Frontline Update, Lyman Details, AFU Reorganization

This was a week without major news, but nonetheless chock full of all the combat, death and destruction of a major conventional war. There were developments outside Ukraine linked with the war that, since they were outside Ukraine, were played up and reported as critical developments, when in fact they were fairly marginal. NATO response (and non-response) to Russian provocations, and the Trump administration’s fairly useless approval of the “nuclear Russian sanctions bill” were the most visible tempests in silly foreign teapots like that. There was evidence of reduced Russian offensive energy along the fighting lines this week. For instance, in Kostyantynivka, there were reports Russian foot infiltration had fallen off to almost nothing, and across Donbas, some reported the Russian air force for some reason had nearly stopped glide bomb bombardments of long-existing Ukrainian positions. Based on the reports, the Ukrainians have a moderate but clear edge in initiative in most sectors, however, Russian activity seems highest in the Dobropillya and Kherson sectors..JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Kharkiv sector On the northern Kharkiv front, there were more reports of Ukrainian forces advancing and unconfirmed reports of the AFU capturing the villages Anyshchyne, Ivashchyne and Ustynivka in the Velykyi Burluk sector. Russian air strikes trying to stop it with glide bombs took place. This from non-official sources. In the Kupyansk sector, fighters from the 23rd Separate Assault Regiment “R.U.G” of the National Guard of Ukraine’s “Khartia” 2nd Corps successfully dislodged Russian forces from several positions in the wooded area east of the settlement of Zapadne during counter-attack operations. This further complicates the situation for the Russian garrison within the settlement itself. Other Topics of Interest Kernel Pilots Modular Grain Storage to Cushion Export Disruptions Kernel built its first modular grain store in four days and has bought units to add 40,000 tons of storage, as attacks on logistics infrastructure disrupt Ukraine's grain exports. This is a rare drawn-by-me operations map showing the 3rd Corps claims (blue circles), the probable direction of the 3rd Corps attacks (blue arrows), the probable objectives of those attacks (green circles) and possible locations of Russian forces (red question marks). Assuming 3rd Corps is telling the truth, the plan was really pretty simple: get Ukrainian forces to a point where they can cut off a chunk of Russian forces on the west side of some reservoirs and the Zherebets River. Lyman sector On Tuesday, the 3rd Corps released an official video “confirming” reports of Ukrainian advances now two or three weeks old, and in some cases months old. This review and similar OSINT blogs had been pointing to the Ukrainian gains here since early August or even late July. Mainstream Ukrainian media picked up the news in late August. Western media is only now reporting it. But bottom line: the AFU has finally confirmed fairly substantial advances in south Kharkiv and northern Donetsk regions, and it’s clear that what they confirmed took place some time ago. Still, there were a few fresh details made public including the name of the operation: Vivaldi. According to Gen. Andriy Biletsky, who presented the video, his forces cleared enemy infiltration from the villages Novoselivka, Oleksandrivka, Yarova, and the outskirts of Korovyi Yar, and liberated the village Seredne. He said that 75 sq. km (29 sq. miles) of territory are under full AFU control and “several dozen” more square kilometers are liberated. Open source reporting is suggesting the area of territory into which the Ukrainians have moved is actually two or three times larger, but, there are still Russian troops in there that need to be found and winkled. The Ukrainian tactics used, per Biletsky, was pretty much as the open source crowd had been reporting for the better part of the year. In the attacks there was a preliminary phase during which the AFU spent time hunting down Russians as they infiltrated. Then the playbook was to isolate the Russian infantry, attack their supply, degrade, move in and mop up. Biletsky said the backbone has been “drones, robots and motivated infantry.” The defeated formations allegedly were Russia’s 20th and 25th Armies, and Russian losses were 1,500 soldiers, over 12,000 drones, and “hundreds” of units of armored vehicles, artillery systems, and motor vehicles. None of these figures are confirmed, it’s just what 3rd Corps is putting out. However, those numbers certainly aren’t unbelievable and even on the Russian side especially the 20th Army is being reported as in poor conditions and struggling to hold its positions. Biletsky said that Operation Vivaldi’s spearhead units are 60th Mechanized Brigade, 125th