Thread by @Playfra0

How #Ukraine 🇺🇦 is planning to stop #Russia 🇷🇺 in #Donetsk Oblast', once and for all.

A strategical frontline and fortification works assessment for the month of March 2025.

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After extremely tough fighting, and tactical counterattacks and disruptions, the Ukrainians were able to finally mostly stabilize the contact line along most of the Donets'k's front and extinguish the most dangerous Russian offensives for the Pokrovs'k - Myrnohrad agglomeration.
Seeing this, Russia decided to shift its focus elsewhere, especially concentrating on the Uspenivka - Rozlyv axis.

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Russia coupled the shift in their area of activity with the utilization of the armor they have likely been stockpiling for some time (Russia is suffering from a serious lack of armor all along the frontlines), and broke through on a mechanized assault to Bohdanivka. They were denied consolidation only thanks to massive efforts by the involved brigades.

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The situation on the Bahatyr axis is also hot: while the Ukrainians are still clinging on to Andriivka and Kostyantynopil', the Russians shifted again their attention further south at Rozlyv. For the past week they have been running into the village and gaining footholds in basements, before flooding into even more and this way capturing the village. After those 3 villages, Russia will immediately attack Bahatyr from the south and south-east, this way cutting the Bahatyr - Velyka Novosilka road, and try to gain a foothold on the heights north of Oleksiivka. This way they will trap the Ukrainians in the valley between Bahatyr and Oleksiivka, just like near Andriivka.

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About the Kotlyne salient.
The Uspenivka sector remains highly dynamic. The Russians are trying to capture it, but they're denied this by constant Ukrainian counterattacks. As of now they're trying the "alternative" way of bypassing it from the south. At the moment the Ukrainians are trying fiercely to dislodge the Russians that have gained a foothold in Novooleksandrivka. Fighting is ongoing.
About Udachne, the Russians sometimes try to advance from the VPS-1 mine westwards, but they're denied access to Udachne's residential area.
In Kotlyne, the situation is as dynamic in the VPS-2 mine as is in the part of the village south of the railway. Fighting continues.
Same for Pishchane. Intense fighting is ongoing for the VPS-3 mine and Pishchane itself. The Russians are also trying to bypass the settlement by attacking Zvirove and a trench system behind Pishchane.
In Shevchenko, the Russians were able to recapture everything but the north-easternmost outskirts, where a Ukrainian presence is still registered.
Russian offensives with unknown levels of successes are also reported near Novoukrayinka further east.as it

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Let's speak numbers.
Despite heightened numbers of Russian attacks every day, their gains continue to decrease every month. In March, Russia captured only 133 km^2 according to DeepState, compared to the 730 km^2 captured in November 2024. Moreover, for every hour that Russia does not make progress near the agglomeration, Ukraine has more time to strengthen its defenses there, which we will analyze in depth in this thread.

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Let's look at the area from another point of view.
Every blue line represents a solid defensive line that could've been used by Ukraine to delay Russia by weeks. Can you see where I'm going with this? Many, many exceptionally good lines were lost in the past year, often without fighting. Now Ukraine is forced to fortify itself on worse lines, often in the middle of random fields, which causes many unnecessary casualties. That is, the Ukrainians could've made command reforms much, much earlier, and by now Russia would've probably still been stuck at the Selydove - Novohrodivka - Hrodivka line.
As you can see, though, there are still a lot of tough nuts that Russia will have to crack if it wants to capture the agglomeration.
Now, the interesting part. Let's see how the Ukrainians adapted these lines and dug on them.

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Dark blue: trenches dug in March
Red: trenches dug before March

This month, the Ukrainians decided to "get serious" in terms of trenches. We arrived at the conclusion that the Ukrainians have completely switched to digging smaller, but more numerous and better equipped Slovyanka-styled trenches. This is happening all along Ukraine. In particular, in this direction we can easily see that the most active areas were Mezhova and Demuryne. In both areas we can see that the Ukrainians dug a lot of new trench systems. East of Novopidhorodne, for example, there are tens of systems on every single treeline for kilometers, while the Demuryne - Havrylivka line was incredibly upgraded, with dozens of new systems stretching all the way from Mykolaivka to Havrylivka.

