RUSSIAN ATTACK ON SOUTHERN FRONT TURNS BAD

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen any major activity in the south, however Russia has no launched an offensive against the villages of Uruzaine and Stomaiorske. These were recaptured from the Russians during the Ukrainian summer offensive last year.
Ukraine has been forced to reduce its forces on less active fronts as it doesn’t have the luxury of limitless manpower. Quite possibly this encouraged the Russians to take advantage of the situation.
Much of the region is open fields and farmland so it’s difficult to get about without being seen and targeted.
The ultimate objective for Russia here is Novovalisilke which is key to the whole region’s logistics and sits north of these two villages. If the Russians push west from Donetsk and north from Urazhine then they could potentially undermine Ukrainian forces in Vuhledar which holds the key cornerstone to the front, where it turns from north-south to east-west.
The Russians started their offensive using Lancett loitering drones well behind the front to pick off Ukrainian artillery and targeted bridges on supply roads into the area.
The lack of artillery and air defences has made the area far easier for the Russians to operate, and in the past week they have managed to push north over 1km west of Stomaiorske.
This area was a key area of high ground and losing it meant the Russians were quickly inside Stomaiorske, where heavy fighting has started.
At the same time Uruzhaine came under heavy air bombardment with FAB-250 and 500’s to soften it up
prior to a ground assault.
Russian tanks and infantry reached the southern end of the village but made no breakthrough. Having failed they moved further east along the southern front to a potential weak spot that would then allow them to outflank the village.
At Uruzhaine a single Ukrainian tank managed to see off two Russian ones and three APC’s in a remarkable demonstration of movement and positioning.
The overall Russian strategy is clearly to take advantage of Ukrainian manpower and equipment shortages by stretching them in multiple places as far apart as they can so that reinforcements can’t be everywhere.
Sooner or later something has to give is the theory.
Undoubtedly in the south, given enough material the Russians could make advances, but it’s a long way to achieve anything substantial here, suggesting that it’s more about distraction and opportunity than any real gains. Those are targeted at far more important strategic and political targets in the east.
Russia is preparing a summer offensive - where its strikes will soon start to become obvious.
Ukrainian flexibility and determination to hold them off has been crucial to the defence of the southern sector.

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