Your tactical update on Ukraine (May 25)

It has been 91 days since the Russian invasion began. On Wednesday, the Russian forces are focusing their offensive on three points in an attempt to break the Ukrainian defenses in the Donbas.

Lyman, Severodonetsk, and Bakhmut are where the heaviest fighting is taking place three months into the war.

Russian offensives

In its estimate of the war in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War assessed that the Russian military has most likely shifted its approach on the ground in the Donbas. Now, instead of focusing on large-scale encirclements, which require significant forces and the ability to conduct maneuver warfare, the Russian military is going after smaller encirclements.

The situation on the ground according to the British Ministry of Defense. (UK MoD)

“Russian forces have likely abandoned efforts to encircle large Ukrainian formations in eastern Ukraine and are instead attempting to secure smaller encirclements and focus on Severodonetsk. This change in the Russian approach is enabling gradual advances—but at the cost of abandoning several intended lines of advance and abandoning the Kremlin’s intended deep encirclement of Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War assessed.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian forces are conducting an orderly retreat near Bakhmut in the east in order to guard their logistical lines that are vulnerable to the Russian offensive operations in the area.

“Ukrainian forces are likely conducting a controlled withdrawal southwest of Popasna near Bakhmut to protect Ukrainian supply lines against Russian offensives in the southeast of Bakhmut,” the Institute for the Study of War added.

Russian aircraft continue to conduct airstrikes in support of Russian ground forces. However, the lack of robust stockpiles of precision-guided munition is starting to take a toll, and Russian aircraft are increasingly having to rely on dumb bombs.

“In the Lyman direction, the enemy intensified hostilities. With artillery and air support conducts hostilities in the area of the village of Lyman. In the Severodonetsk direction, with the support of artillery fire, the russian [sic] occupiers are conducting an offensive in the direction of the settlement of Sievierodonetsk, fighting continues. In the Bakhmut direction, russian [sic] enemy conducted offensive operations in the area of Komyshuvakha, Yakovlivka and Troitsky, had no success, suffered losses,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense stated.

The stated goal of the Russian military for the renewed offensive in the east is to establish full control over the pro-Russian breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and create and maintain a land corridor between these territories and the occupied Crimea.

Russian casualties

Every day, the Ukrainian military is providing an update on their claimed Russian casualties. These numbers are official figures and haven’t been separately verified.

However, Western intelligence assessments and independent reporting corroborate, to a certain extent, the Ukrainian casualty claims. For example, the Oryx open-source intelligence research page has visually verified the destruction or capture of more than 600 Russian tanks, a statement that has been reaffirmed by the British Ministry of Defense. Same independent verification exists for the rest of the Ukrainian claims.

As of Wednesday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is claiming the following Russian casualties:

29,450 Russian troops killed (approximately three times that number wounded and captured)
3,213 armored personnel carriers destroyed
2,217 vehicles and fuel tanks
1,305 tanks
606 artillery pieces
491 tactical unmanned aerial systems
206 fighter, attack, and transport jets
201 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
170 attack and transport helicopters
112 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses
93 anti-aircraft batteries
44 special equipment platforms, such as bridging equipment
13 boats and cutters
four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems

For most of last week, the Russian military suffered the greatest casualties around the Slovyansk, Kryvyi Rih, and Zaporizhzhia areas, reflecting the heavy fighting that was going on there.

As the days went on, most of the heavy fighting shifted toward the direction of Bakhmut, southeast of Slovyansk in the Donetsk. However, now the heaviest fighting is taking place around Severodonetsk, a key Ukrainian town that the Russian military is trying to surround, and Lyman, where the Russian military suffered the most casualties yesterday.

Author

Stavros Atlamazoglou

Greek Army veteran (National service with 575th Marines Battalion and Army HQ). Johns Hopkins University. You will usually find him on the top of a mountain admiring the view and wondering how he got there.

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