DeepState has clarified what has happened over the last month and a half in the area around Tabaivka and Krokhmalne, between Kupyansk and Svatove.

I had written about this matter a short while ago: sometimes the loss of positions collides with the issue of lack of communication between neighboring units (which, especially in the Kupyansk sector, is something that could be improved), and it’s worsened when, often due to negligence within the unit itself, not enough time and care has been invested in the development of trenches and fortifications.

At the small level that happens because of squads fleeing or losing positions without alerting neighboring squads of the same unit (which may risk getting flanked), and at the big level when officers and the HQ of a brigade don’t notify the other brigades of front line changes, often due of fear of being judged negatively or because they are confident that they will be able to fix the arisen problems without help from other units, sometimes even trying to regain what was lost with a counterattack. Which may end up being another cause of problems, as there is a serious risk that it will be rushed, unstudied in its details and uncoordinated with other units and artillery, with the ensuing problems.

This is not the first time such problems have occurred. I heard that similar problems occurred last December near Terny (in the Kreminna sector) in the positions of the 97th Mech Battalion of the 60th Mechanized Brigade, and those with a certain knowledge of the history of this war will recall the case of the 115th Mechanized Brigade in Severodonetsk in May 2022.

When, as it looks like regarding this case, the problems concern the command of the brigade, it’s crucial that the HQ staff, with the brigade commander first and foremost, pay the consequences in terms of their careers. It’s nothing irreparable, but the important thing is to treasure the mistakes to avoid committing them in the future.

Translation with DeepL. My clarifications are between [square brackets].

https://t.me/DeepStateUA/18814

⚔️ Recreating the chronology of the fighting in the area of Krokhmalne

🤷🏻‍♂️ Due to certain circumstances and insufficient information about the nature of the hostilities, it is impossible to make an After Action Review, but it is quite possible to recreate the events and point out traditional mistakes.

🗓 In fact, this area was actually the quietest in the “Lyman” OTU [Operational-Tactical Grouping], but the first alarm bell went off in early fall. A group of f****ts went to the rear and penetrated into Krokhmalne itself. They destroyed the SP [observation point] with its personnel and went back. By the way, the SP looked more like the military appeared here yesterday, not 10 months ago (at that time) - trenches to the waist, wood just lying over the dugout, only demystifying it.

🗺 This section is under the responsibility of the 103rd OBrTrO [TDF Brigade]. At the end of 2023, the Katsaps [Russians] pushed our guys away from the [Kupyansk-Svatove] railroad. Neither we nor the neighboring units knew about it.

💥 The situation deteriorated on January 18, when a significant section of the front collapsed. One of the battalions of the 103rd did not even know about it, and was, to put it mildly, surprised when the f**kers started to climb in their rear. Approximately, at least 11 SPs and POCs [platoon-strongholds] were lost during that day. Neighboring units learned about the failure of the front when they saw the changes on the [DeepState’s] map. I think it is unnecessary to explain how Kyslivka and Kotlyarivka felt. At the same time, the brigade leadership tried to hide the losses as much as possible. When we started passing on information about the failure through our connections, everyone was surprised. Moreover, many officers denied the information.

🇷🇺 The enemy did not stop there, and around January 27, they attacked Tabaivka again, this time. Eventually, the Katsaps managed to capture the village, but due to its geography and lack of buildings, they were unable to gain a foothold. This time, the situation there was closely monitored by everyone, which did not allow the enemy to develop success in Pishchane or Berestove.

🔄 These events are reminiscent of the enemy’s summer breakthrough near Novojehorivka and Nadiya. Since no conclusions were drawn at the level of the operational and tactical command of the troops, the events were repeated in Tabaivka and Krokhmalne.

🦁 The media reported that the brigade commander of the 103rd Brigade was suspended, and our friends also confirm this fact. His further fate is unknown, as well as there is no official news on this matter. The enemy’s plans in this area were known in advance.

🫡 Many thanks directly to the soldiers of the 103rd Brigade and other units of the Defense Forces, who made great efforts to stop the enemy’s attack and continue to hold it back.

🔄 Conclusions should be drawn from this and should not be repeated. Those responsible for failures and losses should be held accountable, and not, as is the case with the classics, appointed to some much higher positions. The actions of one person should not be higher than the lives of soldiers, who are the most valuable thing we have.

It’s possible. The Ukrainians in the South this summer attempted a similar strategy, with varying success - although this is a “bonsai” war if compared to the sheer size of the Eastern Front in WW2, especially in terms of the difference in the size of the formations employed and I have no clear evidence to bring recent examples on this matter that were successful from both sides.

