Several medias yesterday spread the news that Wagner had “returned to Bakhmut”. The news was then denied by Podolyak.
I would like to take advantage of this, thanks to the new datas, to reopen the debate about the losses in the Bakhmut campaign and the opportunities of that campaign for both the sides, referencing to the military history of the events and their consequences (warning: wall of text!).
As for the “return of Wagner”: in the southern flank of Bakhmut there’s, for example, PMC Hispaniola, a battalion composed largely of hooligans with close ties to Wagner. I believe that any news reporting about Wagner’s returning to Bakhmut could probably refer to former Wagner professionals who signed contracts with the MoD and joined “legalized” PMCs such as the former. Others joined PMC Redut, framed in the “Cossack Volunteer Assault Corps”. But Wagner as a stand-alone entity, as we’ve known it during the winter, should be gone. And Wagner, via Grey Zone, criticizes its former soldiers who sign contracts with other units, reminding that Wagner became what it had become because of its (now dead) leaders and a cadre of experienced officers who led the subunits.
A few days ago, pictures of the new memorial dedicated to Wagnerites fallen in action were published. Both professionals and convicts - I find it very likely it includes MIAs.
Per Grey Zone, i.e. PMC Wagner’s official communication channel, it contains more than 25'000 names (okay, dog tags actually) of “every fallen Wagnerite”. Thus the statements from Prigozhin in late May and from a Wagner officer back in July would find confirmation:
- 78'000 people have been part of the Wagner Group since the beginning of the invasion
- 22'000 of these fell in action as of May 20, the day Bakhmut was officially taken
- 40'000 of these were wounded, a figure that obviously ranges from the maimed to the slightly wounded
- of the 78'000, 49'000 were the convicts who chose to join Wagner
- the convicts would have suffered 15'000 KIAs and 25'000 WIAs
- as a result, the professionals would have recorded, from February 2022 to May 2023, 7'000 KIAs and 15'000 WIAs
- at the time of Wagner’s withdrawal from Ukraine, 10'000 went to Belarus while 15'000 (largely, I assume, former convicts) were discharged
The convicts should all be out now. A part are dead, some are disabled, the slightly wounded and the unscathed ones have in any case finished their contracts. At the end of July the convicts still in the Wagner ranks reportedly received amnesty and were discharged, even if their 6 months of service were not over yet. The professionals are largely former members of the Russian AF in their 30s and 40s. During the peak of Wagner’s fame recruitment was active and it attracted a significant number of volunteers, even those with no experience. Numerous support roles (from artillery to truck drivers) were in demand, and the minimum age to join Wagner as an not-convict was lowered to 22. For the Ukrainian military intelligence right now there are just 800/850 Wagner members in Belarus. Let’s recall that in the last two months the new Wagner camp in Belarus has been dismantled by 2/3 of its size. A few hundreds are likely in Africa, continuing the PMC’s actions over there. Presumably thousands signed contracts with the MoD (certainly not the 33'000 announced by government sources); thousands more have been discharged and are currently free of commitments and back to private life. Recall that for Russian mobilized or contract soldiers there’s no such thing as vacation: they are allowed 1/2 week-long home visits every several months at the front (generally 6 afaik). Recently there was an outcry in Russian social media as a former professional Wagner member was accidentally killed during a fight in a pub. This suggests that a portion of the professional Wagner veterans are currently without commitments, although another and growing portion is signing contracts with the MoD.
Obviously a very high share of these 25'000+ dead happened in the battles for Bakhmut and Soledar. The monument could include Wagnerites who died in Africa and Syria in past years - several hundreds at least, but surely a small fraction of the total. I assume the convicts killed on the spot for desertion, indiscipline and the likes are excluded. Realistically I think several hundred cases, at least. The discipline enforced by Wagner was ironclad, certainly far more than is in force towards the MoD’s Storm Z units (these are also used for defensive purposes, there have been instances where they have recorded protest videos - it would have been unthinkable for Wagner convicts).
