The Russian Steamroller Rolls On as Ukraine Braces for Impact

by Simplicius

Let’s start things a little differently this time and go straight to battlefield updates, as the Russian forces continue to make headway in a number of key sectors.

On the Avdeevka axis there have been several noteworthy gains since last time.

Firstly, the large gap area between Arkhangelsk and Keramik has been completely taken, circled in yellow below:

 
Arkhangelske itself is now also being stormed with a portion of it reportedly occupied by Russian troops, seen above the yellow arrow.

 
And now even Sokol/Sokil on the west side is being approached, with Russian troops moving up Karl Marx Avenue from Soloviev and engaging in battles with AFU troops on the outskirts of the small settlement.

Zooming out, we can once again see that the key hub of the region, Kostantinovka, is slowly being enveloped by the salients pushing in from Ocheretino and Chasov Yar, with the Ocheretino, the southern portion of the pincer now 10km from cutting Konstantinovka’s MSR:

 
In the north, RF units of the 98th Airborne Division advance in Chasov Yar not only directly head on, but bypassing the easternmost portion to the south where Russian troops have now been geolocated to passing over the Seversky-Donets canal highlighted in white below:

 
This means they appear to be attempting to put the main body of Chasov Yar into a pincer like so:

 
Spiegel:

Ukrainian militants are preparing for a quick retreat from the Chasov Yar area – Spiegel

“If the enemy occupies a height in the area of the village of Ivanovskoye, then he will be able to bring his anti-aircraft systems closer and hide his equipment between buildings, and we will be forced to withdraw firepower,” an Ukrainian Armed Forces officer told the German publication.

AFU soldiers complained about problems with supplies, as well as frequent strikes by Russian artillery and aviation.

According to the authors of the article, after the retreat from Chashi Yar, the northern part of the Donbass front may collapse. The situation for Kyiv is aggravated by the flight of militants from Ocheretino.

Observers of The Wall Street Journal agree with their German colleagues, who wrote that the advance of the Russian Armed Forces revealed the vulnerabilities of the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Julian Ropcke at Bild is likewise despondent:

Soon the army will enter Chasov Yar: it is approaching the city from the South, – BILD

During the attack on Chasov Yar, the army uses double strike tactics, BILD military expert Julian Röpcke previously reported. The Armed Forces directly attack the Kanal microdistrict to the east of the city and also bypass it from the North and South, passing through the villages of Bogdanovka and Ivanovskoye (Krasnoye). In the center and north, the Armed Forces maintain the line.

Now, on the southern flank of the Armed Forces, they managed to cross the Seversky Donets – Donbass canal and advance towards the city.

“The Forces have crossed the canal at Chasov Yar, 1 km southeast of the town. It is only a matter of time before they enter the town through the East or the South,” writes Röpcke.

Bild further writes:

The Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have enough soldiers to stop the advance of the Russian Armed Forces, reports the German Bild.

“The best soldiers have been killed, wounded or on almost continuous duty. Many are absolutely exhausted because rest and recovery phases are impossible due to lack of personnel. This reduces their combat effectiveness and morale,” the publication notes.

A new wave of mobilization will not be able to solve the personnel shortage, because the recruits do not receive good training and do not know how to use weapons.

In fact, here’s how the often-prescient Arestovich predicted the upcoming Russian efforts for this summer:

The events of the summer, according to Arestovich, will develop like this. The Russian army makes a breakthrough to Konstantinovka west of Chasova Yar, and in the Ocheretino area develops an offensive towards Pokrovsk. It is unclear what will happen further north in the area of Belogorovka-Seversk. The final task is to reach the Kramatorsk-Konstantinovka-Toretsk line by the end of June, and in September-November the battle for Slavyansk.

You can see that the two extremely key cities of Pokrovsk and Konstantinovka are nearly equidistant from the latest Ocheretino salient, so it’s likely Russian forces will continue developing both directions at the same time, finding the freest gaps to advance through like water flowing through areas of least resistance:

 
There are other advances in Urozhaynoye (Harvest), Rabotino, and even Kupyansk region, but for now this will suffice.

 
Moving on.

Let us touch on the topic of Ukrainian aid and prospects. Once the riotous fevers of post-aid jubilation cooled, Ukrainians have found themselves facing stark realities. I reported on it last time, but now we have even clearer confirmations of just how vaporous the promises may have really been.

