(Jun 25, 2022 07:22 AM)Yazata Wrote: Current situation in the eastern Donbas battle as of Midnight Friday local time. Map from Ukraine War Map (@War_Mapper) on twitter. It shows that the Russians have occupied the small pocket that the Ukrainians evacuated. Currently, the Ukrainians are withdrawing their forces from Severodonetsk and the east side of the river.
Alchevsk, where the disobedient missile turned around and attacked the Russians that launched it is at the lower right.
Still no sign that Lysychansk is being evacuated, despite Russians approaching to its southern edges. Unclear what the Ukrainians plan to do there. Probably can't pull out before their forces are out from the east side of the river.
At some point I would expect the Ukrainians to pull back to west of Siversk around the black line (a big divided motorway?) east of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. In that little tongue of land stretching east to Lysychansk, the Ukrainians are too exposed to artillery fire and possible encirclement.
i expect Russia will start to dig in now and try to form a border front as they conscript more soldiers and re-supply their front lines
but i expect they will keep pushing in small pockets to try and make it look like they are still advancing.
range of fire and air cover is key
if russia re supply can be disrupted with longer range artillery it will keep them busy
ukraine need to have a secondary front line of artillery to draw any advancing russians into as they create a new front line for anti Armour and anti soldiers
as long as they dont let russia come in behind them to hit their artillery and supply
russia will depend on its air force more and more as the front line digs in and stalls
i would be looking to concentrate ukraining long range artillery to blitz russian front line positions to smash a hole into the front of their supply line
just enough to force russia to lose its ability to control direction of its own movements
the higher the russian body count goes the more russian people will oppose the invasion and oppose putin
forcing russia to commit soldiers on the ground to where Ukrainian artillery can hit them is the key
while ukraine looks to find open spots for commando style raids on supply lines