NATO prophesied a Second Russian Offensive (SRO) on the muddy heals of rasputitsa<\/i>. Then when queried, on February 13, about upcoming festivities, Secretary-General Stoltenberg imparted: "we are seeing the start already<\/i>." The SRO crept imperceptibly. April Fools\u2019 came early. <\/p>\n
The Russo-Ukrainian War\u2019s 800-kilometer front bisects the Donbas with a 240-kilometer incision. The SRO engages a segment of Donbas-situated line, with the Russian-held city, Donetsk, at its strategic core. The SRO\u2019s operational theater contiguously connects 5 small Ukrainian-held cities: (north-to-south) Bakhmut, Chavis Yar, Avdiivka, Marinka, and Vuhledar.<\/p>\n
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As missiles fly, Bakhmut sits 120 kilometers northeast of Vuhledar. Curves add length to lines; as do flanks of advancing Russian saliants. From the saliant northwest of Bakhmut to the southwestern environs of Vuhledar \u2013 the SRO\u2019s battleline extends 160 kilometers; a third laying within or along urban terrain. <\/p>\n
SRO attacks occur along this Bakhmut-Vuhledar front-segment. (Exceptions being the thermobaric-assisted Tstentr Group raids north of Kreminna.) <\/p>\n
Digging beneath these 5 cities for years, Ukrainians built warrens impervious to light artillery. Javelins checked Russian armor. Stingers repelled ground-support airstrikes. Therefore, the SRO deigns to overrun these cities with infantry. <\/p>\n
On February 22 Ukraine\u2019s Defense Ministry began providing daily tallies of SRO ground assaults. By March, 10,000 Russian infantry charged fortified Ukrainian positions \u2013 daily<\/i>. Hundred-strong companies, accompanied by armored vehicles, attack freshly shelled targets along the Bakhmut-Vuhledar front. Ukraine reports up to 170 such attacks \u2013 daily<\/i>. <\/p>\n
The frontline separates Donetsk (pop 1.1 million) from 2 satellite cities, Avdiivka (prewar pop, 32,000) and Marinka (prewar pop, 10,000). Donetsk\u2019s and Avdiivka\u2019s downtowns were once a 10-minute spin away. Avdiivka\u2019s abandoned. Every building\u2019s been hit. Marinka got moonscaped. Ukrainians shell Donetsk from the Avdiivka-Marinka area, the capture of which is the SRO\u2019s supreme mission<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Combatants near Avdiivka are never more than 200 meters apart. They\u2019re often closer. They throw hand-grenades. Russian saliants annexed a dozen square kilometers on either side of Avdiivka. They\u2019re now 7.5 kilometers apart. Encirclement looms. More urgently, Russians are breaching Avdiivka\u2019s perimeter 3 to 4 times daily. Incursions penetrate hundreds of meters deep and kill hundreds of Ukrainians.<\/p>\n
Russians have taken 3 square kilometers southeast of Marinka. They broke into west Marinka, March 8. <\/p>\n
Twenty kilometers south and 20 west of Marinka one finds Vuhledar (pre-war pop, 14,000), the hub nearest the axis<\/i>mundi<\/i> where the frontline turns 90-degrees westward. So far, the SRO has captured 70 square kilometers south of Vuhledar. Raids on Vuhledar\u2019s southern outskirts prep an armored push. <\/p>\n
Forty kilometers north<\/i> of Avdiivka one arrives at Chavis Yar (prewar pop, 15,000). Chavis Yar, being 13 kilometers west-by-southwest of Bakhmut, serves as Bakhmut\u2019s storage\/supply nucleus. Bakhmut (prewar pop, 80,000) spans 42-square-k. <\/p>\n
Of the 5 cities targeted by the SRO, Bakhmut possesses the least<\/i> strategic value. Chavis Yar is command and logistics center for the Avdiivka-Bakhmut line. If Chavis Yar falls the Russians will: <\/p>\n Nevertheless, in mid-2022 Kyiv sent 8 elite brigades (32,000 troops) to Bakhmut. These soldiers endured artillery hammerings while Russians glacially pushed two saliants a few kilometers deep \u2013 north and south of Bakhmut. Fearing encirclement, NATO recommended a retreat before Russia\u2019s offensive. AFP, DW, BBC, CBC and the US networks badgered Zelensky for clinging to this "merely symbolic<\/i>" and "strategically<\/i>irrelevant<\/i>" town. <\/p>\n Zelensky, heeding other angels, eulogized Bakhmut as Ukraine\u2019s "fortress<\/i>" and fashioned "Hold<\/i>Bakhmut<\/i>" into a patriotic war-cry. <\/p>\n The SRO yarded NATO\u2019s dreads ashore. Saliants astride Bakhmut oozed toward Chavis Yar. The southern one is 4 kilometers from city limits; 150 meters from the Chavis Yar-Bakhmut railway. An arc of the northern saliant, 2 kilometers from Chavis Yar, seeps southward 300 meters per day. <\/p>\n Zelensky vacillated for weeks, then flip-flopped, then on March 7 addressed the planet via CNN to pitch "Hold<\/i>Bakhmut.<\/i>" Simultaneously, Bakhmut\u2019s frontline collapsed! <\/p>\n This tragicomedy played-out because by February, 70% of the troops Ukraine sent to Bakhmut were statistics. Untrained, ill-equipped conscripts replaced them. During February, the SRO lashed thousands more casualties upon them. Bakhmut line life expectancy became measured in days.<\/p>\n In early March, this line stretched along 10 kilometers of eastern Bakhmut\u2019s eastern outskirts. (The Bakhmutka River divides Bakhmut into 25-square-k western, and 17-square-k eastern, sections.) <\/p>\n Standard operating procedure for full-on frontal, brigade-size infantry assaults on fixed positions dictates that a 1,000-strong commando battalion of snipers, sappers and rocket-grenadiers blitz the line\u2026 amidst 3,500 target-dummies with minimal training and equipment. <\/p>\n In early March, Wagner Group began flinging brigade-size assaults at Bakhmut\u2019s frontline. While 20,000 felon-soldiers got machine-gunned, tactical teams knifed through; ensconcing themselves several blocks behind enemy lines wherefrom they wrought havoc. Ukrainians fled en masse across the Bakhmutka. Subsequent fighting has seen: <\/p>\n Bakhmut\u2019s grander battleground is a 3-sided box open at the west by mercy of the winnowing gap between the Russian saliants approaching Chavis Yar. Its eastern front consists of 5 kilometers of blasted Bakhmutka beachfront. To behold this vista conscripts slog a 9-kilometer gauntlet from the burning suburbs of Chavis Yar. No mud-puddle in this box is further than 3 kilometers from Russian snipers or mortar-squads. Drones bespeckle the sky. As Russia readies annihilating barrages, Ukraine rushes in more soldiers! <\/p>\n Vladimir sharpens the cleaver. Volodymyr fattens the calf.<\/p>\n Sources\/Methodology<\/b><\/p>\n https:\/\/liveuamap.com\/<\/a> (Ukrainian Ministry of Defense)<\/p>\n\n
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