Isegoria

Russian pro-Kremlin blogger Alexei Chadayev concedes that Ukrainian tactics are starting to prevail over Russian infantry assaults:

The enemy is increasingly mastering the ‘playing second fiddle’ strategy — a situation where Russian forces are constantly advancing almost everywhere, and their task is to make our offensive as difficult, bloody, and resource-intensive as possible. And this is not just about the ‘drone line’ anymore.

For example, we are now seeing tactical techniques like this: their artillery is positioned deep in their battle lines, beyond the reach of our main drones, and they keep their own forward positions and key objects on it well-fortified with well-positioned fire.

Accordingly, as soon as our forces start moving, they knock out an enemy stronghold with drones and go to capture it. The enemy then waits for our forces to enter and eliminates them along with the incoming troops.

Their drone operators, in turn, not only habitually scavenge on supply and reinforcement routes, but also catch our forces engaged in any activity near ‘formerly ours’ objects.

Add to this constant mining, including remote detonation, and the active use of ‘ambushers’ on the few (and well-monitored) logistical lines.

If our forces try to quickly deploy a second echelon – for example, drone operators – the enemy immediately launches a local tactical ‘offensive’ and, even at the cost of losing equipment and personnel, achieves its goal: preserving the ‘kill zone’ between our forward positions and the nearest rear areas. In Kupiansk, for example, they successfully applied this tactic several times – which led to the current situation there.

Since this situation repeats itself not once or twice, our forces, at all levels, are increasingly less willing to advance at all, and they can be easily understood – it’s an inevitable trade-off of kilometers covered for lives, and very valuable lives of soldiers: those who actually know and are able to act in this very kill zone (the untrained ones will simply die without any result). Therefore, the problem of ‘map coloring’ is not just about headquarters’ lies.

It’s also about the difficult moral choice that commanders make: if I really go all out in an unprepared offensive now, I’ll lose many people, but if I just send a few teams forward to plant flags and report on the drone footage about the physical presence at the necessary positions – I’ll save lives and equipment.

However, as a result, this leads to situations where it’s impossible to request strikes on already ‘colored’ (i.e., ‘our own’ on the headquarters’ maps) positions — neither by artillery, nor by the Aerospace Forces, nor even by drones. Everything there is already ours! And as a result, we still have to pay with lives.

Posted in War | 2 Comments »