Scientific and political writing of Paweł Krawczyk (krvtz.net)

“What goes on in Donbas?”

“What goes on in Donbas?”, is the question heard most frequently from those who consistently watched this front line for the last months, while #Ukraine command keeps silence on both #Kursk and #Donbas directions. Interestingly, Ukrainian military channels and OSINT groups such as DeepState, who are usually very vocal when something goes actually wrong (e.g. general Sodol scandal), are now also silent which suggests they actually do understand what's going on.

Here's a collection of several analytical opinions trying to explain the Ukrainian tactics on both directions and respond to the popular criticism that it didn't make sense to send troops to Kursk and they should be instead used to reinforce Donbas garrison. Firstly, direct response to this criticism from Russian opposition “Volya” channel which had been providing extensive analytics from the beginning of the war. This has been published in a series of two posts on Telegram[^1][^2], which I have slightly edited for clarity:

Let's go in order. In the east and south-east the Russians are indeed advancing, but slowly and with very heavy losses (more than 35 thousand killed and wounded on average per month since June). They are taking villages, but not every day, and the depth and speed of the Russian advance is small, less than 3 kilometres per week in all directions except Pokrovskoye, Toretskoye and Chasov Yar. The Russians have a quantitative advantage, as well as an advantage in equipment and artillery. The AFU[^3] is slowly withdrawing almost everywhere. The battles in the east and south-east are really being fought with limited forces and the command does not allocate reserves, or hardly at all.

This is the situation as seen on the maps, now “Volya” goes on to explain the purpose of this gradual retreat tactics:

This is done because the forces that hold the front line do cope with the task at hand. And the task is to inflict maximum defeat on the enemy and withdraw when the situation becomes critical or close to critical. The main task of the AFU for the year 2024 (before the Kursk operation) was to destroy the maximum number of Russian soldiers and equipment, without acceptable losses. Holding destroyed villages and forest belts was not part of the task, because territory as such is not decisive. Defence and supply nodes are important, not any field or woodland.

In essence, “Volya” suggests that the experienced brigades holding the east front are executing a specific military objective and they execute it successfully, even if they suffer losses in its course. There's one more important aspect to the reinforcements and rotations as suggested by the people aside:

These are both old, experienced brigades and formations, and those who started fighting in the summer of 2023. The Ukrainian military, fighting in Chasovy Yar, near Kupyansk, Avdeevka, and now Toretskoye and Pokrovskoye, have repeatedly said roughly the same thing: untried or simply new units are not needed on the old sections of the front. Because the newcomers (even if they turn out to be experienced fighters) know worse the specific terrain and features of the front line in a particular section, because of this they will immediately increase losses. And not so much killed as wounded, and this is an additional burden on logistics and again losses. The help of reserves is needed to prepare new lines of defence in the near rear. This task was carried out (though often not by reserves, but by those who were brought to rest from the front line), thanks to which the Russians cannot move quickly. If Syrsky had thrown the same forces into the hottest – Pokrovskoye – direction as in Kursk Oblast, the Russians would not have stopped, and the ratio of losses from the current 1 to 2.5 in favour of the AFU would have changed to 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 in favour of the Russian Federation. Two failures of the Ukrainian defence (at Ocheretino and at Toretsk) happened precisely because brigades from the operational reserve were sent there.

Now let's make a digression and compare this against another geographic analysis that has been posted by an undisclosed Ukrainian channel (I found it on a Russian channel)[^4]

The speed of the enemy's advance from Avdiivka was due not only to the eight-month break in US assistance, but also to the complex geography in this direction. (...) This is a peculiarity of the Donetschyna event – compact “promuzyels” (Russian: industrial nodes) – small industrial towns surrounded by networks of villages in the suburbs, and behind/before that – voids. For example, between Novomikhailivka (Marinka agglomeration) and Kurakhiv there is 18 kilometres of emptiness. (...) Now the enemy has mostly passed the relatively ‘easy’ areas and has come to Grodovka, Karlovka and the Kazennyi Torets River (covering the Pokrovsk-Konstakha route from the south). (...) The invaders were left with the triangles Nevelskoye-Krasnogorovka-Hornyak, Krasnogorovka-Georgievka-Kurakhovka and the huge square Konstantinovka-Georgievka-Kurakhovka-Uspenovka. (...) In the future, the enemy will be forced to attack Novogrodovka and Toretsk itself head-on (partly this has already begun). Further there are Selidovo, Gornyak and Mirnograd. Only those who are not familiar with the situation can say that these nodes are not fortified. Hellacious battles are expected there. (...) Time is playing for us. The longer our soldiers hold the remnants of the same Nevelskoye – a village with an area of less than 1 square kilometre – the more time we have for further preparations. By the way, separate personal awards should be given for the defence of Nevelskoye. Because a village with actual dimensions of 950 by 750 metres (!) has been held for more than 1.5 years since the line of contact began to pass nearby.

