Where to Attack - Revisited

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at places the Ukrainians could attack. There were only a couple that looked at all interesting and none that I thought were a realistic/good idea.

The only one with possibilities, I thought, was this one. Very limited possibilities, I said at the time.

Mapper - Russo-Ukrainian War (Modern Great Game) – Aggressive: This mapper shows a different layout of the lines and has the Russians MUCH more exposed.

A 10 km attack heading SE towards the lakes (light BLUE squiggly line) accompanied by a 2 kms advance W out of Lyman and covering a couple of gaps in the Terny area with a cloud of drones that kill anything that moves could theoretically put several Russian regiments in a world o’ hurt. However, this would be next to impossible to pull off since the attacking force would need to move into position undetected up a long narrow gap and attack with its back to the Oskil River.

Finally, I have no way of knowing if those artificially created lakes are still there. The earthen dams and berms could be (and probably are) damaged. However, the ground is likely difficult to cross regardless, even if most of the standing water is gone.

This one has SOME possibilities, but there is no concealing the Ukrainian force as it moves N along the E side of the Oskil River in preparation for the attack and it would be ripe for bombardment, so probably not a good idea.

And this is what has shown up on the maps in the past couple of days. In this updated version of the map, the LIGHT BLUE irregular shapped blocks show Ukrainian advances since mid-April. The LIGHT BLUE arrows were what I put in that previous article in mid-April.

They appear to be attacking from Lyman in the S toward the water obstacle (LIGHT BLUE squiggly line) and from the N toward the northern end of that same obstacle.

Could this be Ukraine trying to “encircle” about 4-5 Russian Motorized Rifle Regiments (or whatever is left of them)? They won’t actually be encircled, but, if so, this could make life quite difficult for them.

As a side note, I will mention that I saw somewhere (that I can no longer find) these Regiments referred to as ones that are no longer following orders or no longer fighting or something like that. Don’t quote me on this last bit because it was just a passing note.

I’ll do a quick look at May at the end of next week. Short version, Russia seems to have crapped out. Completely. Totally.