Ukraine War, 19–20 May 2022
Good morning everybody!
Good morning everybody!
Bad news from the Popasna area, thus another ‘unplanned’ update.
To start with, sorry, can’t but start with a complaint about the media: by all the reports about Putin taking over the command on the battlefield, bypassing even Gerasimov (i.e. not only Shoygu), etc., it turns out the RFA has ‘suddenly’ found a way back to the way it should have fought all the time.
What am I talking about?
The Russian military doctrine emphasises bypassing urban areas while on advance: if defended, these are to be isolated by foremost units (‘first echelon’) and then invested by troops of the ‘second echelon’. With other words: outflanked and besieged, if necessary, but not assaulted by advancing units.
So far in this war, we’ve seen next to nothing of this. On the contrary, the Russians are all the time rushing to capture every village and town, regardless how minor, and regardless of losses. Nominally, at least, this was ‘logical’, considering Putin’s illusions about Ukrainians not being keen to fight, and the RFA receiving the order to bring as much of Ukraine under control within the shortest possible period of time, while all the time operating at the end of critically thin supply links. With other words: it needed roads to keep its troops supplied. And, well, roads are usually connecting urban areas: nobody is constructing them from nowhere to nowhere…
Unsurprisingly, the Ukrainian tactics was to convert every place into a ‘fortress’: entrench where buildings are providing additional protection — and defend. With the RFA violating its own doctrine so often, it’s even less surprising this caused it shameful failures and catastrophic losses as we’ve seen, for example, in the area north-west of Kyiv, in Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Izium, not to talk about Severodonetsk, Popasna, and especially in Rubizhne (this time I’m talking about Rubizhne north of Severodonetsk).
Well, after all of this, somebody there in Moscow came to his senses, and the RFA is now back to its original tactics — apparently with quite some success.
Word is that yesterday in the Popasna area, the combination of crack VDV troops and mechanised guards units returned to the original doctrine, and began advancing past villages fortified and defended by Ukrainians. Pay attention: these are serious troops, no kids training for parades in Moscow for months. And they are followed by mechanised Separatist units…
As first, they should have launched a decoy attack on Trypillya, thus tied the defenders down, then exploited the opportunity to rush the VDV past the place to quickly capture Volodymyrivka. This attack seems to have been brought forward at such a pace, that the Ukrainians couldn’t bring their artillery to bear. ‘Logical consequence’: Ukrainians were forced to withdraw from both, Trypillya and Troitske, to avoid being encircled.
As a consequence, the Russians took Druzhba, 5km further south, too.
Around the same time, the RFA did something similar in the Komyshuvakha area: while tying down the defenders of that village by mechanised forces, it rushed its VDV troops over the Komyshuvakha River, punched through in between Komyshuvakha and Zolote, and advanced on Vrubivka from the south, securing it late in the evening. The latter place is mere 30km south of Severodonetsk. Worst of all, Troitske, Vrubivka and Druzhba are only 8–9km east of the road T1302: the main life-line for Ukrainian forces in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area…
With other words: by now, the ‘Plan G’ seems to be working relatively good — and in Russia’s favour. And, as announced, the Popasna area is now definitely the new ‘Schwerpunkt’.
Moreover, and as can be seen from attached photos, the RFA units involved in this advance are equipped with a significant number of BMTP Terminator-1/2. In RFA’s vocabulary, these are ‘tank supporting fighting vehicles’: they’ve got a small turret with two 30mm autocanons and four anti-tank guided missiles.
What’s the point about that?
Well, these two 30mm autocannons pack heavy punch, which they can deliver over a good range. Foremost, BMTPs are made to combat infantry — precisely such, highly-mobile, but heavily armed infantry like that of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They are offering the same protection to their crew like tanks do, while their 30mm autocanons have already proven as a major — and very unpleasant — surprise for Ukrainians, right from the start of this war: due to the combination of these guns with 9M120 Ataka anti-tank guided missiles (ASCC/NATO-codename ‘AT-9 Spiral-2’), and AGS-17D or AGS-30 grenade launchers — they are far more flexible than any of Russian tanks.
Atop of this all, there are bad news from the northern Kharkiv Oblast, where the RFA counterattacked and recaptured Ternova and Rubizhne, thus pushing Ukrainian forces away from both: international border and the main supply hub of the RFA in Vovchansk.
….and from northern Severodonetsk, where Ukrainians have been forced to evacuate Schcherdrycheve village, a northern suburb of this town.
The first is indicative of the Russians not giving up on the idea of retaining a grip on something like a ‘buffer zone’ in northern Kharkiv, but, on the contrary, bringing in reinforcements from the Belgorod area.
The latter sounds like the Russian penetration in the Popasna area is forcing the Ukrainian group of forces in the Severodonetsk area to shorten its frontline — probably to free troops it can send to face the new threat from the south. That’s logical, then: now there is once again a serious threat of (at least) four Ukrainian brigades ending encircled in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area — and the deeper the Russian penetration west and north of Popasna goes, the more troops Ukrainians need to stop it…
With other words: still weeks away from introducing the mass of heavy arms provided by NATO, Ukrainian forces are going through their next major crisis of this war.