Thread by @ThreshedThought

There’s been a fair bit of movement in Ukraine - here is a round up and summary of what it means for the strategic environment.

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In the last few week days, we have had three big reports:

- A Ukr breakthrough in the South by Verbove
- Further progress around Bahkmut in the East
- A large number of Ukr strikes in Crimea.

These add up to a sum that is more than the parts.

First in the South by Verbove (where the red arrow is).

This is the second of three Russian defensive lines in the South, and the aim is to isolate Tokmak (black circle), and get about 30km south so that the other logistics route in the south (a highway just south of the drawing) is under Ukr artillery fire.

This is the main Ukrainian effort.

Second - Bahkmut in the East.

Bahkmut is symbolically important to the Russians because they spent so much effort taking it over the winter. To lose it now would be a PR disaster for the Russians.

The Ukrainians are fixing the Ru in the city with lots of artillery and then pushing forward on the flanks north and south.

This activity here soaks up Russian manpower and resources to make the south easier.

Third: the recent attacks on Crimea.

Over the last few weeks/months Ukr has launched a whole series of attacks in Crimea.

Since July the Ukrainians have been hitting bridges and logistics dumps (particularly using UK-donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles).

This is part of a wider effort to isolate Crimea and make the Russian war effort more difficult.

But recently something else has been happening - the Ukrainians have started to systematically disrupt Russian air defences

A missile strike here, a special forces raid there

That has then opened up Crimea for a lot more targeting, and so recently THE Russian headquarters got hit, and ships, submarines and naval facilities are taking a pasting.

So what does this mean?

Bahkmut I think we can put to one side - the aim there is just to soak up Russian resources and tie them down, keeping them away from the South.

But what is the balance between Crimea and the assault in the South - what is Ukraine doing?

I think Ukraine is doing two things in Crimea.

Firstly - hitting all the logistics and command and control targets make their job easier in the South.

But secondly - the systematic removal of air defences, and the striking of prestige targets does something else …

… it creates a dilemma for the Russians.

Crimea for them is vital psychological ground. As far as they are concerned it IS Russia (much more so than the other Ukrainian territories they have annexed).

And so by making it unsafe - there are lots of Russian holidaymakers there, for instance - they have to spend a huge amount of mental effort thinking about keeping it safe.

The recent attacks on the Russian military HQ there weren’t even mentioned on the Russian news - it’s embarrassing that their air defence has been degraded/isn’t functioning properly …

Ultimately I suspect that the Russians will start to pull resources - particularly rare and valuable air defence resources - into Crimea from elsewhere (they have also had to put a load into defending Moscow after recent Ukr drone attacks there).

This means less air defence along other parts of the front - particularly the South

This making of Crimea unsafe - which is only going to get worse now that the US is giving (has given, I suspect) ATACMS missiles with a 300km range - will progressively become a sore for the Russians - which makes the South easier for the Ukrainians.

It’s clever.

So keep watching the South - that’s where the main activity is - and anything that helps anywhere else is in support of that.

ENDS

Postscript: the news today says that all of this is accelerating, particularly in the South.