UKRAINIANS WIN AFTER COUNTER ATTACK

On the northern section of the Avdivka salient, where the Russians had pushed through two layers of light defence lines earlier this year (after the Ukrainians mistakenly left the area undefended during a rotation), they had been heading towards the more distant target of Pokrovsk. This is an important hub and supply point for this sector of the front.
Having captured Ocheretyne the Russians culminated their attacks and the front stabilised. Not before they had placed themselves in the position of being able to get behind two layers of defences and threaten Ukrainian positions.
To defend themselves the Ukrainians used extensive drone attacks with the limited artillery they were able to use. Russian forces became distracted by the Chasiv Yar attacks so were in no position to fully leverage their gains after the shock advances from Avdivka, potentially a major strategic mistake as they had been making good progress and stood to gain far more if they had reinforced the attack. This is where that Russian ‘box of supplies’ practice fails them. Commanders get given a set of forces to do a job then it runs out and that’s it, no matter the results the box is empty and you get no more - regardless of the success level.
Even so the Russians made minor attempts to push towards Novoprokovske and Sokil. These went hideously wrong and they lost at least five tanks and another half dozen APC’s from refreshed Ukrainian artillery and drones. The tanks unusually didn’t lead the way but acted as rear fire support until
they fled and were destroyed.
The Russian soldiers in the APC’s had abandoned them and took up positions in a patch of trees by a
main road, where cluster munitions dealt with most of them and an M2 Bradley went in and finished off the rest.
Ukraine decided at this point to eradicate the origin point of these attacks and sent in FPV drones during daytime and heavy grenade dropping drones at night. They soon found around 100-200 Russians had established themselves in basements in ruins of the captured village of
Soloyove.
Swapping the drone charges for higher powered explosives designed to collapse the buildings, a rapid simultaneous campaign wiped out all but a handful of the hidden invaders.
Ukraine had also spotted Russians establishing themselves in a 100m treeline and quickly finished them off - at least fifty dead were later geolocated.
With Soloyove largely neutralised the Russians realised things were going badly and sent in half a dozen APC’s with fresh troops from their rear. Right into the expectant drone forces of the Ukrainians waiting for just such a move. The Russians were all destroyed.
Knowing by now that the Russians were extremely weak and had no
Immediately available reserves, Ukraine sent in a number of Bradley’s which quickly advanced and the Russians later confirmed they had lost a sizeable tranche of land near Soloyove to the Ukrainian counter attack.
The principal issues for the Russians are the scale of their losses when engaged in offensive operations.
The old rule of ground warfare is that you need at least a 3:1 advantage on attack - ideally 5 or more to 1. In this war that’s no longer true.
Drones add another force multiplying layer to that equation so you simply can’t estimate what the defender can do. The ensuing losses in manpower and equipment become quickly unsustainable unless you have truly vast reserves and can breakthrough in a major way at a single point that’s particularly weak. In essence you
need extremes - extremely large numbers of attacking forces against extremely small numbers of defenders in an extremely weak defensive position. Finding these positions on the front at this stage of the war is becoming extremely difficult for both sides.
You have to have huge reserves to exploit any situation. Estimate what you need and multiply by five, then add 50%. Even then you probably don’t have quite enough. The days of overwhelming force in this war seem to be over.
You can only create opportunities as Ukraine did here, and then keep doing that for as long as you can to make any gains. Small slices repeatedly taken with precision seem far more likely to make gains than any grand offensive. Seizing opportunity is the only way to make gains. Making sure you don’t provide them is vital - because they will be seen and exploited.

Outstanding Ukrainian command and control, fantastic leadership and use of skilled drone operators, coordinated artillery, infantry and armour. Ukrainians at their best.

Slava Ukraine