Ukraine Is Again "Shaping the Battlefield" As It Did Before Kharkiv, Kherson Attacks

The last remaining bridge connecting Crimea to Russia's occupied Ukrainian territory has been destroyed as the pace and effectiveness of Ukraine's attacks has picked up on Russian logistics and command centers.

This is reminiscent of last summer's battlefield shaping attacks which led to the liberation of Kharkiv and Kherson. Russia's ostensible counterattack in the north around Kreminna has proven to be a bluff, as many predicted, so the focus remains on Ukrainian advances in the country's south and east. JL 

Kos reports in Daily Kos:

We’re starting to see something akin to last year where Ukraine spent the spring and summer shaping the battlefield, targeting Russian logistics, command, and control, then pulled the big trigger in the fall. Supply depots, troop concentrations, and command control centers once considered safe by Russia are going “boom” all around Russian-occupied territory and Ukraine just shut down the last remaining rail link connecting Crimea to southern Ukraine. Russian can truck supplies, but it is more challenging to do so. Trucks use more fuel, they break down, they get ambushed by partisans, more stuff gets stolen and you need more vehicles to transfer the same amount of supplies that a single train can.

I’ve mostly ignored Russia’s big push around Kreminna and Svatove up in northeastern Ukraine, on the Luhansk-Kharkiv border. At one point, Ukraine claimed that 100,000 Russian troops had gathered to try and retake the strategic logistical hub city of Kupyansk, which they lost in last year’s fall counteroffensive.

The whole notion was as stupid as fears that Belarus would invade Ukraine, or that Russia would launch an amphibious assault on the Black Sea port city of Odesa. When something seems implausible, it most likely is. And the idea that Russia would move one-third of its forces to a part of Ukraine with little strategic value when it was failing to advance anywhere else on the map was ridiculous.

But Russia is dumb; we know that. So it made sense to keep an eye on things. In the end, the most that Russia could accomplish was to capture three “towns” with a combined population of around 80 people. If there were 100,000 Russian troops in the area, why were we only seeing a few dozen here or there?

In any case, Ukraine has recaptured at least two of those three “towns,” and maybe even the third. There is violence and death in that section of the front, so I don’t mean to minimize what those troops are experiencing. But in the greater scheme of things, it’s not very relevant at all. There were never 100,000 Russian troops, and Ukraine never worried too much about it.

The real action is happening down south.

---

After the initial attempt at a big armored breakthrough failed, Ukraine reverted to a more cautious approach, with a refocus on shaping the battlefield in southern Ukraine. That meant two things: 1.) degrading Russia’s massive artillery advantage, and 2.) degrading Russia’s logistics. If Russian frontline troops can’t get the supplies they need, and if they can’t put up a wall of artillery in front of a Ukrainian advance, things look a lot different for any Ukrainian advance.

Ukrainian counterbattery fire has done a number on Russian artillery, and General Staff still claims between 20-30 artillery kills every single day.

Russia has long ago adjusted for GMLRS rocket artillery, moving its supply depots and hubs beyond its range. But that changed with the arrival of British Storm Shadow cruise missiles and their French counterpart, SCALP. Suddenly, supply depots, troop concentrations, and command control centers once considered safe by Russia are going “boom” all around Russian-occupied territory. And just as importantly, so are bridges.

In fact, Ukraine just shut down the last remaining rail link connecting Crimea to southern Ukraine.

Russian can truck supplies in, but it is infinitely more challenging to do so. Trucks use more fuel, they break down, they get ambushed by partisans, more stuff gets stolen or “diverted,” and you need far more vehicles to transfer the same amount of supplies that a single train can ship.

It’s the same problem with closing the grain shipping corridor. There are other ways for Ukraine to move that grain—like trucks and rail—but those have nowhere near the capacity of a single one of those massive container ships.

Given current satellite photos and a single Russian on-the-ground photo (they’re being better at hiding the evidence this time around), it’s hard to tell just how extensive the damage to the bridge is. Rail lines can be fixed quickly, so it depends on how damaged the bridge’s supports are. But now we know Ukraine can hit it, and can continue to hit it to keep the bridge out of action.

Indeed, we’re starting to see something akin to last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensives, where Ukraine spent the spring and summer shaping the battlefield, targeting Russian logistics, command, and control, then pulled the big trigger in the fall. Let’s hope for equal success!