmut

A drone team from Ukraine’s 23rd Brigade allowed a report to accompany them on a night mission in the Chasiv Yar area. The key for both sides was not to be spotted, so the drone team raced to the front line in a van loaded with explosives and unloaded quickly. The Russians use drones to mine the roads and even land FPV drones on the road to use them as mines, which is difficult to spot at night.

They use a basement as shelter and prepare the missions there and walk to fields to launch the drones. They drop anti-tank mines on Russian positions and mine the roads, just like the Russians. They also use a drone to pour liquid fire on a position. Using one-way drones is safer, but they need to use the two-way drones to drop the bigger payloads and these drones can be followed when they return. If the drone team knows their drone was spotted, they’ll land the drone and wait until the Russian drone is gone before retrieving it. If they don’t think they’ve been followed then they’ll retrieve it right away to prepare for another mission. If a Russian drone is observing, it can follow the team back to their position and they’re important enough to use a glide bomb to kill the drone team.

Due to a shortage of personnel, drone teams will often remain on the front line for days before being rotated back. The article is linked here, and the Twitter thread with videos is here.

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Toretsk

A Ukrainian position from a slagheap to the west observes the fighting in downtown Toretsk. Fighting remained heavy but Russia only advanced about 1-200 meters.

A Ukrainian T-64 team confirms the reality of over a year now, that drones altered the way tanks conduct operations. They mostly act as long ranged artillery although the shortage of ammo hampers that role. They have jammers that help but are ineffective against drones that operate on frequencies that are different from what the jammers are working on. They said that many laughed at the Russians for creating turtle tanks but started to add armor to their tanks, as well. The older donated tanks, such as the Leopard 1, didn't have enough armor to deal with the current threats and they struggled to understand the manuals since they were written in German.

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Pokrovsk

Russia made gains at Hrodivka and other locations. After defeating a 46 vehicle assault on Hostre last week, Ukraine was unable to hold onto it this week. In addition to airstrikes, Russia sent 52 vehicles in 24 attacks to attack Hostre again. Russia lost 13 armored vehicles (another four that were damaged), plus 72 soldiers.

A Bradley is hit twice by a Kornet ATGM, which has a 4.6 kg warhead. All three crew members were able to run out after the second hit immobilized the vehicle.

On the western side of Mykhailivka, Russians seek cover from small arms fire in a shed, which is then hit by a drone.

A Ukrainian report from Lysivka said they were holding out as of late last week despite heavy artillery bombardments and multiple infantry assaults.

Interviews with Ukrainian officers explain how Russia advanced 30 km in six months once Avdiivka fell: The 3rd Assault Brigade was brought in to cover the withdrawal from Avdiivka. When that was complete, they were rotated out and the 68th Brigade was rotated in. In a now familiar pattern, the rotation was quick and the 68th didn’t have time to become familiar with the terrain or enemy behavior and tactics. To make matters worse, the 3rd took their trench EW systems with them. Immediately, Russian drone and meat attacks began and never stopped.

While Russia slowly advanced in the south, the situation in the north was static until the Russians decided to advance along the railroad, which had thick treelines on either side of the tracks. If this route was mined and defended with dug in defenses it would have been a strong position. But the 115th had just replaced the 100th Brigade there and did none of those things. A neighboring brigade notified the 115th that Russia was going to launch an attack on Ocheretyne and the 115th said they were ready: actually, there were no minefields, there were no defensive positions. The Russians reached Ocheretyne virtually unopposed, and that unraveled the Ukrainian defenses in the entire sector.

Russia continued advancing with endless small-unit attacks in every direction and the Ukrainian units in this sector found it difficult to establish a defensive line in which friendly units were firmly anchored to adjacent friendly units. There was always a hole somewhere and the small Russian units would eventually find those holes and disrupt any partially established defensive line. By the time the Russian advance reached Sokil and Yevhenivka, small groups of Ukrainians were walking around challenging other small groups because they couldn’t determine if they were friendly or enemy.

At Prohres, 46 soldiers of the 31st Brigade were trapped by Russians penetrating holes that were never filled in the Ukrainian line or creating holes by pushing back portions of the line that were weakly held. Some soldiers of the 31st and adjacent units said the commander of the 31st never gave the order to leave. One senior officer of the 31st disagrees with those reports and said the commander personally approved the withdrawal plan. In any case, the trapped Ukrainian soldiers were evacuated with help from the 47th Brigade, the commander of the 31st was relieved, and the 31st was eventually withdrawn from the difficult sector.

The Ukrainian soldiers said that there were several general contributing factors that facilitated the broad Russian advance. One is that Russia has more men and equipment. The 108th Separate Battalion (“Da Vinci Wolves”) are now fighting in Selydove, a main focal point of the Russian advance. They say that a position manned by 4 Ukrainian soldiers can be attacked by up to 80 Russian soldiers during the day. One soldier in the 68th Brigade is frustrated with the lack of artillery and mortar ammo followed by questions of why Russia is always advancing. He says that Russia fires more of the larger artillery ammo than Ukraine fires with the smaller mortars. Another brigade was only given three 120mm mortar shells a day but at least had 40-45 82mm mortar shells a day. (Note: That is still a small amount). Ukrainian drones are a big help but they cannot fill the void caused by the lack of indirect fire ammo.

Another soldier from the 47th Brigade prioritizes the problems as the lack of personnel, first of all, then the lack of training of what little personnel they have, and finally, the varying degrees of competence in the commanders. The 110th Brigade, which fought off the Russians in Avdiivka for two years, is still on the line even though it’s at 40% strength. The 68th Brigade was moved from Kupiansk at full strength (but without rest) and lost a lot of people at Seminivka. At Seminivka they had about 90% experienced personnel and 10% new personnel. Now they have about 10% experienced personnel and the average age of the new personnel is around 50 with lower levels of motivation. Newly created units, such as the 151st Brigade, had more personnel, but their lack of experience as individuals and as a unit staff working together, meant their combat power suffered as they learned.

Another issue is that many of the defenses prepared months earlier were located on ground that was difficult to support, such as fighting positions in the middle of a field. Not only could drones easily spot and attack such a position, replacements and supplies would have to cross an open field without any cover just to reach the position. Or anti-tank ditches that were dug in locations that allowed the Russians to enter and travel along them unobserved right up to the Ukrainian positions. Or positions that could only be defended by 30 soldiers when it is common for only four soldiers to defend a hundred meters of defensive line. The commander of the Da Vinci Wolves said that his unit has to create their own positions with shovels rather than use the prepared positions that are useless, or worse: help the enemy advance.

Russia and Ukraine both have about the same number of units in Pokrovsk since the Kursk offensive and Russia is still making progress in this region. But Ukraine has the edge in a mobile battlefield and is destroying Russian units under more favorable conditions in Kursk, plus the land being destroyed on that battlefield is Russian. Russia will need a lot of reserves to actually take Pokrovsk and many of those reserves are being expended in Kursk.

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(….to be continued…)