As the special military campaign in Ukraine lasts 4 months, Russian forces are increasingly applying new tactics to crush the resistance of the Ukrainian army in cities and urban areas in the east.
The most expensive targets for Moscow at this time are Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the last two cities that Ukraine still controls in Lugansk province, in the eastern province of Donbass.
Ukrainian army tanks move on a road in the Donbass region, eastern Ukraine on June 21.
The British Ministry of Defense said this week that Russian forces are increasing pressure on the area around Severodonetsk by accelerating their advance in Lysychansk.
Amid the pressure of military losses, Serhiy Gaidai, governor of Lugansk province, announced on June 24 that entrenched units in Severodonetsk city had received orders to withdraw troops to new positions, to provinces with better defensive advantages.
The decision to withdraw troops was announced more than a month after Severodonetsk and Lysychansk became the `fire navel` of Russian artillery.
The battlefield situation in Severodonetsk has been in a constant state of tension for many weeks.
In the battle in Severodonetsk, tanks and armored vehicles no longer played the main role.
The fall of Severodonetsk was a foretold result, when Russia took full advantage of the overwhelming firepower advantage of artillery and the well-fortified logistics network in Donbass in the early stages of the special military campaign.
Russia advocates a slow but steady attack, pre-emptive artillery strikes to pave the way for the infantry to gradually expand control, in parallel with efforts to attack the enemy’s logistics lines to slow down the speed of delivery of enemy weapons.
Ukrainian officials said that Russian artillery overwhelmed the country’s forces 10 times.
Governor Gaidai said about 90% of the houses in Severodonetsk were destroyed under Russian artillery fire, leaving Ukrainian soldiers with almost no place to hide and suffering higher casualties because they were exposed to enemy fire.
Russian jet artillery and UAVs coordinated to attack the Ukrainian battlefield
Russian rocket artillery and UAVs coordinated to attack Ukrainian targets in a video released on June 20.
The Russian army is controlling more than 90% of the territory of Lugansk province, according to the Financial Times.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War commented that the fall of Severodonetsk could be a new step forward for Russia in its efforts to achieve the goal of `liberation of Donbass`, but this cannot be a `decisive victory` for the military.
Ukraine may have significantly lost the area of control in Donbass, but has destroyed a large amount of enemy troops and equipment in the region, thereby reducing the overall combat power of the Russian army not only in the Donbass battlefield.
On the southern front, Ukrainian forces began organizing many counterattacks to retake some areas of Kherson province in the past few weeks.
The Ukrainian army also opened many battles with fierce fighting in the Black Sea coast and some islands along the maritime transport route, aiming to open up grain exports.
Ukraine’s battlefield situation.
Russian forces and separatist militias control about 1/5 of Ukraine’s territory.
Analysis site iStories estimates that the Russian army has likely lost 2-4% of its total troops since the start of the campaign in Ukraine.
Military expert Pavel Luzin in Russia commented that the loss of Russian military resources is `irreproducible and irreplaceable`.
The last time Moscow released official figures on campaign casualties in Ukraine was in March, when the Russian Ministry of Defense said about 1,135 soldiers were killed on the battlefield.
Congressman Andrey Kartapolov, a member of the National Defense Committee of the National Duna (Russia’s House of Representatives), explained that Moscow stopped updating casualty figures because the Russian army `basically did not lose any more people`.
However, British intelligence estimates that about 20,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded after four months of fighting in Ukraine.
T-72 tanks of the Russian army in the city of Severodonetsk on June 15.
After recent advances thanks to artillery fire, Russia may face more difficulties in subsequent campaigns.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced that the country’s army has received the first HIMARS rocket artillery systems donated by the US.
While Kiev warned that the coming time will be a `red summer` for Russian soldiers on the battlefield in Ukraine, Moscow has not yet wavered in its determination to campaign.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in his speech on June 17 emphasized that he has no intention of withdrawing troops.
But defense officials and Western experts assess that after completing the goal of controlling the entire Donbass region, Russia will not have enough forces to maintain the momentum of further attacks, especially when the Kremlin is determined not to
Hannah