Territorial Defense Brigade, 3rd Assault Brigade (BTG), 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion and 25th Separate Anti-Tank Battalion. Support units include 66th Mech Brigade, “the 85th Tank Group of the 8th Special Operations Forces (SSO) Regiment, HUR’s special ops group “Artan,” and the border troops’ semi special ops group, 10th Detachment “DOZOR.” This seems credible, but only about half of those units are confirmed from other sources. Biletsky mentioned there are reports that the greater objective is crossings on the Zherebets River and said Vivaldi is a multi-phase operation “with four seasons” of which these successes are only the first, without giving details. Russian milbloggers say there are Ukrainians already on the Zherebets’ left/east bank and the battle for Zarichne is the critical fight right now. So from our perspective we can assume the crossing sites are Biletsky’s second or third step, with the objective of establishing drone dominance further east and isolating Russian troops caught on the “wrong” side of the river. I would say there is good reason to believe operations right now are focusing on creating drone dominance over the Zherebets right bank territory around the villages Zarichne, Kolodyazi and Torske. At a guess, we’ll see enough open source evidence to confirm this in the next one or two weeks, and “official confirmation” from 3rd Corps in about one or two months. Dobropillya sector (former Pokrovsk) Here, there are reports that Russian infiltration activity is high, and the presence of Russia’s best drone force, Rubikon, is well-established. The Ukrainian view is that the infiltration attempts have a very small success rate, but sometimes infantry get through and that creates problems. Reportedly Russian glide bomb strikes attempting to target known or even suspected positions are frequent. There are even reports of Russians glide-bombing wood lines that never have had Ukrainian troops inside them, either because the Russians suspect there might be, or simply to eliminate the trees and bushes as potential cover for defenders. The Azov commander Denys Prokopenko in a Tuesday video said the Russians have deployed major forces including three Russian armies, the 76th Airborne Division and a naval infantry grouping against Dobropillya, making for a Russian-Ukrainian force ration of about six to one. He seemed confident 1st Corps Azov could hold its positions provided ammunition and drone quantities held out. Confirmed Russian soldier losses – this is dead and very seriously wounded – per day are between 120 and 140 men, and lighter casualties number about 300 men daily, he said. If that kind of attrition is as Prokopenko says, then Russian forces in Dobropillya are losing a battalion of men a day, meaning that the force against him – at a guess collectively 40,000 men of whom 20,000 are actual fighters – would be whittled down into uselessness and combat ineffectiveness in about 40 to 60 days. Some of you reading this might see that kind of calculation as Ukrainian copium, to which I would counter with the actual Azov combat record. If we come back to Dobropillya by mid- to late-November and lines haven’t moved much, that will be pretty good proof the drone buzz saw won. This is a 1st Corps training image but the content creators were so skilled in setting up the shot that the pic deserves forwarding. If you’ve seen images of NATO using small drones, compare that with this. (Photo 1st Coprs) Orikhiv sector Unlike around Lyman, the situation near Orikhiv has worsened for Ukrainian forces in recent weeks. Reportedly the center of the latest Russian push is a paratrooper-led attack series (supposedly 217th Airborne regiment, 98th Airborne Division) who are shelling Novopavlivka, north of Orikhiv. Russian attacks are pushing towards Orikhiv from the east via Mala Tokmachka, from the north toward Chervona Krynytsya and from west towards the outskirts of Orikhiv itself. Russian infiltration activity reportedly is high. Stepping back, this looks like a fairly standard Russian attempt to capture a medium-sized city (Orikhiv) by pushing along axes outflanking it, and then using those advances as platforms for drones that cut supply to the city. Ukrainian forces ran counterattacks almost every day this week and reportedly regained a little ground in the south on Friday, but the trend is a heavy Russian effort incrementally worsening Ukrainian ability to sustain forces in Orikhiv. Reports (Clement Molin, among others) say elements of Russia’s 58th, 36th, 5th and 35th Combined Arms armies are participating in the attacks. On the Ukrainian side, per military information platforms, 65th Mechanized Brigade “Velyky Luh” is the core of the defense. They have been fighting in this area for now almost five years. The 118th and 153rd Mechanized and 128th Mountain Assault brigades also