How the Great Belgorod Raid started vs. how it went
A little post-facto analysis below:
This morning the Ukrainian military (under the fig leaf of being a pro-Ukrainian Russian separatist group) attacked a Russian border checkpoint and a couple of border villages, penetrating about three kilometers into Russia proper before being driven back with losses.
Russian aircraft quickly arrived on station, at which point the Ukrainian vehicle crews seem to have retreated back into Ukraine and abandoned the infantry to their fate.
Shown: a two-ship of Su-25s delivering airstrikes.
Attack helicopters also joined the fray.
Elements of at least two and possibly three Russian battalions in the area also piled on, showing at least one triangle-Z tactical marking I've never seen in the wild.
(there's another video out there with a BMP-3, presumably a different unit)
Most fighting was over in about six hours. The Russians claim they killed at least 40 attackers, which is hardly implausible given the raid's lack of support and the prompt and overwhelming Russian response.
Last I heard they were still sweeping the area.
So - an objectively stupid border raid designed to grab the headlines back after Bakhmut fell last weekend?
I don't think so. I think this little operation had larger ambitions - namely, to seize Russian territory for leverage.
(excerpt from the Washington Post)
The area chosen was a particularly vulnerable part of Belgorod Oblast, surrounded by water obstacles and Ukrainian territory. The kind of thing that could be taken in a coup de main.
(credit for this insight to... sigh... OSINTtechnical)
Similarly there was a heavy info-war campaign earlier pushing the "Bilhorod People's Republic," presumably some kind of Ukrainian-backed cutout on Russian territory in an ironic echo of the Lugansk and Donetsk Peoples' Republics.
(do they speak Ukrainian in "Bilhorod?")
The obvious question is why on Earth they'd think they could successfully conquer and hold part of Russia with one motorized company.
Well, UK MinDef Ben Wallace told us the answer earlier. NATO thinks the vast majority of the Russian Army is in Ukraine.
(credit BBC)
This would presumably leave the Russian border regions extremely vulnerable to attack and seizure even by small forces.
As we found out today, that's absolutely not the case. They're crawling with troops. A third and critical data point for analysis later.
As a sort of mythbusting addendum, no, the Ukrainians didn't launch this raid to capture a Russian electronic warfare system.
The rumor mill was going faster than a Kinzhal this morning. Be wary of misinformation!
The Battle of Bakhmut is over. It was one of the longest battles of the 21st century to date, and certainly the bloodiest.
Russia won. In doing so it destroyed much of the Ukrainian Army's combat power while buying time to generate forces for future offensives.
How much of the Ukrainian Army's combat power?
The Grey Zone Telegram channel compiled a partial list of Ukrainian units reported in Bakhmut at some point during the nine-month battle.
This is something like a third of the AFU's order of battle. Losses were obviously extreme.
Russian casualties were modest in comparison and, critically, largely occurred in an auxiliary formation that is not part of the regular Russian military - the Wagner Private Military Company, which bore the brunt of the fighting.
Let's talk about Russian small-unit tactics on the offensive. With Russian troops stepping up attacks across the front in Ukraine, I suspect this will be very relevant in the near future.
This video was produced by journalists embedded with Russian troops near Spornoe, which I understand are a former LPR unit filled out by Russian reservists. These are ordinary motorized riflemen, not elite troops, equipped with BMP-1s and T-80BVs.
The producers do little to sugarcoat things, although they avoid showing anyone being killed on camera. They freely admit multiple vehicles were hit and at least one Russian tanker was killed during the attack.
Wild video from Kiev just now - a Patriot battery apparently emptying its launchers (I counted 30 missile launches in two minutes) before being struck and probably destroyed by an incoming Russian missile.
I am told there was a second impact and fire after this clip cuts. Judging by the fact there's only one flash in the sky during the clip, these 30 launches appear to have resulted in only one interception out of a likely three missiles fired at the battery.
According to Fennec, this entire production cost north of $160 million US taxpayer dollars.
We're now on D+5 of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was predictably launched into the Bakhmut flanks after Prigozhin spent months losing his mind on social media.
The modest gains shown have cost multiple AFU brigades and thousands of casualties to achieve.
It's also noteworthy that the only Ukrainian gains have been in highly contested areas that the Russians were likely unable to fortify properly. Large attacks further north near Soledar were complete failures.
The AFU will need to commit significant new forces to keep moving.
Russian troops remain on the offensive in Bakhmut proper and are on the verge of seizing the city outright, suggesting that - despite Prigozhin's remarks - they are not particularly concerned about their flanks. In fact they've sped up recently.
Let's talk about defense in depth. Seems appropriate at the moment.
A thread:
Most field manuals will give you a map like this and talk in circles around how this tactic is actually supposed to work, probably because most soldiers (with good reason) don't particularly like admitting to trading lives for space and time.
Regardless, it is simple, easy to execute, and works extremely well.
Everyone is all gung-ho to do a slick mobile defense until they find out that if they miss the counterattack timing by an hour the entire plan falls apart.
Looks like events have once again confirmed my analysis two days after the fact.
Today a Ukrainian Bayraktar TB-2 drone seems to have malfunctioned and began circling aimlessly over Kiev. Apparently thinking it was Russian, they tried to shoot it down.
Emphasis on "tried." Despite this engagement happening in broad daylight and at low altitude, it took them half an hour of firing with small arms, antiaircraft guns, and multiple MANPAD launches before they finally hit it and brought it down.
Notably absent from this air defense effort were the IRIS-Ts and Patriots that supposedly cover Kiev from air attack. Maybe they've been stripped and sent forward for the counteroffensive as well.
In any event it's clear why the Russians can hit Kiev with Geran drones at will.