I think we have now relatively fairly accurate data on Russian losses and so we can have a discussion about the Bakhmut campaign.
PMC Wagner’s main action prior to the Bakhmut campaign was the capture of Popasna. This was not a stand-alone Wagner’s action - the 102nd MRR of the 150 MRD, the 76th and elements of the 106th VDV Divisions, the 31st VDV Brigade as well as the 40th NIB were there as well - but the Wagnerite stormtroopers were essential in the strictly urban phase of the battle to overcome the fierce and tenacious Ukrainian resistance. I consider it likely that in these clashes Wagner may have had a handful of hundred KIAs. The second major action by the Wagner group was the capture of Svitlodarsk in late May (certainly less bloody than Popasna) and then of the nearby Vuhlehirska Power Station in late July. The seizure of the latter (along with the taking of Pokrovske in the same month) opened the door for the actions in what was to become Bakhmut’s southern flank: in late August Wagner took Kodema and simultaneously succeeded in reaching the beginning of the (afterwards, well-known) Patrisa Lumumby Street on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut itself.
When we write about the battle of Bakhmut of course it’s not just the city, but the whole area from Berestove to Ozarianivka (about 40 km long in a straight line) and logically including Soledar, which was a carnage and whose battle was very costly for both sides.
Wagner was not alone in Bakhmut. The unit that pulled off the first major action of the battle (the seizure of the Knauf plant in Soledar) was the 6th MRR of the LPR Army, during the first 10 days of August ‘22. In December there was evidence that elements of the 57th MRB (probably some tank companies) were in Bakhmut providing armored support to Wagner. The bulk of the 106th VDV Division was deployed to the area in late December and was essential in the advances of early January both in Soledar to the north and in Opytne to the south. Unconfirmed rumors also spoke of the presence, to provide support, of elements of the 98th VDV Division and of the 20th MRD. The outer flanks of the wider sector were covered by units of the 2nd Corps (LPR); in early May, with PMC Wagner heavily weakened and having announced its withdrawal and the beginning of Ukrainian attacks on the flanks, several regular brigades arrived and are still present in the sector today. That said, the overwhelming majority of the actions from August to May were the work of Wagner, that consequently took the overwhelming majority of casualties.
By mid-February an US estimate put Wagner’s death toll at 9'000, half of whom had been killed since mid-December (90% of whom were convicts). At the same time reports began to come out of convicts-only units that had like 98% casualty rates. With the new datas, taking them at face value, I find it legitimate at this point to assume that the Bakhmut campaign (+ the flanks of course) from August to May did cost the Russians around 25'000 KIAs/MIAs, Wagnerites for the vast majority. Yes, less than the figures announced by the Ukrainians, but more than Western estimates. The campaign thus seems to have been more costly to the Russians than it might have been expected. The survival rate of the convicts, on the other hand, seems to have been higher than one might have thought. Sure, far more than the 15% of convicts enlisted died - a percentage promised by Prigozhin during a visit to a penal colony. While Wagner’s professionals on the contrary would have suffered much heavier losses than estimated.
On the Ukrainian side we don’t have recent estimates, let alone official datas. If I were forced to produce an estimate, let’s say that I would find it credible that in the battles for Bakhmut and Soledar the Ukrainians had between 10 and 15'000 KIAs/MIAs, maybe closer to the latter figure. I have no basis for stating this but I would find it consistent with estimates of Ukrainian losses relative to Russian ones being close to 1:2 (or very slightly worse) in Bakhmut, as I think Muzyka once estimated during a talk with Kofman IIRC (i.e. in line with what the consensus has estimated as being the average ratio of this conflict in general) - ignoring the out-of-reality estimates of 1:5 (at most achieved in some specific cases like Vuhledar during the winter and maybe in Avdiivka during certain months) or the delusional inverted ratios boasted by pro-Russians. For the UAF in all probability it was the bloodiest campaign of the war after the Russian Donbas offensive in April/June ‘22. Second out of three parts below.
