Strikes on the Seim river crossings (speculation/discussion)
Strikes on the Seim river crossings (speculation/discussion)
I don't really know if this fits in this community, if not just take it down. The map is from the BlackBird group.
Regarding the recent strikes on the Seim river crossings, I've been speculating what Ukraines plans are. Not too long ago, the Ukranian advance around Korenevo slowed a bit. Then they started systematically hitting the Seim river crossings, of which ISW assesses there is only one left.
If the goal was to encircle and trap Russian units, I would assume that Ukraine would make a hard push through Korenevo to the river. As it looks now, it seems like they are leaving a small corridor open. Whether that is due to Russian resistance or Ukrainian planning I have no idea.
This makes me wonder whether they are intentionally leaving a small opening (See: Sun Tzu) to try to make Russian forces low on resources funnel through the opening where they can inflict heavy casualties, or whether they are trying to force the Russians to expend resources trying to prevent being cut off before they close the net.
In any case, I can see Ukraine wanting to secure another major road towards Korenevo that they can use to supply the offensive.
Of course, I don't want anyone to reveal anything that could violate OPSEC, everything I read is based on OSINT. I'm just interested and would like to hear other peoples speculations.
I'm pretty sure the 3rd pre-war bridge was taken out (yesterday?). So, all Russia has left is the pontoon bridges (2?) and possibly one was taken out earlier today (1 left?).
To me, it seems Ukraine is trying to trap troops and equipment below the river and get a large personnel surrenders and equipment recovery.
First of all the entire area is mostly cut off already. The Snarkost river, which flows into the Seim is cutting the Russians off south of Korenvo. The Ukranins control those bridges.
Blowing up the bridges creates a dillema for Russia. They can fight for the land and probably have high losses or they withdraw their soldiers and give Ukraine a stronger defensive line. The Seim is a fairly large river, so a good position for Ukraine and it shortens the line they have to defend. At the same time Ukraine does not have endless resources in the region as well. So allowing the Russians to withdraw is an option.
Especially if Ukraine plans another attack it would be a good choice. Ukraine has something like 100Leopard1, which have hardly seen combat and thousands of new recruits, which have recieved training. We have so far not seen those units. Many front line units in Donetzk are also complainign that the general staff is withdrawing assets. Kursk is a few thousand men, so not something they would notice. We also know that Ukraine has been attacking Crimea for some time. So maybe we see another offensive in the south soon. But all of that is just speculation.
It makes sense to use the Seim as a natural barrier, but Russia hasn't let rivers be too much of a defensive obstacle, as we have seen in their steady advance in the Donbas.
I think it's to slow down the RF ability to build up a force concentration to attack the Ukrainian incursion's flank from the west, rather than any actual interest in taking and defending that area.
I hope the ultimate goal is to attack Lgov, in order to cut off the M-38 highway, and more importantly the rail junction from the north and running east-west to bottleneck the logistics to the Donbas theaters to rail lines further east.
The Seim runs through Lgov, but it's as far again from the assessed current UAF advances so far
I was speculating in another thread that I believe they are going to push west and take the territory south of the river as Ukraine has destroyed Russia's ability to reliably get supply into the area.
As far as bleeding out extra forces, as you mention, that would certainly be a solid strategy. Ukraine recently destroyed a Russian pontoon bridge to the region. If Russia is determined to keep putting up new bridges, it would certainly be possible for Ukraine to target Russian engineering units, potentially even waiting for a few units to get over the fresh bridge before blowing it, trapping the units on the under-supplied side.
I'm not sure what the advantage is for Ukraine is to hold territory in this location? When they first went across the border, I thought they would attempt to flank the existing front lines, but they're headed in the wrong direction for that.
The obvious thing is this was poorly defended enemy territory. By attacking here they got through - Ukraine has entered more land in the last 2 weeks than Russia in all of 2024 (entered does not mean control).
This does several things for Ukraine that we know of. there may also be things it does we have not thought of and Ukraine isn't talking about.
It forces Russia to counter-attack to get their own land back. Defense is generally easier than offense so Ukraine can slowly retreat while inflicting lots of Russian losses. Those are troops that don't attack in Ukraine. Better yet, Ukraine doesn't really care to hold this land so they don't have to make as hard of decisions - if troops will be lost retreat (troops will be lost, but hopefully not as many as there is not much value in trading lives). They can also rig traps that would destroy the land, Ukraine isn't going to pay to rebuild it after the way so not their problem.
It pulls Russian troops out of Ukraine. Even after Ukraine withdraws Russia will be forced to keep more troops on the border to prevent Ukraine from doing this again. Those are troops (including supplies) that cannot defend in Ukraine and in turn that makes it easier to take back their own land back.
It gives Ukraine something to bargain with. "you want your land back, we wants ours, lets just trade and call it even". Russia isn't interested in any bargains at this time, but this gives Ukraine something to work with when they are, and also gives Russia reason to be interested. Overall nobody thinks this is a useful thing at the moment (Russia doesn't care), but it is a consideration.
Last (because you are most likely to remember what is last this is what I think is most important) this improves moral. Ukraine has been slowly losing land for months now - this gives a great moral boost: we can take land from Russia. Both defending troops celebrate and then fight harder, and also friends (NATO) can say aid isn't a lost cause as Ukraine can fight back.
The existing front lines are hundrets of km away. When you advance you have to move your supply line, air defence, artillery and so forth forward as well. If you move too deep, then it becomes easy for the enemy to target valueable assets, which should be a bit behind the front line. That is what Russia failed to do in the opening months of the war. They advanced a lot and Ukraine could just target air defence, artillery, tanks from behind, blow up or take supplie and so forth.
This would not have worked. The Russians are not that incapable.