"There will be no lull at front": in which directions Ukrainian army can break through Russian defense in winter

There will be no winter paralysis

In winter, Russian troops will be vulnerable: there are already videos showing their poor preparation for the frost. For example, mobilized Yakuts live in a tent that is blown by the wind and have no sleeping bags.

Since there are many boxes for ammunition and various weapons inside this tent, including handheld anti-tank grenade launchers, it can be assumed that the video was shot in a frontline area.

“Providing soldiers is a very important detail because it is not a gun or a tank that fights, but a person. A person must be well dressed and warm to perform combat tasks effectively,” says military expert Petro Chernyk.

Russians have problems not only with tents. Those mobilized from Altai Krai complain that they are given old uniforms, and the new ones with the mark of the military unit are sold in the local military store. They add that in three weeks after conscription they learned only how to apply tourniquets.

And the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Andrey Kolesnik suggested giving Russian soldiers vatniks (cotton wool-padded jackets – ed.), as during World War II.

But despite the poor quality of supply, the Russian army should not be underestimated.

“Yes, indeed, they are mobilized citizens, but there are many of them. People who go through war learn very quickly. They have to survive somehow. So we cannot ignore this threat,” says Reserve Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko.

Although the Ukrainian army is better supplied, there are unlikely to be any breakthroughs at the front in the coming weeks. Due to autumn slush and high soil moisture, hardware is stuck and troop mobility is reduced. It is difficult even for American MaxxPro all-terrain armored vehicles to drive through the Ukrainian mud.

“It can be a light winter, like in late February when the enemy attacked. The soil was relatively viscous, and we saw a huge amount of hardware stuck in it. If the situation repeats, we will be able to move only on roads where our hardware can be easily hit, as we used to hit the Russians,” says military expert Petro Chernyk.

He notes that even under such conditions “there will be no lull at the front” and the counter-battery struggle will continue.

“If the frost lasts for several weeks, the ground will freeze and there will be no problems with maneuvering. But this is a rather individual story, and the situation may be different in different parts of the front,” emphasizes Chernyk.

Cutting through the defense in the south

After the liberation of Kherson and the surrounding areas, the Russians continued to strengthen their positions south of the Dnipro. The escape from the right bank allowed the Kremlin to move its troops to other areas, in particular to Zaporizhzhia. In this direction, no new fortifications have been recorded yet, as in Kherson Oblast, where the enemy has built three lines of trenches and pillboxes.

The exception is the defensive structures near Mariupol: the Russians have placed pyramidal antitank fortifications, the so-called “dragon's teeth”, in the deep rear to prevent the advance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in case of a breakthrough.

The southern direction is the most promising to break through the defense of the Russian army, said Lieutenant Colonel of the Israel Defense Forces Arie Zaiden: “At the end of November, the rainy season ends in the south, snow falls, it will be colder. January and February are very windy, and dry, the temperature is below zero. The hardware will be able to drive safely in the steppe.”

The Armed Forces continue to shell the positions of the occupiers in Zaporizhzhia Oblast — periodically there are reports from the General Staff about hundreds of wounded invaders. The front line in the south stretches for about 200 kilometers.

“A two-level defense system was used in the Soviet Union, and now it is probably used by the Russians: two battalions are in front and one is behind. Each battalion can cover a maximum of four kilometers. The Russians do not have enough force to hold this entire line tightly. Therefore, most likely, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will find a gap in the defense, and will be able to pass and develop the offensive,” said Arie Zaiden.

According to him, the greatest success would be the capture of Melitopol, which is now a key transport hub of the occupiers.

“If the Russians surrender the city, it will be the end for them, because then the entire group will be left without logistics, and therefore will be destroyed or forced to flee,” Zaiden said.

According to the Lieutenant Colonel, to gain a significant advantage it is not necessary to enter Melitopol itself, it is enough to keep under artillery fire the logistics arteries near the city: the lateral routes that connect the west and east.

The railway to Melitopol is already under the gun of the Armed Forces: the military damaged the bridge near Chernihivka. So now, according to the General Staff, the occupants will not be able to use it.