There were no actual human waves by Wagner despite the elsewhere widespread beliefs; the convicts attacked in squads or small platoons to be used as decoys to unravel Ukrainian positions, which were then hit by Russian artillery and worked by Wagner’s professional assault teams, also during the night thanks to the thermal visors that were fairly spread among them. Despite constant complaints from Prigozhin, it had been estimated in December that Wagner’s organic artillery was firing about 2'000 shells per day, excluding the regular artillery units that were active on the outer flanks. As Defmon said, the battle might have had a different outcome if Ukraine had been able to employ the DPICMs since the end of last year.
I am of the opinion that both Ukraine and Russia lost the battle for Bakhmut. First, let us recapitulate what were the objectives that the two sides were aiming for in Bakhmut, by briefly analyzing the history of the battle.
Early July ‘22. Russia had just taken the Lysychansk salient. A few weeks before it had finished conquering the Lyman sector, reaching Sviatohirsk. From Izyum the Russians were pushing towards south-east along the M03 Highway. The goal was to encircle the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk conurbation on three sides and close the Donbas issue: to the west of these cities there are basically just villages until Pavlohrad. Throughout the spring Ukraine had implemented a questionable urban defense strategy to “hug” the Russians: meaning, engaging them in house-to-house battles at relatively short distances where theoretically the overpowering Russian artillery fire would lose effectiveness, at a time when Ukraine was running out of its own stocks of 152/122mm but also 125mm ammos for tanks (Bulgarian/Romanian etc. factories had yet to get into full gear) and shipments of NATO calibers were just beginning. Certainly the Russians suffered really high losses during the spring campaign, but Ukraine wasted resources in the ill-advised defense of Rubizhne and then Severodonetsk on the other side of the Siversky Donets, with the UAF lacking reserves in both Popasna and in Svitlodarsk; the following month a disaster was barely avoided when the Russians broke through in Zolote/Hirske.
In early July the UA Army entrenched itself on the Siversk-Soledar-Bakhmut line, and given the strength the Russian AF had shown in the spring it was expected to be a temporary line to slow the Russian onslaught towards the inevitable battle of Sloviansk/Kramatorsk. Things went luckily differently, because by that time most of the Russian formations had all but exhausted their fighting potential. Siversk easily withstood the (relatively) timid Russian attacks during July. On the western bank of the Oskil River, in what was one of the best feats of the war, the formations of the Eastern Military District were stopped and beat their heads for months against a numerically far inferior Ukrainian grouping (consisting mainly of two very good brigades: the 93rd Mech and the 95th Air Assault) that managed to stop any ambition towards Sloviansk from the north-west. The Russians in Lyman were blocked by the Siversky Donets; everything changed with the Kharkiv counteroffensive: the Russians, besides Kupyansk, lost all the rest of the western bank of the Oskil, including Izyum and then Lyman. Russian dreams of surrounding Sloviansk on three sides vanished, and in fact the possibility of approaching it in the first place. Bakhmut also loses much of its importance. It was originally supposed to fall relatively fast like Popasna and act as a staging area for the fall/winter months for the pushes towards Sloviansk. Afaik Russian doctrine emphasizes cities as staging areas (Popasna was and still is the key to supplies for the front around Bakhmut), which is a good reason why having avoided the retreat from Bakhmut during the fall was, in my opinion, very positive.
Summing up, the battle intensifies month after month in the fall; in December most of the brigades that had been holding out in Bakhmut since September/October are withdrawn to regain fighting ability and are largely replaced by brigades that partook in the Kherson campaign, while other brigades that had been in the area since September remained in the fight; at the same time numerous TDF elements arrived as reinforcements. In January the Russians broke through in Soledar, then took Klishchiivka to the south and began a rapid advance on the flanks that would slow only by mid-March. It was clear that as long as Soledar held out, Bakhmut could be safe. The Soledar mess unfortunately veered the momentum in favor of the Russians; I hold the opinion that the Ukrainian choice to defend the city made sense until the first half of February, when the Russians reached M03 Highway and then took, in the second half of the month, the fields south of Berkhivka and Yahidne, which effectively ended up making Ukrainian supplies to Bakhmut very difficult. The situation for Ukraine worsened as the only route to Bakhmut remained the notorious dirt road from Chasiv Yar to Khromove, which complicated CASEVAC, as well as causing a chronic shortage of mortar shells to the units entrenched in the city. Instead for some reason (read: politics) it was decided to remain in Bakhmut despite all the difficulties.
