Russian offensive operations in #Donetsk Oblast of #Ukraine will intensify in the coming weeks as additional mobilized servicemen arrive along with forces withdrawn from western #Kherson Oblast.🧵
isw.pub/UkrWar111322
isw.pub/UkrWar111322
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1591922717619814400
2/ Ukrainian forces in the area will find themselves hard-pressed, and #Kyiv will very likely have to divert troops to defend against these renewed Russian offensives.
3/ The Russians are not likely to make operationally significant gains despite their renewed efforts, although they could conceivably take #Bakhmut over time at enormous cost.
4/ Russian mobilized servicemen have shown themselves to be inadequately trained, poorly equipped, and very reluctant to fight.
5/ They are not arriving in cohesive units but rather are being sent largely as individual or small unit replacements to units that have been fighting without rest for nine months, have suffered devastating losses in men and equipment, and are largely demoralized themselves.
6/ Russian forces operating in #Donetsk Oblast include conventional units of the regular Russian Armed Forces, mobilized servicemen, #Wagner Private Military Company troops, BARS (Russian volunteer reserve) formations...
...militia units from the #Donetsk & #Luhansk People’s Republics, soldiers from Ramzan #Kadyrov’s Chechen units, and volunteer battalions.
This bizarre congeries of forces will have considerably less effective combat power than would a grouping of regular units of similar size.
This bizarre congeries of forces will have considerably less effective combat power than would a grouping of regular units of similar size.
7/ It is extremely unlikely that #Surovikin will be able to forge Russian forces operating in #Donetsk Oblast into a force able to conduct large-scale offensive mechanized maneuver warfare...
...particularly since he is not even taking (or being allowed to take) the time to build a coherent strike force before hurling these forces into the attack.
8/ This weird mix of Russian forces will likely make some gains through its sheer weight of numbers, but Ukrainian defenders, likely reinforced, will most probably force it to a halt over the next few months not far from its starting points.
isw.pub/UkrWar111322
isw.pub/UkrWar111322
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