Very interesting read, thank you! The 37th Brigade should have good officers. Some of them come from the 79th Air Assault Brigade - that’s what was said at least. As far as I know, the vast majority of the soldiers are mobilized men from the Odesa Oblast. In the 38th Brigade there are officers from the 503rd Marine Battalion who were taken prisoner in Mariupol, freed and now the battalion is part of this brigade. Nice to read that it had a good start. The performance of the 37th wasn’t that stellar, but nevertheless they are continuing to attrite the Russians at Novodonetske (funnily enough, from the Russian 37th Motorized Brigade) - in my opinion it won’t be long before the latters will have to withdraw to Kermenchyk. It has to be said that the Ukrainian marines are average mechanized infantry for all intents and purposes, not an elite corps (I wouldn’t be surprised if a chunk of the enlisted don’t know how to swim, but then again it’s not even something that’s that necessary for the areas they fight in).

P.S. The point about the new brigade being withdrawn due to losses is interesting. My money on the 23rd Mechanized. Although the 33rd Mechanized has been little active in the recent weeks, today most of the work between Novopokrovka and Verbove is being carried out by formations of the Offensive Guard.

Corroboration of the rumor of recent days: the 56th VDV Regiment (part of the 7th Division stationed in the Kherson Oblast) has allegedly been sent to the Southern front. Probably Orikhiv sector. Only the 108th Regiment and the 171st Separate Battalion, from the 7th VDV Division, are still deployed along the Dnipro. The 247th Regiment had been moved to Staromaiorske around mid July and Ukrainians often report that it’s used to launch numerous small-scale counterattacks, which may suggest that it suffered not-negligible losses.

The entire Eastern Military District (including the Pacific Fleet), from what we know from open source infos, is on the frontlines from Polohy to Vuhledar: there is not a single uncommitted maneuver formation (the 57th Brigade is in the Bakhmut sector for some reason). The 35th Army’s brigades in Polohy are fresh and have seen limited war actions, but Polohy area is still a contact line that the Russians may be afraid to leave undermanned without fear of Ukrainian attacks there.

As for the Southern MD, the 58th Army (probably the most capable Russian formation during this conflict) is 100% committed in the South. During recent weeks most elements of the 49th Army have been sent to the Southern front, from Kherson. In the latter sector a few brigades are still remaining (such as two from the Arctic Fleet) along with several mobilized regiments as well as, now, the minority of the 7th VDV Division, as mentioned above.

Today there was talk of clashes at Kozachi Laheri; personally I am still bearish about the feasibility of maintaining a sizeable Ukrainian bridgehead across the Konka River. Russia still has reserves in the area and the risks of a full-scale crossing attempt are too great for the Ukrainians. At the same time, there are fewer and fewer reserves because of the need for troops on the Southern front. By continuing with these small-scale “provocative” attacks employing few forces, the Ukrainians could force the Russians not to fall below a minimum amount of units deployed on the left bank of the Dnipro as a deterrent of serious Ukrainian actions, but in turn this will complicate things for Russia in the Southern front.

The fact that Russia has been constantly bringing to the Southern frontlines formations previously held in reserve while the old ones continue to remain in the same areas tells us that the latters had significant declines in operational efficiency due to the fighting and there is a widespread need to increase force density in the main directions of Ukrainian attacks. At the same time it must be said that the Ukrainians are also suffering significant losses as well.

What is going between Kupyansk and Kreminna is in the hands of the other two Russian military districts, the Western and the Central ones. Russia rarely tends to mix formations from different districts; when they do it usually happens between formations from the SMD+EMD (Velyka Novosilka now, Kherson in the second half of the last year) and WMD+CMD (Svatove now, Severodonetsk and Lyman last year), probably because they partially share leadership at high levels. Bakhmut is an exception - after Wagner’s withdrawal things became so complicated for the Russians to the point that they had to send there whatever units they had available, from anywhere. Most of the W/CMD formations spent the winter and part of the spring replenishing their previous heavy losses, receiving new equipment and training in Belarus. Today their grouping is considered the strongest by Ukrainian sources. Their goal is the same as that the Ukrainians have in Bakhmut. Either reach the Oskil and occupy the entire Serebrianka Forest, or force the Ukrainians to deploy enough reserves to damage efforts in the other sectors. Ukraine has probably doubled (or almost) the number of troops in that area since May, so far that doesn’t seem to have had too negative consequences for Ukraine elsewhere, but it’s certainly not something the Ukrainian command has agreed to do lightly.

Yes. If it’s confirmed that the 56th VDV Regiment is deployed in Robotyne, it might explain why Ukrainians haven’t entered the village yet despite the fact that they have been reporting for a while that the 291st Regiment of the 42nd Division and the 1430th Mobilized Regiment, i.e. the two main units deputed to the defense of the village, are very worn out. Ditto for the several BARS detachments deployed in the area. The Russian grouping around Verbove (70th Regiment and 1429th Regiment) has also been in battle for 2 months now and was recently reinforced by the 100th Recoinossance Brigade (it was the last uncommitted 58th Army’s formation - their 136th Brigade is in the second line in Staromlynivka); in the junction area between these two groupings they could have sent at least a battalion of the 810th Naval Brigade, which would have been instrumental in repelling the attack of the 118th Mech Brigade in late July (unfortunately it seems to have been quite a fuck up by the Ukrainians).

All of this despite the fact that they could already count on the support of two Spetsnaz GRU brigades deployed in the Orikhiv sector. But it’s possible to think that Russia wants to spare these as much as possible, much more than the VDV.

Interestingly, it mentions a large number of T-62s stored at the base, which also hosts the 5th Tank Brigade (one of the two military unit codes mentioned in the article). It might explain why this is one of the few Russian formations that were confirmed as being T-62M users. Surely they were assigned to it when it was rebuilt during the end of 2022 with the mobilized, after the huge losses in Kyiv at the beginning and in the Oskil sector last summer.