Om Vuhledar: x.com
Russia has attacked Vuhledar several times over the past two years, but this current attack began on September 25th, 2023, when Russia launched its full-scale attack on Novomykhailivka. Ukraine fended off the attack for nearly 7 months but ultimately lost the town on April 21st, almost entirely due to airstrikes that annihilated it. During the assault on Novomykhailivka, which Russia saw as one of its primary objectives last winter, Ukraine destroyed well over 300 Russian vehicles during the primary assault and probably another 300 during secondary and tertiary assaults.
Next came the battle for Kostyantynivka, which lasted several more months before Russia managed to break into the middle of the village. Ukraine ultimately decided to withdraw from its defense of the western part of the town on August 27th, and this withdrawal, I believe, was the beginning of the end for Vuhledar. It started a chain reaction.
During the battle for Kostyantynivka, Russia began to push toward Vodiane. They made it near the highway by the time Ukraine retreated from Kostyantynivka, but almost a week before Ukraine left Kostyantynivka, Russia managed to capture the trench line defending the highway. These events were so close in time that they were not a coincidence. I think either Ukraine decided to withdraw from the highway because of Kostyantynivka or they decided to withdraw from Kostyantynivka because of the highway. I don’t know which.
Regardless, also running concurrently with the primary assaults on Kostyantynivka, Russia began a massive air campaign on Prechystivka. I tried to raise alarm bells on this several times; it was highly concerning and reminded me of their behavior in Novomykhailivka. After many months of near-continuous airstrikes, Russia launched a large and pretty sudden assault on the town beginning on August 26th, capturing it on September 3rd, ultimately collapsing the western flank of Vuhledar and pushing across the Kashlahach River in multiple places with large numbers of troops in each instance.
Losing Kostyantynivka and the highway near Vodiane made defending Vuhledar extremely questionable; losing these river crossings made it practically impossible. The fact that all three occurred within 17 days, after many months of preparation and planning, shows how coordinated the attack on Vuhledar was.
Then came the capture of Vodiane itself (around September 8th,9th,10th) and, quickly after that, the capture or partial capture of both mines (September 9th and 15th) near Vuhledar, thus completing a near encirclement that ended any prospect for the defense of the city. And, of course, Russia captured Vuhledar on October 1st.
This well-planned, multiphase attack on Vuhledar lasted roughly 1 year + 1 week. During this time, Russia implemented new (for them) ideas for breaking through Ukrainian defenses, iterated on those ideas, and learned from its mistakes. I expect them to follow this same basic format going forward, with further iterations designed to reduce their casualties and losses.
Russia cannot survive more Novomykhailivkas, but they can do Prechystivkas forever. And that is a real problem.
AndrewPerpetua og teamet hans ser på flere hundre videoer hver dag og geolocater hvor evt tap har skjedd. Tenker han har en bedre oversikt over hvordan ting faktisk skjer enn 99,999% av alle som følger med på krigen og som ikke sitter i det ukrainske hovedkvarteret.
Lessons for Ukraine:
ATGMs are extremely vital for defense. You need ATGMs and positions to fire them from. In order to fire, you need to be above the ground, you often see them inside houses, on roofs, etc. But these positions are easy targets for guided missiles and guided bombs. Maybe Ukraine should be building more defensive structures like the anthill: large earth structures. You saw similar defensive positions north of Novomykhailivka, and those positions, even with air support, could not be captured by Russia. Russia had to outflank them and force Ukraine to abandon them.
Constructing large earth structures, lined with concrete, could resist Russian airpower, enable you to take advantage of ATGMs, and offer strong points capable of withstanding determined Russian assaults.
Road construction is vital. You need to get supplies to the front, especially to well defended areas that are under attack. The anthill, for example, was not lost due to its destruction or being overwhelming with Russian power. It was lost because the road supplying it was destroyed, and the casualties from resupply and troop rotation became so high people refused to do it anymore.
I believe Ukraine has the knowledge and resources to build defenses that are capable of standing up to Russian airpower, and they have done so in the past. But they need to begin doing it again. The defensive line that was build in 2014, 2015, 2016 is gone. They have to make a new one, of similar or greater quality. Learning from the mistakes made with the first, and iterating on the successes.
Also, all of Ukraine’s most successful defensive positions were not along tree lines. They were in the middle of a field, using manmade positions in the middle, not natural defensive barriers. You need bunkers that are deep enough to survive airstrikes, strong enough to resist collapse, and large enough to safely keep enough men to defend the position. You need to build up off the ground, not merely dig trenches, but to get up so you can see the enemy approaching. And then, in that higher position, dig trenches and bunkers. On anthill, for example, they first dug down to build a bunker, they piled earth above the bunker to be meters tall, and then dug trenches into that earth. So you had trenches several meters above ground on top of a bunker. This sort of earthen defensive structure, lined with concrete, has proven to be very effective. Much more effective than simple trench systems.
Problemet jeg ser med det AndrewPerpetua skriver her er hvordan de fungerer mot 1500kg glidebomber. Hvis de ikke fungerer mot dem, så har man gjort veldig mye arbeid til ingen nytte.
Jeg tenker at for at krigen skal kunne svinges i ukrainsk favør, så må de få luftvern. Enten bakkebasert, eller flybasert, som kan stoppe russerne fra å bruke svært billige glidebomber.