Russia-Ukraine latest July 3: Voluntarily abandoning Lichansk, the Ukrainian army changes its combat philosophy
Original Xiaoli See the World at Nine-Three Quarters 2022-07-03 21:13
Morning Fog/Repost
Dear readers and friends, Today is July 3, and we continue to study and evaluate the war situation between Russia and Ukraine.
Today’s breaking news is undoubtedly that the Russian army is suspected of occupying the city of Lichansk. According to news reports, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Beijing that the Russian army has actual control over the entire Lugansk Oblast in Ukraine. June 26, the date when the latter ordered the Russian army to achieve this goal, was delayed by about a week. Regardless of this delay, the Russian army still achieved its goal to a large extent. This does not indicate any change in the overall war situation, but only shows that the Russian army's recent tactics have been relatively successful. But it also shows that the Ukrainian army’s operational guiding ideology is changing. We will discuss this in detail later.
In fact, it is still confusing as to whose hands Lichansk is now. Let’s take a look at the following conflicting statements:
Ukraine’s Lugansk Chief Executive Haidai said: The occupiers have made great sacrifices and are destroying the city. He said a few other things, but nothing too important.
Russia’s Severodonetsk Military Commander’s Office stated: Lisichansk is completely under the control of the coalition forces. In the near future, the troops of the Military Commander’s Office of the (Pseudo) Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) will Start protecting public order in the city.
Ukrainian National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzytchuk said: Fighting is raging around Lisichansk. But luckily the city was not surrounded and was under the control of Ukrainian troops.
Qatar’s Al Jazeera quoted Zelensky’s adviser Alexei Alestovich as saying: “This is indeed a threat. We will see. I don’t rule out any of the many outcomes here. In a In two days, things will become clearer", "If Lischichansk is captured, strategically it will become more difficult for the Russians to continue the offensive, the front will be flatter, and frontal attacks will replace flank attacks."
And British Reuters said: Ukrainian officials said that Lischichansk is still in Ukrainian hands, despite Russia's claims that the city is "under control." Ukrainian troops have spent weeks trying to defend the city, Ukraine's last bastion in the eastern Luhansk oblast. Fighting intensified on Saturday, with videos on Russian media showing Luhansk militiamen waving flags and cheering on the streets of Lischichansk. A spokesman for the pro-Russian separatist forces said "Lisichansk is under control" but "unfortunately, it has not yet been liberated".
Based on the above information, we assume that neither party seriously lied but only exaggerated the facts to varying degrees, then it can be considered that most of Lichansk City has been occupied by the Russian coalition forces, but there is still a considerable part of the territory under control In the hands of the Ukrainian army.
ISW (Institute of War Studies) says much the same as I do: Ukrainian troops may have deliberately withdrawn from Lichansk, leading Russia to capture the city on July 2. Geolocation footage shows Russian troops moving haphazardly through the northern and southeastern neighborhoods of Lichansk, suggesting there were few or no Ukrainian troops in the city as of July 2.
Ukrainian military officials have not publicly announced the withdrawal, but they have not reported on the defensive battle around Lichansk. Ukrainian Interior Minister Vadim Denisenko vaguely stated that it was "very likely" that Russian troops would capture Lichansk, but that they had crossed over into Slavyansk and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk Oblast. will face difficulties.
Ukrainian National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzychuk rejected reports that Russian troops had occupied and surrounded Lisichansk, but these denials may be out of date or wrong.
Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador of the Luhansk People's Republic to Russia, had previously claimed that Ukrainian troops began to withdraw from Lischichansk on June 28.
It is reasonable to speculate that this time the Ukrainian army did not defend Lichansk at all costs. The city of Severodonetsk persisted for a month even though all the bridges were blown up, logistical support could only be provided through zip lines , the terrain advantage was not as good as that of Lichansk, and it was also attacked from three sides. There was no reason to think that the Ukrainian army was doing anything in Lichansk. Less than that. Judging from the sudden "rising" of the Russian army and basically controlling the city of Lichansk within a week, the most reasonable explanation is that the Ukrainian army intentionally gave up and voluntarily evacuated. Let's first analyze how the next battle will be fought if Lichansk is completely abandoned by the Ukrainian army.
Looking at the map, due to the expansion of the Russian army from the Popasna salient to the outside, the line from Seversk to Lichansk has largely become the protrusion of the Ukrainian army. Although I emphasize that modern armies are generally equipped with armored personnel carriers and are difficult to be surrounded by opponents, if the top Ukrainian officials order the Ukrainian army to defend Lichansk and not retreat, then the Ukrainian army here will undoubtedly be "actively surrounded."
