Blasting A Few Russian Vehicles May Only Delay Hulyaipole’s Fall
Tired and outnumbered Ukrainian troops are fighting to save Hulyaipole, but the Russians are likely to push hard for another two months
Ukrainian troops are fighting hard north of Hulyaipole in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast
But the stubborn defense is undermined by Russian advances on the flanks
The recent destruction of an unarmored Russian assault group belies a wider Russian advantage in people and equipment
One observer expects a steady Russian push through mid-January
All eyes are on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast as Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps and supporting brigades retreat from the adjacent towns following a yearlong siege by the Russian Center Group of Forces.
But it’s not in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad that the Russians are advancing fast. No, the most dramatic Russian gains this year have come just south of Pokrovsk in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, where the open terrain, foggy weather and thin Ukrainian defenses have practically invited a sustained assault from a powerful Russian force subordinate to the 5th, 29th, 35th and 36th Combined Arms Armies.
So it’s very good new for the outgunned, outnumbered Ukrainian defenders in the south that they’ve managed to halt Russian attacks around the town of Danylivka, just 20 km north of the main Ukrainian logistics hub in the region in Hulyaipole.
But at least one observer expects the “stubborn defense” of Danylivka to falter as the bigger Russian force advances farther south, potentially initiating the kind of encirclement that undermined the Ukrainian defense of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. “Unfortunately, Ukrainian successes in this area are likely only temporary,” observer Thorkill warned.
To be sure, the Ukrainian 20th Army Corps is fighting hard, if unevenly. Some of its most experienced brigades—the 110th Mechanized Brigade, for one—are also its most exhausted. And one brigade, the 102nd Territorial Brigade, recently and unexpectedly fell back.
All the same, the Ukrainian corps put up a spirited defense in Danylivka recently. A Russian assault group, possibly from the 36th Motor Rifle Brigade, rode into the village in unarmored civilian light vehicles—and ran into a wall of Ukrainian drones. “We destroyed a platoon of invaders,” the Ukrainian 214th Assault Battalion reported.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
…every “delay” is count