Ukraine update: What's left of Russia's sputtering offensive efforts are failing
kos for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday November 16, 2022 · 3:15 PM PST
Preparing artillery shells near Bakhmut
Who knows if her platoon truly did what the tweet says it did, but it is true that women are deeply embedded in Ukraine’s armed forces—even in the darkest, most difficult corner of Ukraine. While Ukraine might be advancing everywhere else, Russia (and its Wagner war-criminal mercenaries) are still trying desperately to notch their victory in this godforsaken slice of the Donbas.
You might remember Popasna, to the east of Bakhmut, from way earlier in the war. Russia captured it on May 7. It is 32 kilometers from Popasna to Bakhmut, and yet here we are, more than six months later, and Russia is still banging its head against the town. And as we’ve mentioned time and time again, there isn’t even anything special or strategic about Bakhmut. It does literally nothing to advance Russia’s broader war aims. Thousands of soldiers have lost their lives, on both sides, for a plot of land that means nothing to the overall outcome of the war.
I’m bringing it up today because of this:
This is remarkable, but it’s not the first time this has happened. I was fooled almost exactly a month ago into thinking Russia’s Bakhmut campaign had culminated. In fact, it was just a short pause. This might be a short pause.
Ukraine has been rushing reinforcements from the new, victorious Kherson front to shore up this front. Russian sources report HIMARS have been working this front, which stymie their ability to properly resource any attacks. And 155mm barrel artillery will make it harder for Russians to surge forward in the no-man’s land between their positions and Bakhmut. It’s legit desolate, hostile terrain for any attacker:
We’ve oft celebrated the Ukrainian defenders on these difficult Donbas lines, as Ukraine first trained and equipped entire new brigades, then used them to launch successful counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson oblast. It is fitting that those fighting around Bakhmut finally get their well-deserved reinforcements.
Wagner, for its part, is trying to explain away its failures.
LOL okay. “We’re not the Russian army, we’ve got our own corner, and we’re doing just fine, thank you.” I wonder what will happen when Wagner runs out of prison cannon fodder. Maybe that already happened. I do love how sensitive they are to being ridiculed for their failures. They deserve all the scorn headed their way.
Meanwhile, we recently took a look at Russia’s disastrous efforts to take Pavlivka, farther south on the Donbas front line.
See that east-west dark line, south of Pavlivka? That is the only rail line from Mariupol and the original Russian-held Donbas to Melitopol. It is currently under “fire control” from Ukrainian artillery. Speculation is that Russia is trying to move the Ukrainian front line farther north, away from that rail line.
Ukraine has plenty of ways to reach that rail line without its shorter-range 155mm howitzers, so it won’t be operational as long as Russia occupies that territory. But whatever their motivations, it looks as if the town is getting the Bakhmut treatment—wave after wave of Russian attacks. Here is yet another Russian column decimated on its approach to Pavlivka:
Indeed, both sides are now claiming that the town is a trap designed to continuously lull Russians into successive attacks. Ukrainians are gleefully celebrating the trap. Russians are… well, they are not.
Funny enough, propaganda Telegram sources have claimed Pavlivka conquered multiple times over the past week. Yet when the sun rises the next morning, there’s new video of yet another failed Russian assault. At worst, the rubble of the town is now a gray zone, with neither side occupying it, but with Ukraine holding advantageous defensive high-ground positions in next-door Vuhledar, bedeviling any Russian effort to move in or out.
Here is a Ukrainian soldier firing an anti-tank rocket in between three destroyed Russian armored vehicles we already saw destroyed in the previous Pavlivka post, underscoring Russia’s inability to advance:
Russian milblogger Alexander Khodakovsky, who has nearly 650,000 followers on Telegram, reports on Russia’s ongoing disaster:
If you read my original story on Pavlivka, you might remember the 155th as the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet, a more capable unit than your typical Russian cannon fodder. It had been half wiped out in this “furnace,” and it looks like they’re trying to scapegoat its commander, per this report.
So that’s what’s left of the Russian war effort—small, strategically irrelevant assaults in a handful of places, while Ukraine liberates entire oblasts. Russia celebrates tactical advances measuring in the dozens of meters, while Ukraine shapes the battlefield for gains in the thousands of square kilometers.
my nuttly lib buddy was telling me about a documentary he just watched about Coeur d'Alene, ID being the white supremacist capital of America and how it made him so mad he wanted to throw his remote through the television. my response was "yet you have a Ukrainian flag as your iPhone wallpaper? interesting"
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