Therefore, the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Lichansk to Seversk will immediately reduce the risk of being surrounded, thus preserving combat-effective troops. However, Seversk is a small city, surrounded by eager Russian troops. It is not good for the Ukrainian army to hold on here, so gradually the Ukrainian army will withdraw to Bachmut and Slavyansk, using the fortified areas. Continue to block the Russian offensive. The study and judgment of the battle situation will be carried out for the time being. In the follow-up, we will analyze the issue that the withdrawal from Lichansk means a change in the Ukrainian army’s combat guidelines.
Let’s talk about some of the more influential battle cases in the past 24 hours:
1. Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol, revealed that the Ukrainian armed forces launched an attack on the Russian military base: The Ukrainian military carried out an attack on the Russian military base at night carried out more than 30 attacks. Such a situation has never happened before, which shows that the artillery and ammunition equipped by the Ukrainian army are increasing, and in some areas, they even have counterattack capabilities.
2. Last night, the administrator of the Belgorod region of Russia, Gladkov, reported the casualties caused by artillery attacks on local residents: three people died, four people were injured, and 11 apartment buildings and 39 private houses were partially destroyed. (Five of them were completely destroyed).
A counterattack of this scale has never happened before, so Russia expressed strong dissatisfaction. In fact, the Russian army attacks civilian targets every day, and it is incestuous. As more heavy artillery is obtained, such attacks on the Ukrainian army will obviously become more and more frequent until the Russians can't stand it anymore. The significance of this matter will be introduced in detail in a later article.
Let’s take a serious look at why the Ukrainian army took the initiative to abandon Lichansk this time:
Beidun stayed for a month, but gave up Lichansk within a week. Obviously, the Ukrainian army’s guiding ideology has undergone major changes. In terms of land area, the Twin Cities do not have much, but as the last unoccupied settlement in Lugansk , their political significance is far greater than the land area. The Ukrainian army was worried that the Russian army would announce the end of the military operation after seizing the two places, causing the war to enter an embarrassing moment and preventing Ukraine from receiving sufficient assistance. Therefore, it did not dare to give up easily before. But politically, whether it is the NATO summit or the statements of various countries around the world, they are currently fully supporting Ukraine in the fight, especially the United States and Germany, which have specifically announced indefinite support. At this point, Ukraine has begun to let go of its uneasiness.
Military, facing large-caliber artillery that is 20 times larger than its own, the losses of the Ukrainian army will definitely be huge.Although the Russian army consumes a lot of personnel and ammunition, the current financial situation of the Russian army is obviously better than that of the Ukrainian army, which has not received enough assistance. It is understandable if the Ukrainian army invests some troops for purely political reasons, but it is obviously unwise to throw all the elite and backbone into this bottomless pit. Therefore, the Ukrainian army in Lichansk decisively decided to give up and preserve its strength in order to fight again in the future. It was a completely correct decision.
Not only that, I estimate that the Ukrainian army will give up the pursuit of political significance in the future and start pursuing "cost-effectiveness". Anyway, the most politically significant Twin Cities have been given up, so it doesn’t matter if we give up some less important places. However, the Ukrainian army will make good use of these elite troops and key veterans on hand before the new army is formed, so that they can maximize their combat effectiveness and make their opponents pay the maximum price with the minimum losses. In this way, it will be possible to maintain a certain combat capability until sufficient military assistance arrives, and it will no longer be possible to do so at all costs like in Beidun. On the
map, the Ukrainian army may retreat while fighting in exchange for land in exchange for time, or even abandon Seversk to stabilize the front line from Slavyansk to Bakhmut. This will make the front straight, which is beneficial to the smaller Ukrainian army. Troops are fortified. In fact, Ukraine's defense against Beidun also traded land for time. Before the Beidun defense war began, all countries had not yet agreed to give the multi-barreled rocket launcher . Now the and seahorse have arrived. In a month or two, Things will only get better, not worse. Whether the war situation will develop as I predicted, we will wait and see.
In terms of military aid, the good news today is: Norway will take out the M270 multiple rocket launcher from the warehouse and hand it over to the United Kingdom, which will modernize it and send it to Ukraine.
Norwegian Defense Minister Björn Arild Gram said: "We must continue to support Ukraine... Ukraine needs more weapons and our weapons need significant modernization, so we have agreed with the UK that they will receive Norwegian weapons in order to Ukraine shipment. This is an example of good cooperation between allies.”
