Gabriel B
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Ukraine - April 23, 2023

Ukraine - April 23, 2023

Apr 24, 2023

Russia's advances in Bakhmut continue. They are pushing beyond the railroad now. Ukraine has managed to prevent their advances at some points, but not enough. In the next few days, Russia will likely establish positions deep enough to the west of the railroad that any remaining Ukraine has from it will be done for. I increasingly think that Russia will fall short of capturing all of Bakhmut by the start of May, but it still wouldn't surprise me if the city falls before then. Russia's advances are certainly fairly slow, but Ukraine is running quite low on remaining portions of Bakhmut to defend. There's been a lot of debate as to whether or not hunkering down in Bakhmut was worth it for Ukraine; they have lost a lot of troops and equipment and have burned through a lot of ammunition, all of which could have been used for their upcoming offensive. Ultimately, time will tell, and even then I expect the debate will be continued my military historians in the future.

Underscoring just how brutal the battle has been and how much Russia has been frustrated by it, PMC Wagner head Prigozhin issues a chilling order today. Commencing today, PMC Wagner is to no longer take prisoners in Ukraine. This is the exact opposite move I would have expected from a group which recently garnered international headlines for beheading videos, and especially since Prigozhin had also recently sounded comparatively dovish. This new order will probably ultimately backfire, as Ukrainian troops will now have no motivation to surrender unless if they definitively know whether or not they are fighting the official Russian military or PMC Wagner. With both now fighting in the Bakhmut area, I imagine that this will make things more difficult for the official military as Ukrainian forces will likely be disinclined to surrender to an unknown enemy or one comprised of both PMC Wagner and regular forces.

Also involving PMC Wagner was an alleged shootout stemming from a dispute between regular Russian forces and PMC Wagner in the settlement of Stanytsia Luhanska, located (unsurprisingly) in Luhansk oblast. Ukraine's military command is the only source for this alleged fight, which is said to have led to deaths among both groups involved. Russia's military has suffered from a handful of such fights in the past, but I am sceptical of this one actually having happened due to the complete lack of available evidence. Even so, I feel it is still worth noting. If another instance pops up in the relatively near future and is able to be verified, it will point to a severe morale issue among Russian troops.

There has been an extreme amount of chatter regarding Ukrainian military activities along the Dnipro river near the city of Kherson today, and intense debate on terminology used. With that in mind, the following will be lengthy as I make the attempt to be clear.

Ukrainian troops are confirmed to have crossed the Dnipro river fully to reach a position wholly east of the river delta; the position was shelled by Russian troops. It is unclear if this location immediately to the north of the city of Oleshky was a permanent one, or if Ukraine even still has troops in the area. That said, weird things are afoot at Oleshky. Russian troops put out a video today as proof that they control the city, but they did so from the southern point of the city, about as far away from the Dnipro river as possible. Such a video was a bizarre thing to put out when few were claiming that Oleshky was under Ukrainian control, but now that has me wondering if Ukraine managed to get fairly far into the city. To the north, Ukrainian forces have seemingly captured much of the river island to the north, including a string of cottages. Some major river islands such as Ostriv Velykyi Potemkin and Kruhlyk islands are seemingly mostly not under the control of Russia. Russian sources have indicated that Ukraine has established a number of positions through the delta, and that they have other positions fully on the east bank of the Dnipro as well. However, it's unclear if these are just temporary positions or not. Regardless, it seems as if these are largely raids and recon missions by Ukraine, which they have done somewhat regularly since the recapture of the city of Kherson. What is unusual is the frequency of these operations has picked up the pace and that it seems to have been part of a coordinated push (including things such as pinpoint artillery strikes on the river islands) to expel Russian troops from the delta, even if it's far from clear whether or not Ukraine is seeking to control the delta in the short term.

"Control" is an extremely nebulous concept. Perhaps the easiest example to demonstrate this is trench warfare; the territory between two opposing lines of trenches, no-man's-land, is not really under the control of either army. Both can send troops there. Does literal boots in the ground, when only your army is there, indicate control? When no one is there, does control revert to the defender as it is their territory? These aren't simple questions to answer, and this is dealing with simple terrain and clear lines. In a swamp with a river, granting both sides freedom of movement, it becomes even less simply to delineate.

With that in mind, I feel comfortable painting several major river islands as each being largely controlled by Ukrainian troops or vacant. It seems as if Russia's ability and willingness to sustain a military presence here has steadily been degraded over the past few days as Ukrainian artillery has struck their positions and as Ukrainian groups are increasingly stepping up their raiding against Russian positions. There are a few points that I would say are controlled by Ukraine, such as Dachy, though I'm unsure if Ukrainian troops have since left. All in all, I'd say that Ukraine's efforts the past few days best resemble a creeping offensive. I think their ultimate goal is to scare Russia into thinking that Ukraine is bold enough to launch a major cross-river operation here, encouraging Russia to send reinforcements ahead of Ukraine's offensive designed to be elsewhere (such as towards Melitopol). If that then goes according to plan, Ukraine has already determined many of the weak points along the Dnipro, which would then allow them to cross more easily with Russias defensive lines being in disarray to the east. I am fairly confident that this is Ukraine's plan that they wish to implement if everything goes right for them.

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