The justification of both the sides was that the fighting bought time. For the Russians, I remember Prigozhin stating in an interview several months ago that he was tasked by Surovikin to start the “Bakhmut meatgrinder” with the task of buying time for the reconstitution of the regular forces, exhausted by 7 months of war, and trying to bleed the UAF dry. By September Russia was in a mess: much of the regular formations’ fighting capacities had been lost, D/LPR units had suffered huge losses and there were fewer and fewer locals to draft there, entire frontlines were held by Rosgvardia without heavy equipment. Mobilization and the slow awakening of the MIC were then initiated. With the overwhelming majority of the VDV stuck in Kherson, the Eastern front found itself very weak; as early as mid-October, after the Battle of Lyman had bought some time for the Russians, the first mobilized were thrown to the Svatove-Kreminna line, which was to be reinforced the following month by the VDV withdrawn from Kherson, while much of the formations of the Western and Central MDs spent the winter being reconstituted in Belarus. An operation was therefore needed to be set up in a short time to keep as many Ukrainian brigades as possible busy. Prigozhin was thus authorized to recruit in the prisons as PMC Wagner, which had shown tactical competence in the previous months, was the chosen one for the Bakhmut operation.
At the same time, the Ukrainian command, among the various justifications for resistance in Bakhmut since March, used that of “buying time” while the “NATO-trained” brigades were being prepared for the counteroffensive. The Ukrainians took heavy losses, in a terrain that had become severely hostile in the last months (let’s recall anyway that for each side the majority of losses presumably occurred on the flanks). The “Kherson dividend” (in terms of the availability of a Corps-sized grouping after the liberation of the right-bank) was spent in Bakhmut (except for the marine brigades that went to Avdiivka); the then-new brigades (46th and 77th Airmobile), largely trained in the UK for offensive purposes, suffered very high losses to the extent that their operational effectiveness was completely compromised (the 46th and 128th were withdrawn from the front after Soledar and took months to be reconstituted, as did the 24th, 58th and the 71st). The 93rd was withdrawn in December from Soledar and returned after a month and a half of recovery in late January to the center of Bakhmut where it remained until the retreat; the bulk of the brigade is still being reconstituted. The TD brigades suffered really high losses, which were made worse by the fact that they included poorly-trained men who were also used for local counterattacks.
The Russians took extreme losses - in all likelihood more than they expected. In the long run they are no less defeated: Wagner Group is all but spent and presumably no longer existing as a stand-alone force; their realistic chances of exploiting the new operational depths gained with the capture of Bakhmut are pretty much zero, since they are now the ones on the defensive in the sector. Now the “Bakhmut curse” falls to the Russians: it’s their turn to suffer heavy losses and have to concentrate formations in Bakhmut (that would be more useful elsewhere) just for political reasons. The Ukrainians are attacking in Bakhmut without diverting reserves from other sectors and with limited resources, and nevertheless are managing to keep a large Russian grouping (estimated being made up of 52'000 troops) pinned down in Bakhmut, including numerous VDV units that would otherwise have been sent to the South. Particularly in the southern flank the Russians are engaged in bloody positional battles and despite being on the defensive, taking into account the numerous counterattacks, the attrition is probably worse than that experienced by the Ukrainians. Last (short) part below.