The pro-UA commentariat is wailing from the soul that despite boisterous fanfare no aid has actually yet arrived, and much of the mainstays are not even due to be shipped for a long time:

 
He goes on to report:

 
Zelensky appeared to confirm this:

 
This follows what I wrote in the last report about U.S. merely beginning to take orders for materiel that can take 1-2 years to arrive.

This is greatly hampered by a sclerotic defense industry which is experiencing not only soaring costs but also great hesitancy and doubt:

 
For instance this report:

Some contractors do not want to enter into long-term contracts with the US Department of Defense with fixed prices to replenish weapons supplied from the Pentagon stockpile to Ukraine, according to a report by the GAO Congressional Accountability Office.

According to the department, the US military departments have concluded or are planning to conclude in the near future multi-year contracts for the purchase of five types of weapons supplied to Ukraine. But Pentagon officials and contractor officials told GAO they are facing challenges in implementing those plans. Thus, a number of contractors are reluctant to enter into long-term agreements because of their fixed price.

Russian analyst Starshe Eddy made an insightful post precisely on this tack:

What is also interesting for Ukrainians with NATO supplies is that almost all improvements in the transferred armored vehicles and artillery, both in terms of ease of use and security, are the work of the crests themselves. Both effective and not very effective, but mostly handicraft. Factory modifications are mainly given to equipment that is in a state that requires major repairs – be it old Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers, or Western vehicles. And improvements are mainly carried out within the framework of existing pre-war projects and developments, practically without taking into account the experience of the war.

We also have room to grow in this area, but the configuration of the armor and additional protection of the same T-72B3 and T-90M, which go to the troops with UVZ, has already been changed several times, and will continue to be changed as the threat picture transforms. How will the recently withdrawn Abrams from the front change before returning there? The question here is rather whether they will have somewhere to return to.

The enemy’s strengths in this part are mainly concentrated on the territory of Ukraine itself and mainly in the development of drones – the improvement of the same drones there is now progressing at a pace that is faster than similar developments by NATO, due to the constant communication of developers with those who use these weapons.

Why is this happening? In general, everything is quite simple. NATO never perceived this war as something in which it was absolutely necessary to invest all its resources, and its industry still follows a cost-minimizing path that does not involve actively improving the transferred equipment, much less rapidly improving it. Pan-European bureaucratic processes, which have turned almost any Western military project into an endless bagpipe of papers and meetings, only exacerbate the problem.

For them. For us, of course, they simplify it.

This was underlined by Russian hacker group Beregini which released a report detailing how almost all the German Leopard 1A5 tanks given to Ukraine had defects:

 
On the other hand, Russian supplies, strikes, and groupings continue to increase. For instance, this update from defense analyst Konrad Muzyka:

“We have reached the point where the situation on the front is the worst since March 2022. The numerical advantage of the Russians is constantly growing, as is the number of attacks. Ukraine did not survive the darkest hour. It’s just about to start.”

 
It’s compounded by massive troop woes:

 
Summary from the above:

The 47th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered very heavy losses in soldiers, and also lost 40 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 5 Abrams tanks.

Forbes writes about this.

“When Ukrainian defenses collapsed a little over a week ago near the village of Ocheretino, a few miles west of the ruins of Avdiivka, the Ukrainian command did what it usually does in a crisis – it deployed the 47th mechanized “emergency brigade” there, trained by NATO instructors and riding on Abrams tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M-109 self-propelled guns,” the publication writes.

But as Forbes notes, the 47th Brigade was unable to stop Russia’s 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade from capturing Ocheretino last week and deepening a 5-mile salient that has cut like a knife into Ukrainian territory.

The brigade was actually in the process of being withdrawn from the front to recover when the Russian 30th Brigade attacked Ocheretino. The command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces grouping “Donetsk” ordered the 47th to turn around and return to battle, where it suffered huge losses, Forbes writes.

The publication recalls that the 47th brigade led the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Rabotino back in June and suffered heavy losses in Russian minefields. 4 months later the brigade was thrown 100 miles into the massacre in Avdeevka. The city fell in February, and the 47th remained to cover the retreat and then moved to support the flank at Ocheretino.

“It suffered heavy casualties and lost at least 40 of its approximately 200 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 5 of 31 Abrams tanks. The brigade is in dire need of rest, reboot and reorganization,” Forbes writes.

And Washington Post indirectly dropped another bombshell when they finally admitted that Zelensky’s laughable casualty figure was fake, meant to bolster morale, and that the real number is likely significantly higher—something those capable of breathing through their nose have long known:

Read more