Clément Molin Profile picture
Apr 4 18 tweets 7 min read Read on X
100 km of kill zone, let's dive inside one of Ukraine's 🇺🇦 best defensive line

The Verkhnya Tersa line -with only 18 crossing over 100km- is one of the strongest and best prepared fortified line in Ukraine. Here is a detailed analysis :

🧵THREAD🧵1/18⬇️ Image
First "New Donbas Line" style prepared in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk region, this line is covered north of Novomykolaivka by 3 other lines, while only one before Novomykolaivka.

South of it, this line is the first defensive line, only protected by older line and barbed wire.Image
Here is a video from few months ago of the central part of this line, the one protecting Novomykolaivka.

This area of around 25 km is the most ready on the 100 km of that particular line. North of Novomykolaivka, barbed wire has not been installed, the frontline is too far.
As you can see, there are 18 rows of barbed wire on 6 different lines, including 3 at the bottom of anti-tank ditches and one on top of draon teeths.

There are as well three anti-tank ditches and anti-vehicle obstacles, the dragon teeths.

This is an obtsacle line. Image
Here is a closer view of a road, which is let open to allow logistics.

If the line is a problem for Russia, it can quickly become one for Ukraine as well, making any movement more difficult. We could see Ukraine forced to breach its one lines... Image
The revolution of these new lines are that they even cover forest, ponds and rivers. No more holes are let behind, except the prepared ones.

In total, 18 roads for 100 km is one every 5.5 km, but if we take only the part of the line south of Novomykolaivka, it's one every 6.6 km Image
With a 90° rotation, we can see how this line is meant to secure a large countryside area. Just behind are lying more than 170 small hidden positions for soldiers and drone teams. Image
To understand the scale of the line, here is where it is in Ukraine. This line is not even the longest continous one. For example, a line going from Ternuvate to Sloviansk is 250 km long !

Ones under construction could be even longer. Image
Here is a closer view of the weaker part of the line. South of Novomykolaivka, Ukraine switches from 3 to 2 anti-tank ditches (they are doing this when they don't have the time to dig a full line).

You can see a new line under construction west and few barbed wires. Image
Russia will be forced to push into open terrain with a lot of barbed wire. All this area will be under ukrainien fire control, which will be safe from infiltrations and attacks behind their lines.

These fields will create high attrition for russians that will struggle to push. Image
This strategy is being prepared everywhere with 3 to 6 lines !

Overall, we can see a grid being formed as I already talked about it in the past. Image
Let's get back to more recent images. Everyday that passes is an occasion to better the defenses. Ukrainian counter-attacks near Pokrovsk'e allowed the placement of 4 rows of barded wire which are roughly 100 meter large !

This was made to fill the holes in the lone ditch line. Image
Here too, we can see multiple rows of barbed wire being placed, both around a line that is under construction and also in the middle of fields. Image
To cover the roads, the ukrainians are now also digging a small corridor of around 100 meter along key roads, which will complicate the crossing of these roads. Image
In the north, Ukraine is now adopting 4 lines of barbed wire + 3 lines of ditches. This will be extremely deadly to cross. Image
Image
The last things : positions. The ukrainian forces are preparing small trenches that will be hidden in summer.

These are bunkers to hide infantry/drone teams... Other positions are everywhere as well. Image
Thanks for following this analysis on a particular sector of the defensive lines.

This line is interesting because it's finished, continuous and well built. If you want, I can do same for other lines, just tell me which ones ! Image
For the ones that are still saying that I'm helping Russia :
-I'm doing this in an analytical way, to understand where Russia will attack and Ukraine defend
-Ukrainian forces will need to know where are the safe roads, I can help them
-Russian forces are losing hundred of recon drones above these areas everyday, they know everything
-These are public images, accessible by everyone
-I'm doing same for Russia, but they are not digging any big line
-Russian bloggers are already doing their own maps, example : opor_2014

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Clément Molin

Clément Molin Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @clement_molin

Jul 25
Who controls Kostiantynivka 🇷🇺/🇺🇦 ?

There is a very big debate to know who really controls the city of Kostiantynivka, in the Donbas region.

Many maps are showing the city as Russian controled, which in my opinion is not true, as I will explain it here.

🧵THREAD🧵1/16 ⬇️ Image
I gathered geolocations for the last 40 days in the city, from @UAControlMap, mainly done by @AudaxonX.

Those geolocations show flag videos, air, artillery and drone strikes as well as assault videos.

3 things you should know :

🔸We only see 5% maximum of the real situation on videos, those are known positions at a given moment, which is nowhere close to the reality on the ground.
🔸There is an important image assymetry. Russia is posting more videos of flags and few strikes while Ukraine doesn't publish flag videos but publish much more strikes. Thus, I have 146 places where Russian are confirmed present, against 94 Ukrainian. This doesn't mean there are more Russians than Ukraine, Russia published 70 videos of flags !
🔸On the map, we have plenty of areas undereported, with few Ukrainian positions when we know there are many or few Russian positions when we know there are many.Image
According to my observations, the situation is a 70/90 :

Ukrainian troops are present in 70% of the city while Russian troops are present in 90% of the city.

