Ukraine Update: The Looming Fall of Pokrovsk?

There’s an excellent Lawfare podcast on the current situation at the front in Ukraine, especially regarding the difficult situation in and around Pokrovsk. It includes quite a lot of discussion on problems in Ukraine’s information economy, especially regarding the reluctance of subordinate commanders to report bad news up the hierarchy and the abortive efforts to restructure that hierarchy. I’ve been planning to write a slightly longer post on where we are in terms of tactics and technology, but for now I’ll summarize and put into historical context as briefly as possible:

• A more or less central theme in the history of modern ground combat is the decrease in density at the front lines. The Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg maintained about 30000 soldiers per mile of frontage. The German Army in World War I maintained about 2500 soldiers per mile of frontage. The Ukrainian Army gets by with quite a few less than that.
• The twin causes of the drop in density are increases in short and long range lethality. the advent of lethal short-range artillery, good communication between infantry and artillery, and especially rapid-fire infantry weapons means that you can hold a position with far fewer troops. That’s fortunate, because the increased lethality of long-range artillery means that troops at the front line (even entrenched ones) can be massacred in high numbers. To hold to the Gettysburg comparison, Union forces using WWI technology could have stopped Pickett’s Charge cold with a much smaller group of defenders, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because both armies would have been slaughtered by long-range artillery before the infantry fight even started.
• The drop in density means that a “line” isn’t exactly linear. Rather, it’s a system of connecting strongpoints which are heavily entrenched and are strung out in a fashion that can be described as linear, if you feel the need to do so. As density decreases the “line” becomes more imaginary than real.
• Because the line necessarily has gaps, it is vulnerable to infiltration. This observation is key to the development of the tactics that broke the stalemate on the Eastern Front in 1916 and the Western Front in 1918. It is possible for soldiers to simply sneak across enemy lines and end up on the other side of enemy strongpoints. If enough soldiers sneak through, the enemy position is in danger of collapse.
• Some terminology: “Infiltration” means that there are Russians behind you. “Incursion” means that there are enough Russians behind you that some redeployment efforts have to be made in order to avoid catastrophe. “Breakthrough” means that Russians can move relatively freely along a corridor through what used to be the line. “Exploitation” means that the Russians have moved sufficient personnel and equipment through the line to be able to conduct operations in your rear, including encirclements, the destruction of your logistical systems, and the seizure of second- and third-line strongpoints.
• The material demands increase as you move up the ladder. Infiltration is best done with infantry. Exploitation pretty much requires mechanized units, if only to maintain a pace of advance that precludes easy enemy reinforcement.
• The proliferation of drones has enabled a further drop in the density of front “line” deployments. Drones can manage the space between strongpoints (identifying and killing infiltrators) in a way that reduces (but does not eliminate) the need to maintain strongpoints.
• This drop in density makes infiltration easier; Russians can regularly move small units through Ukrainian lines to the rear of Ukrainian strongpoints. Drones help, but individual and small groups can move in ways that are extremely difficult for aerial drones to detect. However, drones *probably* make breakthrough and especially exploitation harder. Exploitation is particularly tricky because it has historically required a substantial mechanized component, and vehicles tend to die when they’re in the open in drone infested country.

What all of this means is that Ukraine can hold the “lines” with a low density of infantry compared to historical norms, but the lines are still just as vulnerable to infiltration as they’ve been since World War I. A concerted campaign of infiltration on the Pokrovsk axis produced an incursion, and has now produced a breakthrough, such that the Russians are operating relatively freely and advancing troops into the city. It *seems* unlikely that the Russians will be able to exploit this breakthrough, both because their mechanized forces are vulnerable to Ukrainian drones and because the process has moved so slowly that the Ukrainians have been able to reinforce and to establish new defensive lines.

That’s… kind of where we are. The Russians can infiltrate, they can take small slices of territory (at considerable expense) but they don’t seem to be able to do the things that would be necessary to catalyzing the collapse of part of the Ukrainian front lines. The Ukrainians can incur huge losses on advancing Russian forces and can seal off certain avenues of advance, but they cannot prevent infiltration and will necessary suffer incursions and breakthroughs (when the Russians are willing to pay the price), even if they can prevent any war-winning exploitation.

Take from that what you will; maybe it’s optimistic (Ukraine can hold out!), maybe it’s pessimistic (Ukraine is going to continue to lose territory). Either way, it seems to me that the core of the game right now is making Russia pay as much as possible for every square kilometer of territory it takes, with the point being to eventually force Russia to decide enough is enough and relax its negotiating demands.

Other Ukraine news:

• Some success in defensive efforts at Dobropillia, where an incursion/breakthrough seems to have been arrested and turned back.
• The ongoing Ukrainian campaign to inflict pain on Russia’s budget…
• Figuring out armor’s role in this war and the next.
• The latest on the cyber-war between Moscow and Kyiv.

Photo Credit: By Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5185770