Ukraine War, 14 May 2022

Hello everybody,

Hello everybody,

was about to take at least a few hours off, after all the work of the last few days…. but, there’re no ‘time outs’ on the battlefields in Donbass…

By now it’s quite certain (even if a final confirmation is still pending) that the Russian bridgehead at Bilohorivka was completely destroyed, yesterday. I.e. that battle seems to have been concluded — with catastrophic losses of the RFA (visual evidence is indicating a complete destruction of at least two BTGs).

However…. there are rumours that the Russians have retained two other, smaller bridgeheads in the Serbianka area (that’s west of Bilohorivka)….

Moreover, and that’s really bad, this morning, there are reports about an entirely new bridgehead — and then quite a deep one (3–5km) — in between Shypylivka and Pryvillya. That’s north of Bilohorivka and north-west of Sieverodonetsk…

There are reports about urgent re-deployment of Ukrainian units in that direction, apparently into Pryvillya and Novodruzhesk, too…

I’m going to stress here: this is anything else than confirmed, and I’ve got no evidence. Really, ‘raw rumour’. Thus, please, do not panic, or start declaring me for ‘hysteric’. Point is: provided this is truth, the Russians now have a BTG deep behind the northern flank of Sieverodonetsk’s defences (i.e. on the north-western side of the town).

With other words: no matter failures, and hard on heels of reports about Dvornikov being ordered to reach his objectives regardless the cost (which is: surround Sieverodonetsk): we’re back to square one, and mind that about the Russians and their bridgeheads…

EDIT/UPDATE №1: here an ‘add-on’ which — so I hope — might explain why am I as concerned about ‘these Russian bridgeheads on Siversky Donets’.

Dimitri has provided this link: https://t.me/rybar/32642

It’s a Telegram account in Russian, and is ‘dissecting’ developments related to the RFA’s bridgeheads on Siversky Donets. What’s really surprising for me is: not only the extension of this Russian offensive. But, first and foremost, it says, all of this has happened already between 2 and 5 May. Mind: that’s 9–12 days ago!

In this war, 9–12 days is awfully lots of time. So much so that — for reasons explained earlier — by now the RFA could have driven all the way down to Popasna, closing the ‘sack’ around Ukrainian units in the Sieverodonetsk area. Obviously, it didn’t. But, it could have. And we would have been ‘informed’ about this only days later… or not at all.

Another detail one might want to pay attention about is: along this version of developments, and even once the ‘main’ Russian bridgehead at Bilohorivka was destroyed, there still remained two other bridgeheads — and that just in this area…

EDIT/UPDATE №2: ….and here another one, thanks to Olexandar, and from this link, showing why there is so much confusion regarding what bridge — and bridgehead — was ‘important’ at what point in time.