I conclude with an update on the new Russian units, which correlates with the end of the Wagner Group. Russia, according to Izvestia, will create new “special” brigades, focused on assault on fortified positions and deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines. They will be framed within the existing Combined Arms Armies (as opposed to VDV formations, which are autonomous and under the consolidated VDV General Staff) - they should be relatively similar to naval infantry brigades but without amphibious specialization. Another source of inspiration could be the reconnaissance brigades, a very special and rare type of formation in the Russian Army (there are just two such brigades), but unlike these they will have an armored component. These new assault brigades will have a large number of tanks, IFVs and artillery, I imagine in line with the normal Russian motorized (= mechanized, in Western jargon) infantry.
https://iz. ru/1578825/roman-kretcul-aleksei-ramm/sistemnyi-vzlom-v-vs-rossii-poiavitsia-novyi-tip-brigad
This could be due in order to limit an excessive VDV expansion in the context of conflicts between Russian power hubs (Shoigu is not a fan of VDV command autonomy). Recall that in any case, VDV expansion continues and it has been announced that each VDV division should receive a tank regiment by the end of the year (that’s hundreds of MBTs in total - good luck finding them); apparently the formation of the third (119th) air assault regiment of the 106th Division has been completed and the new 104th Division is being formed. The VDV will increasingly become elite mechanized infantry.
In any case, the expansion of the VDV and the creation of this new type of brigade may be the consequence of the demise of Wagner, as well as of the will to try to limit the human casualties caused by attacks in the cannon fodder style (like in Bakhmut and in Avdiivka) and to try to make tactical gains by employing limited numbers of assault infantry, like Ukraine has been doing lately. Therefore, I don’t rule out that former Wagner members (who, largely, have past experience in the Spetsnaz, VDV or Naval Infantry) who will sign contracts with the MoD will be redirected to these units. Probably their purpose will be offensive operations, while the VDV and Naval Infantry will be deputed for mostly defensive purposes and as “fire-fighting” units.
Sure! Here, here and here. It was legalized by the MoD and is reportedly turning into a SOF unit now.
Letting aside that losses for Wagner (both professionals and convicts) are usually harder to track (in terms of obituaries published and the likes) compared to regular soldiers, I find that quite a believable estimate, to which deaths from the separatist republics must be added. The US estimation from August of the number of Ukrainian and Russian KIAs seems quite realistic in my view. At most, just a bit higher than I was expecting, at least for Ukraine.
I meant that the Russians call “motorized” (motor rifle) a brigade which has the same order of battle, size and equipment as a Ukrainian mechanized brigade (1 battalion fielding MBTs + 3 battalions fielding IFVs). I wrote that in order not to let people believe a Russian motorized brigade and a Ukrainian mechanized brigade were two different formations in terms of equipment. And as such, Russian motorized infantry would be called mechanized in the West.
Good question. Right now the largest flow of recruits steams from new contract soldiers from the poorer regions primarily (and some continue getting mobilized), thanks to generous wages and bonuses. That said, with all the new formations being developed and obviously the need to replace losses in existing ones I find it possible that there may be a second major wave of mobilization in the future.
In Ukraine, mobilization continues as usual, as well a fair flow of volunteers. During the first months of 2023 so many new brigades were created, some still being formed. I think the priority for Ukraine is replacing the human and material losses of the existing ones, and maybe introducing a fourth mechanized battalion into the new ones. The creation of new brigades, besides manpower (they could reform TDF units), is even more limited by lack of equipment (which is partly fixed with MRAPs) and lack of officers. If the latter were not such a big problem I would find it an excellent thing introducing a divisional level in order to have a more efficient management of the current huge number of brigades, but it’s unfortunately simply not possible in this context. Now most of the new units created are rifle battalions (Russia is creating new rifle units as well).
Hi and thank you! Sorry for the delay - yesterday I didn’t have time for a proper answer to your very interesting questions.
To answer the first question I will try to give a recap of the Popasna affair. The fall of the town was caused by the enormous superiority of fire, equipment and personnel on the part of the Russians and was also strongly due to the lack of reserves on the part of the Ukrainians.
