Right on time for the first weekend in October, the first autumn rains are sweeping across the Ukraine. At least over the north of the country and the capital Kyiv. Experience teaches that the rain will quickly displace the somewhat longer milder weather in the south and on the Black Sea. The country is known for rapid weather changes with the changing of the seasons.
The rain will change the course of this war very quickly and help decide whether, and if so how much, territory currently occupied by the Russians Ukraine can reconquer by the end of the year.
Because the rain makes for muddy soil in the south and east, in which military equipment can quickly get stuck.
“Tracked vehicles will become even more important with increasing rainfall and poorer soil conditions in autumn,” says German Ukraine expert Nico Lange from the Munich Security Conference. For the Eastern Europe expert, however, it is also clear that militarily “Ukraine will continue to retain the initiative”.
In the past few days, the first fresh Russian recruits are said to have been sighted along the front line in the course of Putin’s mobilization, according to Lange. However, international analysts expect further Ukrainian successes in the coming weeks: In the north-east, Ukrainian forces have gradually encircled Russian soldiers in the town of Lyman. This is confirmed by the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have imposed a strict blackout on news of military events at the front. But there are many signs that Kyiv has made great strides around the strategically important Lyman during the last week of September. The ISW analyzes, among other things, the comments of Russian military bloggers.
The Ukrainian soldiers have apparently “cut important ground communication lines that support the Russian troops in the Drobysheve-Lyman region,” the US think tank wrote at the end of September.
All breaking news about the Ukrainian attack on Lyman can be found here.
From Lyman, further supply routes for the Russian army in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region come within range of Ukrainian artillery.
What’s more, military analysts like Yigal Levin believe a Ukrainian victory at Lyman could be the beginning of the end for the Russian front in that part of eastern Ukraine. The former officer in the Israeli army is one of the best-known military bloggers in Ukraine.
If the Ukrainian army captures Lyman, it could advance further into the Russian-held Luhansk region. That “opens the door to Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk,” Yigal Levin told DW.
This recapture would be of great psychological importance: Russia fought both cities with heavy losses. But Kyiv also had to accept high losses.
After that, according to the former Israeli officer, the way to the small towns of Swatowe and Starobilsk is free. “These are Russia’s main logistical hubs on this front. If those two places were liberated, practically the whole front would collapse,” Levin said.
According to reports, up to 20,000 Russian soldiers are trapped west of the Dnieper River in the regional capital of Cherson in southern Ukraine Russian army command in the occupied south of Ukraine is no easier now that the weather is turning to autumn.
There is growing evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively involved in military planning and is opposed to the withdrawal of the troops remaining west of the Dnieper, possibly contrary to the advice of the army leadership.
According to Ukrainian and British sources, the Russian command structures of the 49th Russian Army in Kherson were already transferred to the eastern side of the Dnieper in the summer. At the same time, the Kremlin is apparently upping the ante around Kherson.
“Ukrainian military officials kept a low profile on Ukrainian ground maneuvers in the Kherson region, but stated that Russian forces are moving newly mobilized troops to reinforce the front line in the Kherson region,” writes the ISW at the end of September, while “Ukrainian troops continue to seek Russian supply , transport and military facilities in the Kherson region in their sights”.
And: Apparently, the Kremlin is not only trying to move more soldiers to this front line, but has apparently also been plundering its arsenal of weapons in northern Russia, on NATO’s external border with the Baltic States and on, since the start of the major offensive in Ukraine on February 24 Finland.
The US magazine Foreign Policy has calculated that “of the originally estimated 30,000 Russian troops once stationed on the borders with the Baltic countries and southern Finland, up to 80 percent have been deployed to Ukraine.”
In mid-September, Finland’s public broadcaster Yle, citing Finnish security sources, reported that Russia had withdrawn missiles to protect the country’s second-biggest city, Saint Petersburg, for fighting against Ukraine.
Margarete Klein also suspects that the Kremlin has already pushed the Russian armed forces to the limits of their operational capability. The Russia expert at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin told DW that Russia’s military suffered “great losses from killed or injured soldiers.”
Russian information, according to which the armed forces have more than a million soldiers under arms, is therefore not credible. The real size is lower, says Klein. Many Russian units have long been deployed in Ukraine.
But even a weakened Russian army still offers a lot of resistance in the occupied areas of Ukraine. Whether Kyiv can lay the foundations this fall for retaking the entire country next year depends not least on further arms deliveries from the Ukraine contact group with 50 states led by the USA, but also on supplies.
“If you think about the fact that 5,000 to 6,000 rounds of large-caliber artillery ammunition, i.e. grenades that each weigh 40 kilos or more, are fired every day, then you get an idea of how many trucks are needed to keep this supply going,” says the SWP security expert Wolfgang Richter in an interview with DW.
However, military analyst and former Israeli officer Yigal Levin told DW that Russia in particular lacks one resource.
The recently started mobilization of fresh recruits could not help either. He is referring to the human factor on the Russian side: “I have serious doubts that this resource would make a major offensive possible,” Levin said.
Russia simply lacks capable commanders after seven months of the Ukraine offensive. “Without good commanders, the number of soldiers doesn’t matter.”
Collaboration: Mykola Berdnyk (Kyiv)
Author: Frank Hofmann
Since the beginning of the week, four leaks have been found in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines off the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm. NATO assumes sabotage, is reluctant to assign blame, but threatens to react decisively. What could that look like?
After the sham referendums in the occupied Ukrainian territories on accession to Russia, which were criticized as a breach of international law, the annexation is formally sealed. What does this mean for war?
Reports of problems and arbitrariness in the so-called partial mobilization in Russia are increasing. DW learned from Russians and human rights activists what violations those affected are struggling with.
The original of this article “The Lyman Cauldron – Preparation for the Winter War” comes from Deutsche Welle.
