27/ If setbacks continue on the ground, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain an uncompromising stance, especially as sanctions are struggling to produce their effects and the repercussions, in O, are visible: inflation, energy, threat to German industry.
Full-scale invasion and national resilience, broadcasted live.
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Difficulties in Ukraine: Ineffective defense and insufficient weapons
25/ On the UKR side, events are difficult. The forward defense strategy supposed to cause greater attrition of the RU is clearly not working, on the contrary. Likewise, the Western weapons arriving on the ground are not enough to restore the
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Monitoring Donets crossing near Yampil
19/ It is already under pressure from the north. Thus, we will need to monitor any possible crossing of the Donets near Yampil. Indeed, Russian forces will continue their maneuver to establish successive pincer movements, now within the Donetsk Oblast.
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Monitoring of the western withdrawal line from Siversk to Sloviansk
18/ Siversk had to be set up urgently. Therefore the withdrawal line slightly to the west, on the reverse slope of the thalweg, between Kostiantynivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka, the last stop line before Sloviansk, must be monitored. If the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk combine has been set up,
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Russian strategy: attrition, advantage, and territorial gains
16/ If the Russians are worn out, to the point of being able to conduct only one axis of effort at a time (thus they push at SK but wait at Horlivka or Izyum), the force differential seems in their favor. Especially, the early nibbling is followed by territorial gains.
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Fragility of Ukrainian Defense Lines Amidst Russian Gains
17/ more substantial (180 km² this week). It remains for UKR to have been able to organize sufficiently solid successive defense lines. The Bakhmut-Siversk line already appears very fragile as it follows the course of a river. Bakhmut is already weakened when
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Untrained Ukrainian Units vs. Russian Artillery, Western Gear Hopes Faltering
15/ Describing undertrained, poorly equipped units sent to the front to hold as best they can against Russian artillery. This suggests that Ukraine's gamble to buy maximum time for the RAPFOR reversal with Western equipment appears compromised.
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Russia controls the Black Sea, Ukraine reinforces Kherson
12/ On one hand, this does not prevent Russia from continuing to control the Black Sea and therefore the outlets of Odessa. But on the other hand, it eases the pressure and allows Ukraine to redistribute troops that were fixed on the coast: they can reinforce Kherson, for example.
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The War of Attrition in Mariupol, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk
13/ Military Assessment: It took the RU three months to take control of Mariupol, 3 weeks to take Severodonetsk, and less than a week to take Lysychansk. These figures demonstrate the extent to which a war of attrition can cause, locally,
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Russia abandons Snake Island, Ukraine’s weekly victory
The only truly good UKR news of the week was the abandonment by the RU of Snake Island, off the mouth of the Danube. It was close enough to the coast to be subjected to UKR artillery fire. Moscow logically abandoned the island.