Russian merchant ship rejected in several ports, finally docks in Syria 1:05
(CNN) — The war in Ukraine will soon be three months old. Russian forces are still far from the minimum targets set by President Vladimir Putin, and in many areas the front lines are beginning to look static. But the Ukrainians’ defense lines in the east have also been degraded after weeks of heavy shelling.
Essentially, two battlefields emerge. Russians add combat power to campaign to capture Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The Ukrainians are trying to both restrain and cut them off. It’s a three-dimensional chessboard of military calculation. And the natural borders drawn by a river in eastern Ukraine are already hampering the progress of both sides.
Russian troops have taken territory, but in modest numbers. Many of their gains, particularly in the South, came in the early days of the invasion and they have tried to consolidate them. In the epicenter of the conflict – in the industrial belt of the Luhansk region – they have resorted to widespread bombing.
As one Ukrainian official put it: “The Russians don’t change their tactics: they destroy the cities and only then enter the scorched earth.”
Russian ground forces are no longer occupying incremental territory – for now – while anecdotal reports point to low discipline and morale among some units.
Russia still has just under 100 tactical battalion groups (BTGs) in Ukraine and another 20 across the border, according to US officials. Each BTG has about 1,000 soldiers, but US officials say many of them have been demoted after more than two months of conflict.
In Luhansk and Donetsk – the targets of the Russian “special military operation” – not a single city beyond Mariupol has fallen into Russian hands. That could soon change after weeks of bombardment of the industrial belt of Lugansk, a chain of cities that includes Severodonetsk and Rubishne. It now appears that the Ukrainian resistance in Rubishne has effectively ended. Behind it lies a landscape of ruins, without water, energy and people.
Video summary of the war Ukraine – Russia: May 12, 15:44
Its residents – mainly Chechen fighters and militia officers from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic – inherit a vacant lot. But the loss of Rubishne leaves neighboring Severodonetsk, which was a city of 100,000 before the invasion and now has 15,000 hiding in basements, more vulnerable. And if Ukrainian resistance there is no longer tenable, new defense lines will be needed to prevent a Russian advance west.
However, the Russian offensive from the north was much less successful. This is where the meandering Siverskyi Donets comes into play. The river rises in Russia and empties into Ukraine, forming swamps, flood plains and arcuate lakes while cutting through chalk cliffs. In other words: a nightmare for a military attack.
The Russians tried and apparently failed to place several pontoons across the river to encircle the Ukrainian troops. Satellite images analyzed by CNN show at least three bridges were destroyed this week and the Russians suffered heavy casualties.
Further west, the Russians appear to have crossed the river, but it is too early to say if their numbers are sustainable. In the last month, since the occupation of Izium, they have made limited progress despite strained Ukrainian lines. And its strategic target – Sloviansk – has deep defenses.
Ukrainians have removed at least two pontoon bridges near Bilohorivka in the past 24 hours, satellite and drone images show.
Smoke rises from the west bank of the river at one end of the bridge. Craters and smoke can also be seen on the east bank on the east bank.
To sustain an offensive in this area, the Russian Army needs supplies, and these must come from across the border. The supply line runs from Belgorod to the Ukrainian railway junction of Kupyansk and further south.
Ukrainian forces appear determined to break this funnel and have made progress in retaking areas north and east of Kharkiv. First of all, this reduced Russian fire to the city itself. And in some places the Ukrainian units are now within sight of the Russian border and have the Russian supply lines within artillery range.
Geolocated video from CNN showed several top-tier Russian T90M tanks being destroyed as Ukrainian units advanced east towards Siverskyi Donets. They now control the town of Staryi Saltiv, according to a CNN crew who was in the deserted town on Thursday.
Once again, the river is a natural obstacle and could impede the Ukrainian advance in this area. But the Ukrainian counter-offensive has already prompted the Russians to withdraw some units to protect their western flank and keep up to 20 BTG in Belgorod.
As Mick Ryan, a former US major general, puts it, the Ukrainians have “put Russian commanders in the ‘horns of a dilemma’ while slowly exhausting their combat capability in the east”.
But Ryan doesn’t expect a more ambitious Ukrainian offensive that would drain already depleted resources. “Ukrainians are likely to continue their ongoing ‘bites’ on the Russians to reclaim their territory, rather than launching a general offensive on all fronts,” he said. tweeted.
A video of a drone circulating on social media, geolocated and authenticated by CNN, shows the aftermath of the attacks.
Other photos, also taken by a drone, show that the Russians tried to build a second pontoon bridge across the river, which was also blown up by the Ukrainians.
Southern Ukraine: A very different war
The picture is less dynamic in the south, where the front lines have hardly moved. The Russians still control an important belt of farmland in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, but their efforts to advance north have been sporadic.
In Kherson, for example, public unrest has subsided, partly because an estimated 45% of the population has left the region.
The Russians continue to launch cruise missile attacks on Odessa and other coastal regions, with little purpose beyond terrorizing civilians and little “operational design” in military parlance.
An attempt to attack the city by land or sea seems highly unlikely, especially since the sinking of the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva.
US intelligence has ruled out any imminent possibility that Russian forces will attempt to capture the entire coast of Ukraine. That would likely require full mobilization within Russia, a move Putin has not yet ordered.
Instead, the Russians seem determined to consolidate their control of a land corridor from the Crimean border and try to “integrate” Kherson into the “Russian world” by introducing Russian passports, the ruble, and a puppet administration.
But their proxies rule areas in unfortunate conditions, with health and public services seriously deteriorated. And there’s plenty of evidence that Russian units are treating the region like a candy store, stealing everything from tractors to museum artifacts. Still no serious attempt to rule
A war of attrition
Few expect a coup from either side in the coming months. A war of attrition seems more likely as weapons supplied by the United States and its allies dominate the battlefield. The first American howitzers are already at the front.
Avril Haines, director of US National Intelligence, said this week: “Because both Russia and Ukraine believe they can continue to advance militarily, we see no viable avenue for negotiation, at least in the short term.”
“The uncertainty of the struggle shaping up into a war of attrition, combined with the reality that Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities, likely means we’ll see another descent in the coming months could take an unpredictable and potentially escalating path.
Perhaps the greatest risk for Ukraine is that a war like this – on the same fronts we see today – would be sustainable, albeit harsh, for Russia. However, it would hit the Ukrainian economy, which the World Bank expects to shrink by 45% this year.
Putin could then wait for an opportunity to take another bite out of a country he believes has no right to exist.
There is an additional – not yet apparent – risk that the West’s sense of urgency to support Ukraine with money and arms will diminish as the conflict falters. Let’s remember Syria.
But the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has already exceeded most expectations. There comes a time when critical decisions—or mistakes—on either side can affect the outcome.
In the words of Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, “The opportunity to insure against defeat is in our own hands, but the opportunity to defeat the enemy is the enemy himself.”