Russian breakthrough south of Izyum
After two weeks of relentless attacks and resultant heavy losses in men and materiel, the Russians finally made a breakthrough southwest of the town of Izyum on March 25 and moved in a southeasterly direction towards the twin-cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. (See circled No. 1) The flanking maneuver was executed by two battalion tactical groups (BTGs) of the 524th motorized rifle regiment and one BTG of Spetsnaz (3,000 troops), moving from Balaklia south towards the crossing of the Northern Donets River at the village of Topolske. Late on March 26, the BTGs began digging in near the villages of Kamianka, Synychne and Sukha Kamianka, 8-10 kilometers southeast of Izyum, with the aid of heavy engineering equipment. Izyum, on the other hand, still remains in Ukrainian hands. The dug in Russian BTGs are waiting for reinforcements. If the Russians are able to build up their lodgment below Izyum in sufficient force, the Ukrainians may not be able to throw them back. Izyum is the gate to the Donbas as well as an opening towards the Dnieper River via Lozova and Pavlohrad. It appears the Russians are more focused on besieging the twin-cities of Sloviansk-Kramatorsk instead. The fall of these cities into Russian hands would complete the Russian capture of the entirety of the administrative borders of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts – a stated strategic objective of Vladimir Putin. In any case, Sloviansk-Kramatorsk are heavily defended, including by a battalion of the elite Ukrainian 25th airborne brigade. Regardless, a successful concentration of substantial Russian forces in the area south of Izyum has the potential to seriously unbalance Ukrainian defenses further southeast near Lysychansk-Severdonetsk and west of Donetsk near Avdiivka. This could result in some of Ukraine's best BTGs being surrounded in the Donbas, thus giving Vladimir Putin a valuable bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
The Russians have been attacking Izyum for two weeks from their staging area in Kupiansk in the north, where they recently enlarged the railroad yards to accommodate reinforcements and supplies. The Ukrainians have been beating back frontal attacks on Izyum from their defensive position on the south bank of the Northern Donets River, primarily with drone directed artillery. Clearly, the Ukrainians have tried to avoid counterattacks with ground forces, if at all possible, in order to conserve personnel and equipment. However, in response to this recent Russian flanking maneuver, Ukrainian forces attacked from south of Kharkiv in an easterly direction and seized the town of Husarivka, which sits squarely along the paved road from Balaklia, which is the main supply route to the three Russian BTGs dug in south of Izyum. Direct supply lines from Kupiansk in the north to the isolated Russian BTGs are still blocked by the Ukrainian forces in the southern neighborhoods of Izyum. It appears that the Ukrainians are hoping to repeat their tactics from the first phase of the war, where advance Ukrainian units, like the ones at Izyum, remain in place, forcing the Russians to bypass them exposing their supply lines in the process, while the advancing Russian columns are confronted by the units of the second line in a defense in depth.
The Russians will be expected to counterattack the Ukrainians at Husarivka in the coming days. Earlier today they lost an advanced SU-34 jet over this battleground. In anticipation of such counterattacks, the Ukrainians also captured the towns of Vilkhivka and Mala Rohanka northeast of Kharkiv, presumably to cut off avenues of advance for Russian reinforcements from north of Kharkiv towards Balaklia. All depends on whether the Ukrainians will be able to commit enough fighting power to Husarivka, Vilkhivka and Mala Rohan in order to block the supply lines to the forward deployed BTGs south of Izyum. The Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv have a number of battalions of the local territorial guard situated in the first line, with up to five battalions of the 92nd mechanized brigade in reserve south of the town. At least two of these are organized into the more powerful BTGs, with attached armor, artillery and anti-air assets. We can assume that one of these BTGs has moved laterally from south of Kharkiv to seize Husarivka. The fighting over the course of next week will indicate whether these Ukrainian units will be sufficient to isolate the advanced Russian BTGs south of Izyum, where they can be gradually degraded by artillery, before infantry attacks them with anti-tank missiles.
The battle for Izyum has been very bloody, even by the standards of this war. The northern neighborhoods of Izyum, which sit on the north bank of the Northern Donets River, have been flattened to the ground, not dissimilar from the fighting at Mariupol. The Ukrainian defenders are hunkered down on the south bank and are still keeping Russian frontal attacks at bay. By many accounts, the Russian 26th tank regiment, 488 motorized regiment and the 437th training brigade have been rendered hors de combat by the fighting over the last two weeks. Reportedly, 600 bodies were shipped back to Russia from the fighting at Izyum. We do not know the extent of Ukrainian losses, as their General Staff keeps these close to the vest. However, these are also believed to be substantial.
Regarding where this campaign is going overall, the next two weeks will reveal how much each side has in reserve. Despite scraping the last reserves from their depleted cupboard to press their attacks in the coming days, the Russian General Staff feels that the Ukrainians are close to breaking, somewhere. They have attacked Ukraine from every direction, in order to stretch Ukrainian defenses to the limit, preventing them from concentrating at any one point. The positional warfare that has taken place over the last week also has an operational purpose. The Ukrainians have had to expend reserves, ammunition and fuel in every sector of this war. They may be reaching the end of their supplies. It is apparent that the Izyum sector has received particular attention for exploitation by the Russian General Staff, in that they have gone to great lengths to limit the flow of Ukrainian supplies, particularly fuel, to the eastern front at Izyum. Last week the railroad hubs at Lozova and Pavlohrad have been bombarded, with the obvious purpose of interrupting the resupply of fuel and ammunition to the eastern most Ukrainian battalions in the Donbas. Moreover, the recent cruise missile strikes in Western Ukraine upon fuel depots at Rivne, Lutsk and most recently Lviv, had the operational objective of reducing Ukrainian resupply of fuel to a minimum. After all, the Dnieper River is no strategic friend to the Ukrainians, since its few bridges limit Ukrainian flexibility in using interior lines to reinforce and resupply their units on the east side of the river.
The Russians anticipate capturing Mariupol during the next couple of days and then hope to divert the six BTGs involved in its siege to concentrate for a breakthrough north towards Zaporizhzhia. Time will tell whether these BTGs have been broken by the intensity of the fighting in Mariupol or whether they will give the Russians impetus to force a breakthrough north. So far the Ukrainians have been able to stop the regiments of the 42nd division short of Zaporizhzhia on the line of Orikhiv – Hulyaipole. (See circled No. 2) A successful Russian lodgment (1) south of Izyum and (2) a breakthrough towards Zaporizhzhia would go a long way towards surrounding all of the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.
Conversely, the Ukrainians are playing for time. If they can hold in all sectors, the Russians will have exhausted their current supply of reserves and would need to go into a lengthy pause in order to implement a general mobilization of Russian males, to rejuvenate their combat power. That would take at least 120 days. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians called up their active reserves right before the commencement of hostilities on February 24 and have spent the last month organizing and training. An infusion of 100,000 fresh Ukrainian forces during the window of opportunity while the Russians are only beginning their own mobilization, would enable the Ukrainians to rotate their exhausted regular formations out of the line and to perhaps launch a major offensive, for instance south from Zaporizhzhia towards Melitopol, which would threaten Russian gains in the south of Ukraine. However, such a mobilization depends on a substantial resupply of equipment from the US and Europe. As things stand, the reserve brigades have access to only the oldest tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces, which diminishes their combat power and ability to maneuver.