This is true in general, but especially in the Kupyansk sector, it’s not easy, for those like us who use open-source information, to determine the delimitation of the section of the front that a given brigade covers, as there is an increasing number of battalions that are detached from the brigades to which they belong, fighting side by side with others and answering to the Operational-Tactical Grouping that has jurisdiction over the sector, in this case the “Lyman” OTG. Which means that each battalion covers a small section and this can worsen any communication problems. And when a section is covered by battalions, keeping track of the layout of units, especially if they are from the TDF or the protection units of the National Guard, is not always easy.

A likely and relatively recent example would be the second phase of the breakthrough in the Svatove sector in the second half of July 2023, mentioned by DeepState in this post. During the second phase of the breakthrough (the one on July 24/25 from Raihorodka), the area of Serhiivka and Nadiia, if I remember correctly, was the border between the 66th Mechanized Brigade (which had lost the positions around Novojehorivka, a few kilometers to the south, an handful of days earlier) and the new 32nd Mechanized Brigade, that had just been deployed for the first time to the north of the lost positions.

As far as I had read, this is a M1A2 Sep V2 of the US Army’s 1st Infantry Division in Poland. Ukraine received M1A1s.

I am, moreover, curious to know which brigade is going to get them. According to what Militaryland had posted lately, they were supposed to go to the 47th Mechanized Brigade, before they got an undersized tank battalion with Leopard 2A6s from the 1st Tank Brigade, as the Abrams would not have been ready in time for the counteroffensive.

But months ago Militaryland had written that there were rumors they might go to the new 5th Tank Brigade. An Ukrainian tankman had posted a photo with the UA Armored Troops buckle next to the tank. But such buckle could be used by the tank crews from the mech etc. brigades as well, or they could have given the Abrams to a battalion of an existing tank brigade that could then be detached and assigned to the organic structure of another brigade. Kind of what happened with a battalion of the 4th Tank Brigade, with Leopard 2A4s, that was transferred to the 33rd Mechanized Brigade.

The 127th Motorized Division of the 5th Army had been covering the western bank of the Mokri Yaly I think ever since they withdrew from Kherson. It was they who faced and initially repelled the first action of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, namely the mechanized convoy of the Ukrainian 23rd Mechanized Brigade in the direction of Novodarivka on 4 June 2023.

The reinforcements that arrived were mainly those that were deployed in Kherson, which is a sector that has only been warming up since early August, so I would say that up to that point the Russian units deployed along the Dnipro River could be considered reserves.

If I recall correctly some units such as the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade and 177 Naval Infantry Regiment and the 22nd and 45th Spetsnaz GRU Brigades were deployed along the axis from Kamyanske to Polohy as early as around March 2023, in anticipation of the counteroffensive.

Then, at the end of June, the 34th Mountain Brigade of the 49th Army and the 247th Air Assault Regiment of the 7th VDV Division were sent to the Velyka Novosilka sector and the 11th and 83rd VDV Brigades to the Bakhmut sector, and at the end of July the 56th and 108th Air Assault Regiments of the 7th VDV Division to the Orikhiv sector. All of them from Kherson.

There were indeed lateral redeployments later: the 71st Regiment Motorized of the 42nd MRD (58th Army) was sent to the Orikhiv sector from Velyka Novosilka in late August, together with the 247th Air Assault Regiment. Elements of the 177th NIR also likely fought in Robotyne, and later in October the 136th Motorized Brigade (58th Army) arrived around Robotyne from the Velyka Novosilka sector that had cooled down, to relieve the battered subunits of the 42nd Motorized Division.

This is not considering the regiments of the Territorial Forces: in the Orikhiv sector, in addition to the 1430th that was already there, the 1429th, 1441st, 1455th, 387th, 1152nd, 1251st, etc. arrived in the following weeks/months… In addition to several BARS detachments.

A very important matter to consider is the fact that from the Kharkiv counteroffensive to, for several of them, even late spring 2023, most of the formations of the Western and Central Military Districts were in Belarus to reconstitute themselves. Their return made it possible, over the summer, to send the 98th VDV Division and 31st VDV Brigade to Bakhmut and then the 76th VDV Division to the Orikhiv sector, as well as heating things up in the north-eastern front. Let’s recall that Russia deployed its first new formation just in August 2023, namely the 70th Motorized Division of the 18th Army in Kherson (excluding the 3rd Corps during the late summer 2022). Beside the Territorial Forces, in late 2022 and in the first part of 2023, Russian efforts were focused on bringing existing formations to full strength, both by replenishing existing battalions and attaching new ones to brigades/regiments, after in the second half of 2022 most regular Russian units were manned for a fraction of their theoretical levels. Add to that the creation of several reserve regiments of 1st and 2nd Corps, which were then sent to the South to reinforce the front line against the counteroffensive.

I didn’t expect Naiev to get replaced, considering I always knew he was on good terms with Syrsky. There were rumors in several Ukrainian Telegram channels that the former could have been the one to replace Zaluzhny.

For Pavliuk, I would say that confirms the rumors, and after all he was removed as a deputy defense minister the day before yesterday.