It was a very important stronghold on the 2015 line; from the first days of the war it was hit by Grads and artillery. If we listen to the testimony of Ukrainian veterans, the Russians were constantly attacking in every way: only infantry, only tanks, tanks and infantry. First (early April) they took the fields south of the town - it was not easy, the whole area was filled with Ukrainian trenches and fortifications. Once taken, they attacked the town from at least two sides. The power of the Russian artillery was devastating. IIRC the Russians had five (tube) artillery and three rocket artillery brigades in the area. Tanks were used extensively in the battle for direct fire against Ukrainian positions. The Russians fired at the buildings to bring them down and destroy the Ukrainian positions. Once the town was virtually leveled, Wagner went into action, using the tactic of isolating Ukrainian urban strongholds to annihilate them or force the soldiers to surrender.
The 24th Mechanized Brigade fought extremely tenaciously, almost always never abandoning its positions if not forced. But it suffered devastating losses. The problem was that the Ukrainian Army for real had no reserves and was always moving on the edge. Very capable brigades like the 80th Air Assault were divided between several zones to fix problems created by less competent units. For instance it was crucial to delay the closing of the Zolote/Hirske pocket when the LPR Army drove TDF units out of Toshkivka, posing great risks to the Ukrainians just to the south.
I had heard some time ago that in June 2022, a promising counterattack by the 93rd Brigade in the Izyum sector was cancelled because there wasn’t any fresh battalion left to continue the action. That’s it. Now, certainly at that time the Ukrainian Army was definitely smaller than it is now, and given the intensity of the Russian offensive and the length of the front, it’s understandable they had not spare formations at their will. But the problem is that the choices of the Ukrainian General Staff aggravated the situation. The most famous and rightly criticized event was the all-out defense of Rubizhne and Severodonetsk, with a significant number of Ukrainian brigades on the “wrong” side of the Siversky Donets.
Less well known are the events in the Lyman sector, i.e. the eastern bank of the Oskil. While one could understand the ambition to defend the area because of its proximity to Slovyansk, in hindsight it turned out to be a poor choice. It kept several good Ukrainian brigades busy - such as the 81st Airmobile in Sviatohirsk and the 79th Air Assault in Lyman/Yampil. They fought well, but at a cost. The latter in particular took very ugly losses and needed months to recover operational capabilities. Considering how difficult a mechanized river crossing is (just ask the HQ of the Russian 74th MRB for infos), it would have been smarter to abandon the northern side of the Siversky Donets altogether and build defensive positions on the southern bank, while simultaneously reinforcing the grouping in the Izyum sector. When resources are scarce one must concentrate them in the most efficient ways and make choices, even painful ones. Let’s not mention how the Ukrainians at that time were also conducting offensives in Kherson with the aim of diverting Russian resources from the East. With few exceptions (the seizure of the bridgehead at Lozove) the attacks didn’t go that well, also due to the use of newly mobilized reserve brigades. It wasn’t until August that the Russians, understanding that the famous counteroffensive was coming, sent reinforcements to Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - the entire Eastern MD was deployed to the Southern front, which was the key reason why the Kharkiv counteroffensive was so successful - but by then the Russian onslaught had already been exhausted and the Lysychansk salient lost.
Another case was Svitlodarsk, defended by the 30th Mechanized Brigade (it also included the 47th Assault Battalion, which would later become the 47th Brigade!). The sector held well until the brigade had to send a battalion to face the breakthrough north of Popasna and another to reinforce the southern bank of the Siversky Donets near Bilohorivka where the failed Russian crossing had occurred. At that point Wagner took Svitlodarsk with relatively little difficulty.
