The Reason Ukraine Is Attacking Successfully Towards Verbove

Credit Ukrainian intelligence with determining that the Russian defenses around Verbove are relatively weaker than elsewhere on that part of the front. 

The Ukranians have opportunistically struck in that direction and their success appears to be gaining momentum. An additional advantage is that it opens attack axes towards Berdiansk as well as Melitopol, forcing the Russians to spread their troops thinner. JL

Anastasiia Malenko reports in the Wall Street Journal:

There are plenty of reasons why they picked Verbove, in the Zaporizhzhia region, from the relative weakness of Russian defenses there to the options it offers for further advances. Their biggest advance has come to the west of Verbove, where the main Russian defenses skirt the edge of the village. They have made a breach of the main defensive line, which they are trying to expand. The comparative weakness of Russian positions west of Verbove stem from limited resources and manpower or failures by individual units in their areas of responsibility. Breaching near Verbove also offers a route toward Berdyansk on the Azov coast, which could force Russia to spread its troops thinner.

The most important fighting in Ukraine right now is taking place in a few fields and tree lines near a southeastern agricultural village that had only a few hundred inhabitants before the war.

Ukrainian paratroopers pierced the main Russian defensive line to the west of the village of Verbove in late August and have since fought their way through fortifications and created a path to send armored vehicles through.

Ukraine has sent some of its strongest units, equipped with Western-supplied armored vehicles, to fight there, including air-assault troops. There are plenty of reasons why they picked Verbove, in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to military analysts and soldiers, from the relative weakness of Russian defenses there to the options it offers for further advances.

The bulge that Ukraine has created in the front line represents its main effort to achieve the key objective of its counteroffensive: to cut the Russian occupying force holding nearly 20% of the country in two. To do that, Kyiv’s military needs to push as close to the coast of the Sea of Azov as possible. The quickest route, along a road running south from Orikhiv via the transport hub of Tokmak, is the best defended. Russia spent months preparing trenches, fortified machine-gun and missile positions, antitank obstacles and other fortifications along that route.

Initial Ukrainian assaults in large formations of armored vehicles were repelled in June. Ukraine switched tactics to advancing in small infantry units, methodically overcoming Russian positions. The approach started to pay off in August, when Ukraine seized the village of Robotyne and quickly took more territory toward Verbove to the east.

Aug. 1 front line

Aug. 31 front line

Current Russian-controlled area

H-08

Robotyne

Verbove

Novoprokopivka

UKRAINE

Detail

1 mile

1 km

Note: Current Russian-controlled area as of Sept. 20

Source: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project
Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

As Ukraine took control of Robotyne, it deployed some of its most-powerful air-assault units, including the 82nd Brigade.

Their biggest advance has come to the west of Verbove, where the main Russian defenses skirt the edge of the village. It is there that they have made a small breach of the main defensive line, which they are trying to expand.

One reason, analysts say, is that the direct path to Tokmak through the village of Solodka Balka has stronger fortifications.

Some trenches west of the Verbove area lack elements such as accommodation bunkers and covered firing positions, said Emil Kastehelmi, an open-source intelligence analyst with Black Bird Group.

“The place that Ukrainians have been breaching at the moment is the point where the defenses seem to be a bit weaker than in some other places,” Kastehelmi said. Soldiers there say fighting has been intense and progress measured in tiny increments.

Breaching near Verbove also offers a route toward the city of Berdyansk on the Azov coast, which could force Russia to spread its troops thinner.

The alternate path through Solodka Balka would take Ukrainian forces into a more heavily fortified zone, which would be easier to defend for Russian troops. Satellite imagery analysis of the area by Kastehelmi shows covered trenches and fighting positions, antitank ditches and rows of concrete blocks known as dragon’s teeth, among other defenses.

The comparative weakness of Russian positions west of Verbove could stem from various factors, such as limited resources and manpower or failures by individual units in their areas of responsibility.

Recent satellite images show the Russian forces rushing to patch these gaps ahead of where the Ukrainians are advancing, both closer to the front line and further south.

The enhancement of the existing defensive line came as Russian forces sensed the focus of the Ukrainian advance, said Brady Africk from the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank. Recent extensions of fortified lines range from adding minor obstacles to digging kilometers-long antitank ditches, Africk’s analysis of satellite imagery shows.

Since May, Russian forces laid new rows of dragon’s teeth obstacles for tanks near Romanivske, about 11 miles southeast of Verbove. Between July and August, the Russian forces added fortifications near Chervonoselivka. New trenches and barriers also popped up near Ivana Franka in late August.

“Russian forces are trying…to employ a treadmill strategy where, as the Ukrainians progress, more fortifications are constructed to meet them, making it more difficult for them to advance,” said Africk.

Some of the obstacles are more difficult to track. Even in the positions that appear to show glaring weaknesses or ample space for advance in satellite imagery, the threat of minefields remains.

Russian mines, combined with effective use by Russian forces of heavy artillery fire, aerial drones, fighter aircraft and attack helicopters, are turning the counteroffensive into a long slog, said Seth Jones, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Ukraine’s rate of advance is very slow compared with earlier Ukrainian offensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions because the terrain, fortifications and technologies deployed in this war favor defense, Jones said.

“That’s the problem that the Russians faced in the early stages of the war in the Kharkiv and Kyiv offensive as the defense had the advantage,” said Jones.

A game-changer, he said, could be the quality and morale of the Russian forces holding down the trenches.

But so far, there has been no collapse of the Russian line that could allow the Ukrainians to achieve a bigger breakthrough and try to encircle and envelop Russian troops.

“The front has not collapsed, the enemy…is not really in a reactive state, they can pretty much carry out their organized defense still,” said Kastehelmi.