To supply the enemy group in the south, there is also the Kerch bridge, the capacity of which is now reduced by half. But the logistics from Crimea can be destroyed by taking under full fire control the roads leading from the peninsula to mainland Ukraine. This is possible to do, says Reserve Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, because the Ukrainian Armed Forces have already attacked objects much further behind enemy lines: for example, the airfield near Dzhankoy.

“At least for this purpose we have Harpoon and Neptune missiles, which have sufficient range,” Romanenko says.

Breakthrough in Luhansk Oblast

Another promising area is Svatove-Kreminna in Luhansk Oblast. The Armed Forces are gradually pushing the occupiers out of there. According to British intelligence, Russian troops are becoming increasingly vulnerable in the region, but heavy fighting continues there. It can be both artillery duels and clashes with small arms.

“After retreating beyond the Lyman, the enemy managed to build a fairly good echelon defense. The roads also let us down. It is impossible to drive tracked vehicles, not to mention off-road vehicles. Cars get stuck, they need to be pulled out. In addition, the enemy has enough means of destruction: powerful artillery training, and there are enough tanks,” says Illia Koldomasov, press officer of the Khartiia volunteer unit.

As soon as the ground freezes in the region, our troops will be able to launch a more rapid offensive, believes reserve colonel Roman Svitan.

“Ukrainian Armed Forces have already liberated Makiivka in Luhansk Oblast. This village is located in the middle between Svatove and Kreminna. It can be used as a convenient bridgehead for further advance to the east, towards Shchastia and Luhansk.”

Ukrainian breakthrough from the north of Luhansk Oblast will pose a threat to the enemy group storming Bakhmut.

“If we succeed, we will reach their rear. So the Russians will be forced to stop the attack and move to defense,” noted Reserve Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko.

Suicide squads are coming to Bakhmut

Russians have been trying to capture Bakhmut and the settlements near it for almost four months. The Donetsk direction is the only one where they are advancing now.

“We have been working for three months, and we have the whole map covered with targets. We can't count how many Russians there are. But we also have a lot of shells,” says the drone operator with the call sign “Nick”.

The occupants are shelling the city with artillery and aviation around the clock. This is the hottest spot in the east. Ukrainian military repel several assaults a day. The Institute for the Study of War earlier called these Russian attacks “senseless”, and videos, where the positions of the invaders from the private military company “Wagner” are dotted with the bodies of the dead, are spreading in the network.

Constant replenishment of personnel allows the Russians to continue their offensive in the region. Wagner continues to recruit people from prisons: the number of prisoners in Russia has decreased by 23 thousand in just two months.

“We will hold this area, we have good fortifications there. They were built for eight years because it was the second line of defense. Our local units have already been reinforced by the troops who came from the right bank of Kherson region,” said Roman Svitan, reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Endless Russian assaults on Bakhmut are doomed to failure, says Austrian military analyst Tom Cooper. According to him, enemy strike groups are too small and poorly prepared. They are guided not by military strategy, but by Putin's desire to capture at least any city to create a picture of success on propaganda television.

Belarusian gambit

The question of a new attack from Belarus remains open. This time the military of this unfriendly republic may join the Russian army.

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that Russian special services are planning false flag attacks on the energy infrastructure of Belarus to directly involve it in the war.

However, analysts now consider an attack from the north unlikely. Reserve Lieutenant Colonel of the Israel Defense Forces Reserve Arie Zaiden notes that the enemy does not have sufficient concentration of forces for this: “For example, to take such a huge city as Kyiv under siege, you need a group almost as big as the one that is now fighting throughout Ukraine. The city cannot be captured in one attack”.

Recently, the training of units of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division of the 1st Tank Army of the Russian Federation has been completed in Belarus. But this does not mean that after the training they will be involved in an attack from the north, said Reserve Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko: “It is more likely that they will be redeployed to the east or south to perform combat missions there.”

At the same time, according to the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the potential threat from Belarus remains.