Russian progress in the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic

This is not to be a regular feature because keeping meticulous tabs on the intricacies of the current Russian offensive in Donetsk is not a job for this site to do. However, it’s worth taking a closer look as the “special operation” reaches an interesting juncture, with the Russian forces gaining a foothold in the town of Soledar, and advancing to the outskirts of Bakhmut.

There’s a river, the Bakhmutovka, that comes down from a settlement called Dronivka, through Siversk, along the back of Soledar,  through Bakhmut, and then into Horlivka, and supposedly this forms a prepared line of defence, and from the “@Rybar” map† embedded below, it looks like the Ukrainians are sitting tightest on it at the corner above Horlivka, and one instantly presumes it is because this is where the Russians, if they wanted to, could already progress along the western side. However, it’s probably more likely to do with how a lot of Ukrainian positions at Horlivka down to and south of Donetsk city have not been displaced as others have since the beginning of hostilities, so presumably old fortifications are still intact. That being said, there has been a significant puncture at a place called Pisky very recently.

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Besides which, with their attacks coming all along the line to the north, it looks like the Russians might want to uniformly press up all along the length of this water boundary feature before further extension beyond it, although they might also be happy to develop a salient through Soledar (and the land between it and Bakhmut) so as to threaten a northern Ukrainian pocket.

To the west of this river, there’s another that goes through Kramatorsk, and after which the Russians will be into western Donetsk. The author has no idea what the Ukrainians could muster here (from a retreat), and perhaps it doesn’t even matter, because the Russians don’t seem to be looking for a collapse of their enemy, preferring instead to want to engage the Ukrainians systematically and at one square yard at a time – according to the goal of demilitarization, one should think. The other notion that occurs is that the Russians must have forces enough proportionate to their task in Donetsk considering that there is consistent progress, and that it is steady.

The maps below are from liveuamap.com, and are included because of how, despite the Ukrainian bias, for the sake of credibility they have to indicate the Russian advance towards the Bakhmutovka as has developed since 27th July (so, in the last two weeks). The first map shows this with annotation (stars) in case the faded areas are not clear. The abovementioned Pisky breakthrough is also shown, around the capital city (Donetsk). The second map is from the same source, but utilising annotation by liveuamap.com to show – with the rifle icons – the same offensive towards the river north of Horlivka as discussed in this piece.

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The featured image (by “RVvoenkory”) shows a US-supplied M777 howitzer destroyed near Siversk – not an uncommon sight, by all accounts.

Update, 10/8/22:

At the risk of making it look like yours truly is tracking minutiae after all, this is to demonstrate how the fog of war isn’t diminished by a biased map. The image immediately below is from liveuamap.com, same date as this update.

It shows a swathe of land now under the control of the Russians in the corner of the front line above Horlivka. According to the liveuamap.com, this materialised overnight – but of course, it only seems that way because of a refusal to confirm previous Russian gains. In this case, there had been reports that the Russians had entered Travneve as early as 5th August.  The @Rybar map (above) showed it taken, but this was not the case with yesterday’s liveuamap.com map, shown immediately below. Evidently, this could not be hidden today because of the extent of the Russian advance beyond it (see second map, below).

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Incidentally, the author has seen reports that the Russians are much closer to Kodema than liveuamap.com will admit. If the reader checks, the @Rybar map yesterday showed the Russians very close on their approach to it (fighting for it).

† Update, 7th March 2023: Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes, and after the part played by Rybar in the information landscape around Ukraine’s Human Wave forward manoeuvres in Kharkov and Kherson in the later part of 2022,  the author would not use the organisation’s source material except to discredit it.