The Folder is Opened! And the Prediction was...
Added 2023-08-31 02:56:40 +0000 UTC...south of Novomykhailivka, toward Olenivka, and then swing south toward Mariupol.
Why?
At the time, it was lightly defended without components of the Surovikin and Prigozhin Lines. An advance here would have panicked the civilian population in the city of Donetsk, jamming Russian ground lines of communication and then a push to the Sea of Azov to cut the land bridge and isolate Mariupol by reaching Azov from the west.
So there you have it, and I was completely wrong. The reason for holding off was to see if the offensive out of Velkya Novosilka was being put on pause. After taking Urozhaine, Ukraine started to push east, which raised the question would Ukraine keep going.
They didn't.
Comments
Just the way it organically played out. From my understanding it was likely always going to be multiple areas where they identified could be potential possibilities. Russians have changed their tactics over winter and now operating their defence similarly to how the Wermacht did it in WW2. The general army forces hold the bulk of the line, and then the armour/professional/special forces assigned to a particular axis with act as a kind of QRF for the local area commander to deploy as needed. The issue here, of course is that there's only so many of them to go around (both in they can only be in so many places at once and due to attrition; casualty and fatigue). It's telling that the places where they've finally managed to break through are the places where there was fairly consistent fighting present before the counter offensive as this is where UKR had the most local area knowledge and intelligence, and the local RU defenders and their QRF assets were worn down the most. When you have already commited your reserves in a defence, any crack is exceptionally dangerous. As we are seeing. If Russia don't have a plan in place for this eventuality then they're in big trouble.
Luke
2023-08-31 09:27:37 +0000 UTC