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Orange: anti-tank ditches dug in March
Yellow: anti-tank ditches dug before March

In front of the trench systems belonging to the Demuryne line, Ukraine has dug a massive anti tank ditch stretching the same distance as the trench systems. Moreover, Novopavlivka is in the process of being encircled by a ditch, while many, many more anti-tank ditches are being dug north of Pokrovs'k at the Hryshyne line. Serious activity is also registered west of Kostyantynivka. This is to correlate with the Russian threats of capturing ground west of the city from the Vozdvyzhenka and Torets'k salients.

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Here's a new, peculiar strategy adopted by Ukraine all along this sector of the country's frontlines: double and triple ditches and dragon's teeth lines.
Personally, I'm against this, as I see this as a failure by Ukraine to recognize changes in Russia's strategies. That is, excavators are being utilized to dig anti-vehicle ditches, but Russia is using vehicles less and less. Instead, I think trenches should be prioritized, especially in contrast to not only extensive ditch lines, but also to triple anti-tank ditches.
Perhaps, they have something else in plan. Time will tell.

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Dark blue: dragon's teeth placed in March
Light blue: dragon's teeth placed before March

The most notable changes in the dragon's teeth layer that I applied in March were, as expected after the trenches and the anti-tank ditches in front of Demuryne, a dragon's teeth line belonging to the same defensive line. Moreover, a line was placed just meters in front of the anti-tank ditch right on the Dnipropetrovs'k - Donets'k Oblast' borders, which is not a very common occurrence. Activity, as was for the ditches, is also registered north of Pokrovs'k, and, even more, west of Kostyantynivka.

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Black: barbed wire placed in March
Gray: barbed wire placed before March

These pictures nicely tell about the part of the Ukrainian military that recognized correctly the situation at the front and promptly adapted. To counter increased Russian infantry usage, Novopavlivka's southern entrance is now protected by a barbed wire line, the line of the Demuryne defense node was also enlarged, as well as the lines near Novooleksandrivka, west of Uspenivka. The Ukrainians also continue actively placing north of Pokrovs'k, exploiting gained time because of the Russian inability to secure Kotlyne and Udachne, important bridgeheads north of the Pokrovs'k - Mezhova railway.

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General view of the whole Pokrovs'k - Chasiv Yar section of the frontline. The pictures are high-resolution, zooming in is encouraged.

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In conclusion, we can conclude, analyzing the most prominent Ukrainian fortification efforts, that the Ukrainians, even if their counterattacks are constantly registered, are preparing for a retreat to the solid and stronger light blue line.
Ukraine has been able to adapt its strategies, not falling behind Russian dynamism, and, most importantly, to enact scaled reforms on their command structure. Furthermore, the Ukrainians exhausted Russian potential on some of their most strategically dangerous areas of advance and Russian stockpiles of armored equipment.
This is why I view, considered fully the current situation regarding available resources to Russia and the internal and military situation of Ukraine, impossible for Russian forces to capture the Pokrovs'k - Myrnohrad agglomeration up to the medium-term.

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Here's the end of this thread! If you learned something new, consider reposting this analysis and following me on my Telegram channel (t.me/PlayfraOSINT), where I will also post some of my personal thoughts and, obviously, analyses.
Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of the day/night 🫡

You might've noticed that I "disappeared" for 2-3 weeks or so. This was unfortunately due to an increase in the load of material regarding my studies. I also exploited this time to take some kind of break, whilst still trying my best to update, at least, the trenchmap. But, as my "break" is over now, I have no more excuses! I will, as such, be much, much more active in the spring, and especially the summer months this year, when I will have a ton more free time. Stay tuned!