According to my informations, there are still more Ukrainians than Russians in the city, but the situation continues to worsen.
Read 16 tweets
Jul 25
For the first time in months, Russia 🇷🇺 launched a large mechanized assault in the Dobropilla-Drujkivka area

Two armoured columns reinforced by multiple unarmoured vehicles from the 90th tank division and the 41st/8th CAA attempted to breakthrough in the Shakove area.

As you can see in the quoted tweet, this area has been subjected to heavy airstrike campaign for more than one month, while it remained a secondary direction until may. You can see here in white the recent airstrikes impacts in this direction, the same one where Russia obtained a breakthrough last year. Azov 1st Corps, which has been successfully defending the area for nearly a year managed to prevent any armoured breakthrough, showing multiple destroyed vehicles and pontoon bridges. However, infiltrations are slowly getting more frequent and Russian soldiers are often recorded behind the current grey zone, despite the absence of visual proof. As you can see, Russian armies in this direction are not doing too much PR videos with flags, which is why we have fewer flag videos. This area is right now the most strategic of the Donbas, Russia absolutely needs to control it to be able to reach Dobropilla or Drujkivka to have a fire control over the roads leading to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Why did Russia launch a mechanized assault here ? The main reason is how difficult it is to get there. We've recently seen videos of an impressive number of logistical and assault unarmoured vehicles destroyed on roads leading to here. This area is one of the deadliest, with older Ukrainian fortifications complicating any movement. Launching a mechanized assault helps to bring hundreds of men close to the front (even if 150 die and 150 manage to reach those positions, all of them will be able to assault and infiltrate further in the coming weeks).

As I said a month ago, I was expecting a large scale assault here, in order to unblock the front leading to Drujkivka and Dobropilla. As Russian soldiers are infiltrating and consolidating into Kosiantynivka, they will slowly manage to take full control over the city (maybe until autumn, the same way it happened in Toretsk), now the priority for them is to prepare the next battle, for Drujkivka.Image
Videos of the repelled assault : x.com/azov_media/sta…
x.com/moklasen/statu…
About the destroyed vehicles in this area :
Read 4 tweets
Jul 23
Ukraine's 🇺🇦 mid-range strike campaign against Russian 🇷🇺 logistics continues, with more than 1 350 strikes on trucks and vehicles since early may

Railways, air-defense systems and energy infrastructure is also being hit on a daily basis.

🧵THREAD🧵1/16 ⬇️Image
Yesterday, @414magyarbirds posted an update about strikes on the key R-280 highway, so called "Novorossia" road between Rostov and Crimea.

On this road alone, I have around 175 geolocalized trucks and vehicles hit since early may.
It is highly likely that the number of trucks and vehicles hit by Ukrainian drones this month will be higher than the previous one, especially since video compilations are much more centralised by the USF.

We should expect a large number of videos for the end of the month. Image
Read 16 tweets
Jul 11
In recent weeks, Ukraine 🇺🇦 launched a large number of strikes against electricity infrastructure in Crimea

Since 2026 started, both Ukraine and Russia 🇷🇺 launched continuous strikes against each other energy infrastructure.

🧵THREAD🧵1/10 ⬇️ Image
Recently, most of Crimea has been without power after a large number of Ukrainian strikes (source : @georgewbarros).

You can see here that most of the peninsula was lacking electricity, including large cities.
In total, around 37 electric substations have been hit, together with oil and gas infrastructure.

This has drastic consequences on both civilian and military infrastructure of the peninsula.
Read 10 tweets
Jul 8
During the first week of July, Ukraine 🇺🇦 continued to target Russian 🇷🇺 trucks and logistics, hitting more than 240 vehicles, 34 per day.

Despite fewer coverage, these strikes continue to be a very big problem for Russian forces across occupied territories.

🧵THREAD🧵1/8 ⬇️ Image
The number of strikes continue to increase, with nearly 600 trucks and vehicles hit in june 2026 (around 20 per day) and already 240 for the 1st week of july (34 per day).

All these strikes are only the confirmed ones from ukrainian videos, I do not count videos from the ground. Image
Today, the Ukrainian army of drones () published a compilation of nearly 200 strikes on trucks and vehicles near Crimea.

This video covers multiple units work for the 1st week of July. The good point ? Everything is proven. t.me/robert_magyar/…
Read 8 tweets
Jul 3
Let's dive in Russian 🇷🇺 war propaganda machine

Recently, new videos emerged of Russian soldiers showing their flag far behind the frontline.

What is important about that is the aim of these operations : to show to the Russian command.

1/9 ⬇️ Image
Russian flag videos are almost always the same. One or two Russian soldiers walk along the front line for weeks, evading Ukrainian detection.

Upon reaching the rear, they spend a day wandering through an entire village with their flag, while a drone overhead films them. Image
They are often not armed and will stay in the village for a long time, hidden in a basement, most of the time being found and captured/killed and sometimes go back to their lines.

These soldiers are not meant to disrupt Ukrainian rear but to create the illusion Russia controls an area.
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(