operating in the area. There are also reports that 33rd Assault Regiment, once a pet unit of the previous army commander, is assigned to the overall headquarters in the sector, which is 17th Corps. The corps commander, Yaroslav Sidorov, has been at war since 2014 and participated in the “Great Raid” behind Russian lines in July that year. He took over the Corps last July. More organizational tweaks making the AFU look more like a “normal” army This section is about development of the AFU as an organization and not breaking war news, so no explosions here, sorry. This week Gen. Mykhailo Drapaty and his staff ordered some more basic fixes in the way the AFU does its business that are most astounding, because it took 4 and a half years of major conventional war for the AFU to actually implement them. First item was referred to last week – the creation of major formations resembling NATO-standard Corps, albeit in NATO they mix in air more at the corps level. Over the weekend, Ukrainian media reported details of how defenses are organized in the east following the appointments of Biletsky and Prokopenko to “above corps” commands. In NATO this would make them three or four star army commanders in their late 50s or early 60s; Biletsky just turned 47, Prokopenko is 35, both are brigadiers. But even if we account for Ukrainian field units being one-half to one-third the size of NATO peacetime units, it’s still impressive: these are two sizable mini-armies each with probably 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers each, and in each case the commander is a former civilian without formal military training, but with years of combat command experience and excellent battle record. Some reports are placing a crack airborne corps (the 7th) under Azov’s command. Group “Center” (Andriy Biletsky): 3rd Army Corps (Borova, Lyman) 11th Army Corps (Slovyansk, Kramatorsk) 19th Army Corps (Kostyantynivka) Group “Azov” (Denys Prokopenko): 1st Corps National Guard “Azov” (Dobropillya) 9th Army Corps 7th Airborne Corps? Second item, on Sunday evening the news came out that in each Ukrainian corps a training battalion will be assigned/formed, and this is where personnel from units subordinate to the corps will undergo training. This is a big deal. Right now, a new recruit in the AFU is often a former civilian who went through NATO training in Poland or somewhere else in Europe, and then he gets sent to his unit in Ukraine. This means he arrives after about two months under the tutelage of outstanding European trainers who, although brilliant teachers, have zero conventional war experience. The syllabus must teach Ukrainians how to fight a 20th century war, based on NATO theory. This means receiving units commonly put new recruits through additional “in unit” training. AFU training is run pretty much always by combat veterans, frequently former wounded. The training quality can be hit or miss depending on how competent a trainer the veteran happens to be. Since there is a war on, far from every brigade feels he can afford to put men on training detail full-time. On the other hand, probably the single easiest way to predict whether a Ukrainian combat brigade will fight effectively, is to see how much time and effort the brigade puts into bringing new recruits up to brigade standard. As you might expect, high performing brigades, pretty much without exception, are pretty fanatic about training up replacements. So, every year, something like 20,000 new Ukrainian recruits get their basic training in NATO, and then the unit they get sent to may or may not work to improve their skills. Which makes the quality of brigade replacements hit or miss, so to speak. The AFU planned change is that now, every corps will train every new soldier entering the unit, full stop, and a battalion (!) dedicated to the job will be responsible for the training. In the 1st Corps this is already taking place systematically, and in the 3rd Corps most brigades already do this. The manpower pool available to create corps-level training battalions is relatively large because of all the invalid soldiers in Ukraine, but they will have to be found and trained. With Gen. Drapaty picking the Corps commanders, the odds are very high that when the corps takes over the training function, the result will be to raise the standards of the weak brigades in the corps to the standards of the high-performer brigades; this is precisely what we saw happen last year in 1st and 3rd Corps. The statement says: “This will allow for rigorous quality control of personnel training and the development of the subordinate training battalion’s training and technical infrastructure.” But training takes resources and time, so it will probably be one to two years before every AFU Corps has a dedicated training battalion of its own. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.