Once Popasna was taken, the survivors from the 24th Brigade retreated to the trenches in the north-east, around Zolote; the Russians had gained a topographically very good position (Popasna sits in the hills). To the north and the west of the town the Ukrainian fortifications were much less developed compared to the east (where the 2015 line passed). The Russians at that point maneuvered northward, gaining positions, until they found the Ukrainian trenches around Zolote, which held out until around June 20. The problem is that the northwestward advance was instead very rapid and objectively a test of tactical competence. I remember reading that a tactic often successfully used by the Russians in the advances northwest of Popasna was to “feint” a mechanized/armored push toward a village, wait for the Ukrainians to rush there in order to block them in defense and then send the VDV to occupy nearby villages, even by crossing streams, etc., with very fast-paced operations - which often caused the Ukrainian artillery to find itself displaced and unable to keep the pace of the VDV advances (that would later flank the initial village). With these tactics villages like Trypillya or Vasylivka fell, IIRC. Yes, the Russians did such things, but then others (mostly separatist units) had compensate for the over-intelligence shown by others with their typical frontal attacks. It must be said that D/LPR units were variable in quality: you had the 2014/15 veteran units that knew the terrain well, were made up of motivated volunteers and had decent mechanization capabilities. Then you had the units pulled up with the general mobilization of the two republics that were often quite terrible and used for reconnaissance in force.
The 76th VDV Division aided by elements of the 90th Tank Division also managed to cut the T1302 (Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway) around Berestove; several successful Ukrainian counterattacks (thanks again, 80th AAB) succeeded in blocking the Russians, who, however, had the road under fire control at that point anyway. When the Russians then succeeded in occupying the hills around Vrubivka, it was no accident that Zolote and Hirske fell the following week.
At the time of the Donbass offensive the basic unit of the Russian Army was still the BTG, which today practically is no longer used. Usually, to my knowledge, the attacks were organized by a BTG, with one element deputed to attack and others to act as a reserve or to flank the enemy. Hence, also to answer the last question, I would say the answer is yes. I don’t know much about this, though, so take it with a pinch of salt. To answer the third question, by April the Russians partially understood their February/March mistakes, when the lack of dismounts was often fatal to them. On some occasions the Russian units were reinforced by D/LPR infantry, on other occasions (as in the case of the “veteran” separatist units), the latters had their own areas of responsibility and acted more autonomously. To return to the second question, one only has to look at the equipment losses of the time to see immediately that the attacks were heavily armored and mechanized (including for the VDV). Today Russian material losses are significantly lower than at that time (especially the losses to ATGM) - if the Russians had continued to lose gear at those rates they would be in a very ugly position now.
Yes, the actual breakthrough occurred after the loss of the town, and it occurred at advanced intensities in periods of 2/3 days every 10 days or so, throughout the month following the fall of Popasna. Maybe the Russians would have broken through anyway, but if the brigades deployed north of the S-D River had been employed around Popasna and in Svitlodarsk the outcome might have been different. I think the MilitaryLand map, while very good, underestimates the Ukrainian grouping in Severodonetsk: the 57th Motorized was definitely there, as was the 115th Mechanized (which fucked up) and elements of the 128th Mountain Assault, for instance…
The sources are many: there are several Ukrainian analysts/observers, also Tom Cooper does interesting analysis even if he sometimes has way overly optimistic pro-Ukrainian tones. There are YouTube interviews with Ukrainian veterans; DeepState as well is a very good source, both for analysis but especially for its map - DeepState team has direct contacts with HQs of Ukrainian brigades, they are able to know about territorial changes before geolocations can confirm them and despite being Ukrainian it hardly sugarcoats stuff. The map starts in the first half of April 2022 and has been updated almost every day since then, it’s an invaluable tool, I recommend you use it - I always use it to check the progress of a given advance in the past. Other pages like GeoConfirmed on Twitter are great because they keep track of the geolocations associated with a given Ukrainian unit, and so it allows to see where elements of a given formation were, even in the earliest months of the war. I’ve been delving a little deeper into the Kyiv campaign lately, generally the first month of the war is the most difficult to analyze as many of the existing tools (maps, geolocations, etc.) and today’s analysts weren’t available at the beginning. If I knew Ukrainian I would have 10 times better knowledge than I do now… In the end it’s just a hobby for me as a passionate about history. And thank you, but I absolutely don’t have the skills, the competence and the full-fledged sources to be able to write something more structured! That will be the task of historians at the end of the conflict, now there’s still too much fog of war; it will also be interesting at the end of the war to hear interviews of veterans from both sides of a given campaign, and surely new details will come out that are still secreted today. News like this are just coming out now for example.