Additionally, Norway will transfer to Ukraine an additional 5,000 155 mm caliber shells for the M109A3GN self-propelled gun, in addition to the 5,000 previously transferred.
Previously, the United Kingdom and Germany stated that they would each hand over three M270s to Ukraine. Counting the three Norwegian vehicles and the two batches of 4 Himax each announced by the United States, the Ukrainian army will receive at least 4+4+3x3 = 17 vehicles. Western multiple rocket launcher systems. This has greatly shortened the gap from the 50 to 60 similar systems required by Ukraine.
Moreover, there are still many such systems in the Western arsenal, and Ukraine will get more in the future.
The Seamus in the hands of the Ukrainian army has well demonstrated its superiority: Lieutenant Koval, a Ukrainian Army Seamaster crew member, talked about the first combat use - destroying the Russian army headquarters in Izyum. That time, the Russian army set up its headquarters in a school. The attack killed 17 Russian soldiers, including a colonel and two majors. 20 others were injured. A few days later, there was another attack on the Russian military camp, which contained a large number of Russian troops.
The third attack was performed by four HIMARS systems simultaneously. A total of 24 rockets were fired at the Russian army positions in the same area, causing heavy losses to the Russian army. The fourth attack was on a Russian military ammunition depot in the city of Zhmogoli in the Lugansk region. HIMARS operates primarily at night to minimize exposure to the sight of Russian drones, Koval said. Four MLRS attacked simultaneously from different directions. It took less than a minute to enter the target coordinates and launch, and then immediately left the launch position.
Another HIMARS staff member said that an important advantage of HIMARS is GPS navigation.Even if there are settlements on the flight path, the missile will hit the target directly without accidentally hitting the target. The actual deviation of the HIMARS missile hitting the target is less than one meter, which is a perfect shot! Although the Ukrainian army really wants to get 50 such systems, it still achieved amazing results with only 4 of them, destroying 10 important targets within a week. This greatly weakened the Russian army's combat effectiveness and put them in a difficult situation. In panic.
At the end of today’s article, let me talk about my views on Ukraine’s attack on civilian targets in Belgorod:
As mentioned earlier, last night the Ukrainian army carried out large-scale shelling of residential areas in Russia. This is unprecedented and may be a response to Recently, a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine and a resort center in Odessa in southern Ukraine were hit by Russian missiles, causing a large number of casualties in retaliation.
However, if we put aside retaliation, this kind of counterattack presents a terrifying prospect, that is, Ukraine will exhaust all conventional tactical means in an unrelenting pursuit of final comprehensive victory. This includes attacks on civilian targets within the opponent's national borders, economic warfare , propaganda stations, political warfare, diplomatic warfare and even cyber warfare. All these forms of war Ukrainians almost have the upper hand, so they are bound to win. . Don’t forget that in modern history, there have been many weak ethnic groups and underdeveloped areas that defeated seemingly powerful and developed parties, such as the Anti-Japanese War, the Israeli War of Independence, the Vietnam War , the Afghan War, etc. Even the main trend in the war history of modern history is that the weak side defeats the strong side. The reason is also very simple, that is, actions that undermine the international order are unpopular and will be resisted by all countries in the world, resulting in even the powerful countries being unable to bear the price. Announcing the withdrawal of troops.
As long as the Ukrainians have the confidence to persist in the war to the end, Russia will almost certainly lose. If Russia does not fully withdraw from occupied Ukrainian territory now and allow Ukraine to restore its 1991 borders, it is almost certain that Russia will become an insignificant failed state within 10 years. Just like they experienced in the 1980s.
So, if I want to make a summary of today’s article, I would like to say this: Although losing Beidun and taking the initiative to evacuate Lichansk seems to be a battlefield defeat, war is never about the gains and losses of one city or one place, but the gains and losses of each city. A process in which potential energies complexly interact with each other to produce comprehensive results. Since the Ukrainian army has understood on the battlefield that it is impossible to win quickly in the short term, it should change its combat philosophy and pursue tactics that can better preserve its own strength and kill its opponents more efficiently. Time is on Ukraine's side. Even if some land is lost, as long as Ukrainians are strong and brave and cooperate with the continuous flow of foreign aid, victory will definitely belong to Ukraine. At present, the Ukrainian army has chosen to actively evacuate the Lchansk salient and seeks to maximize the use of the Haimas system at hand. This has allowed me to see this change and the new hope it brings.
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Source of information: 2022-07-03 WeChat official account See the world at 9:30
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1nG1jtWqPGxu0hoFxwffgQ
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