Matt Davies Profile picture
OSINT Analyst since 1999. ORBAT, specialized war research. Info Ops. Linguist. Etymology fan. Author 'Indonesia's War over Aceh' Donate https://t.co/iK2SlbATc0

Jan 8, 2024, 24 tweets

🧵RABOTINO POCKET: COLLAPSING THE BAG

The extravagantly hyped AFU 2023 counteroffensive concentrated most of its flourishes on the Tokmak-Melitopol Axis ...springboard for a breathlessly awaited 'Crimean Beach Party'

It became an operational cul de sac

The costly farce seems to be finally drawing to an end, at least in this season of Kiev's theater program

Reports of Ukrainian rout may be premature, or exaggeration of events at a local and low level

Or RuAF advances are as cautious and methodical as much elsewhere

When detail on Russian advances emerges we sometimes see ruthless determination like someone tearing wings off a fly

Mapped pushes and withdrawals here see AFU forces cooped into entrenchments which Russian troops first faced from their forward slopes

opposite to AFU needs

The ancient military commandment "seize the high ground", sacred to say spotters and machine gunners, may seem irrelevant in this war of redundant ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) technology and coverage

But as AFU strength wanes further, such brutal topographical and tactical reality poses immediate danger to their entire front

On the Rabotino Axis the salient's central approach offers the AFU few suitable and ready defences even among those taken from the Surovikin Line's forward screen

Although recent reports seem to describe modest Russian advances here, they would imply grave danger for the AFU position from much greater coverage by Russian observed indirect fire, as well as direct-fire weapons, whose ranges and arcs now threaten a continual nightmare for the AFU in its efforts to maintain hard-won but meager lines of advance

Russian seizure of that south-central spur threatened to form two small pockets of exposed AFU troops doomed to annihilation

Their withdrawal may have left a screening force nearer the Russian advance but if so their downhill positions are hardly much better than what they left

Withdrawn AFU troops had a reduced access to nearby entrenchments

Being dug in can buy time and protection, but not much when downhill of the enemy, while all movement at such positions is restricted severely

Then there's the matter of Russian Shell *Supremacy*

Not mere indirect fire superiority, but ongoing domination since the attrition war took off by May 2022

AFU members' first-hand complaints describe its range from a low of *four to one*

The higher ratios become unthinkable

The operation was always a futile waste, bound to fail

Newly acquired Leopard 2 MBTs and Bradley IFVs were touted as its Wonder Weapons

But these only added more targets in the Russian ISR matrix, yielding strikes on AFU troops as far back as assembly areas and form-up points

Cost in lives is irreplaceable

AFU casualties as released are nowhere near open: rank and other selectivity confirm strict controls on that detail

But a tiny sample of that 'blood trail' nonetheless shows disproportionately high toll among those who never left the starting mark

Worse for the AFU, prolonged incursion (rather than actual breakthrough) would compel more reserves just to secure wide flanks

At nearly twice the area's normal frontline, the axis of advance would end up needing near double force strength just to hold

...before covering losses

Indeed AFU forces redeployed from the Vasilevka AO to the west, near the Dniepr bend, for just that purpose

...thus fast confirming the total abandonment of any offensive effort in that area, if such had ever been serious to begin with

Again, all this was discernible in just a cursory glance at official blood trails

More bizarre was redeployment of 47 Mech Bde from the Rabotino Axis to the northern flank of Avdeevka AO much farther east

It appears that 118 Mech made the switch, but it could have been a mix of available battalions

With a sluggish advance this was a congested front anyway

But 47's shift to Avdeevka now confirmed that this offensive effort too was for all intents over

Regardless, the AFU had committed to a salient and needed to salvage a sense of achievement

Additional forces came from the east too, out of the Vremyevsky Ridge push, to shore up the dam

23 Mech Bde regrouped after its minefield-artillery ordeal similar to that of 47 Mech Bde

23 Mech deployed amid reports of a reserve brigade being disbanded

Operational games of 'musical chairs' had characterised much AFU decision since the SMO's start

I called it "robbing Taras to pay Mykola" - confirming failure and exhaustion at each southern AFU axis of advance

The Orekhov-Tokmak AO's bizarre mission depended upon suitably weird indeed unmilitary command arrangements

Alexander Tarnavsky, southeastern front chief, wore rank barely enough to pull over the many brigade commanders below him

Brigadier-General Tarnavsky appears a practical enough veteran whose role has been more like front coordinator just holding the line to prevent disaster

Tarnavsky was clearly deemed unsuited to run a grandiose counteroffensive

So Kiev improvized, manipulating rank to undermine his command

Major General Mirgorodsky, the officer appointed to lead this main effort, was nominally subordinate to Tarnavsky i.e., under his front command

But Mirgorodsky outranked his new boss

Compromise or innovation? Maybe both, but all to fight Kiev's war under intense NATO pressure

Thus did Major-General Mirgorodsky virtually parachute into (or onto) OSU Tavriya in the manner of original airborne roles

...but behind friendly lines

Young, keen, eager and probably over-promoted

His mission became purely political from that level

By mid-June the AFU set out merely to prove that a breakthrough to the Black Sea was impossible

Formations rotated into a new fire bag, or kotel

Mirgorodsky doubtless has courage, motivation and discipline

But these military virtues become vices when relied upon for futile misadventures like the Orekhov-Rabotino Salient

The anomalous indeed unmilitary command arrangement helped make that political absurdity possible

OTU Marun's formations deployed overwhelmingly from reserves and refits outside of Tarnavsky's AO

Like a ruthless 'cab rank' system, rotating battalions through to the forward lines

Mirgorodsky's was an entirely ad hoc command, more improvized than the usual makeshift OTU formation

For Marun's chief to outrank his commander meant here that he had political favor to perform a more distasteful job

Most demanding were his task's futility and unclear purpose

Ukraine's counteroffensive began amid intense debate, dispute and compromises

Military objectives changed beyond recognition in order to suit political pressures

A heady mix of hype overtook 'Crimea' into a yet more awkwardly reckless "attack and win various parts of the front"

The next thread will follow up to examine more closely how the AFU compromised its own counteroffensive

It will also consider in more depth just why it did so

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