The comment, even if poorly sources, it quite detailed and it almost perfectly matches the analysis by “Volya”, to which we now return. In summary, throwing the precious reserves to Donbas would not stop the Russian offensive there on tactical level, but it would also not solve any strategic problems (Russians having an initiative and choosing where to attack next):

The saturation of the front line with men and armoured vehicles does not give the AFU any advantage at this stage of the war. This is the Russian way of fighting, which is due to the low level of training of the personnel, poor communication and poor training of the command staff. There is no need to repeat after the Russian army. In the summer of 2023 they already did this in the south, afraid to implement the original plan because of the probable high losses. As a result, they lost the same number of casualties, did not solve any problems and lost the initiative.

Now, about the reserves that were used for the Kursk operation:

In the Kursk operation involved not even one-fifth of the Ukrainian reserves. And so far they are successfully coping with their tasks. Losses, according to Ukrainian officers, are lower than expected before the offensive. It is clear that the situation with losses may change, but so far it is exactly like this. That is, the operation in Kursk region was allocated the number of troops that could solve the task, but their loss would not be a disaster for the entire army and the front.

Unlike the last year's largely failed offensive, Kursk was planned much more wisely and used as an opportunity to mix newly formed units with very experienced ones:

In the Kursk region, along with experienced brigades, they sent units that had just completed six-month and four-month training. And this is the right step. Because a new section of the front is new for both the attackers and the defence. The lack of combat experience is compensated for by competent officers, overall coordination and operational management, tactics and modern equipment. Such operations are hardly the best, cynical as it may sound, way for fresh units to gain combat experience. This is what we are witnessing now in the Kursk region.

Now, what does the Kursk operation achieve?

What is the benefit of the operation in Kursk region for the AFU in the east and south-east and how much will it affect the further course of combat operations and the war in general? Russians are forced to withdraw units from the front. From the east, south-east and south. Only the Pokrovskoye, Toretskoye and Kramatorsk directions (i.e. Chasov Yar, Kleshcheevka, Andreevka, Kurdyumovka) are not touched. The Russian grouping began to have problems with a shortage of equipment, which now has to be sent to a new section of the front instead of the old familiar ones. To somehow rectify the situation in the moment, the Russian Federation turned to Lukashenko for tanks and armoured vehicles.

Now some very specific quantitative estimates for Russian side:

The shortage of personnel is also acute. Reinforcements from new contract workers and mobilised instead of the occupied territories are now going to the Kursk region. There is an urgent need to cover the entire border with Ukraine with troops, artillery, aviation and armoured vehicles. The length of the border from the Bryansk region to Belgorod region near Volchansk is almost 500 kilometres, and this does not take into account the 47 kilometre stretch in the Kursk region, which is now controlled by the AFU. To understand, to reliably cover the 160 kilometre front in the Zaporozhye region in 2023, the AFU needed almost 170 thousand people. The border, of course, is not a front, but for confident control over it you need at least 20 thousand people with equipment and artillery for 100 kilometres of the border in the first echelon and at least 5-7 thousand for the same section, deployed in a 20-30 kilometre zone and divided into large mobile groups that can quickly move to the place of breakthrough. This is 125-135 thousand people, well equipped and provided with transport, communications, engineering machines for building fortifications and much more. The Russian Federation simply does not have such a number of troops and will not have them without mobilisation. But the border must be closed. Therefore, to fulfil this task they will send conscripts (minus those who have already been sent to Kursk region) and those who will be pulled from ‘quiet’ parts of the front: Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. The result will be 55-65 thousand people, poorly equipped, with inexperienced officers, scattered over unknown territory, which they will not be able to cover reliably anyway.

And now we start to see the shapes of the possible strategic plan:

These are [the Russian] forces that could have been in the east and south-east, but now will not be there. These are those who were already in the east and south-east but are not there now. These are the ones who will be taken off the front in the next two or three weeks, as more soldiers will be needed in Kursk and the border region. The Russians will still be bursting forward on their main sections of the front. But this troop transfer will allow the AFU to strike again where the Russian defence will be weakened or where the Russians are rushing forward without taking care of the rear. And there will be nothing to stop such a strike, if it happens. The Kursk operation is not an end in itself, but a step towards the next goal.

That's “Volya”. This analysis is extensive and logically consistent, but of course it doesn't provide any evidence basis. Is there anything else that could support it? Incidentally, the next day “Volya” posted their second analysis, an Ukrainian “Govorit snayper” channel posted[^5] the following comment, clearly responding to the same “what about Donbas” concern:

In the Pokrovsk sector, our troops are exhausted, being terrorised by air for days on end and then outnumbered 10 to 1 by infantry. In addition, the enemy's infantry, which is really well-trained for combat, is fighting there, attacking from 4-5:00 to 21:00 every day. Under such pressure, there's only two options: 1) stand to the death, 2) Gradually retreat with the fight up to the prepared defence lines, allowing the ‘big brothers’ to kill as many Russians as possible.

That is a quite objective description of the situation for AFU forces in Donbas, consistent with “Volya” analysis. But then he writes the following:

The initiative on the battlefield can change hands at any time, so it's too early to ‘surrender’ Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk on the Internet. The defence line there was being prepared, and its reliability can only be tested in combat. I hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and help the soldiers as much as I can. I advise you to do the same.

And I will leave it here, with not further comments.

Footnotes:

—
Paweł Krawczyk https://krvtz.net/
Fediverse @kravietz@agora.echelon.pl