As Ukraine’s counteroffensive main thrust begins, it appears Ukraine is making two real primary thrusts: one directly towards Tokmak around Robotyne, and one further east south of Velyka Novosilka.
The goal of the offensive from Robotyne is apparent and well defined: to advance around 25km to Tokmak and liberate this railway hub.
I discussed Tokmak’s importance in a past Explainer in detail.
In short, Tokmak is important because
- It’s the key that opens the gates to advance on Southern Ukraine and Crimea.
- It controls the east/west Russian Rail Route
If Tokmak is lost, Ukraine can isolate southern Ukraine from Russian forces on the Eastern Front and advance on Melitopol, then Crimea while protecting its flank economically.
What is considerably less well-defined is what would happen if Ukraine were able to penetrate Russia’s main and only line of defense in the Velyka Novosilka area. Capturing Staromaiorske puts Ukraine just 8km (5 miles) from the only fortified defense line, and three villages (Urozhaine, Zavitne Bazhannya, Staromlynivka) from securing the main highway leading up to the defenses.
There are essentially two strategic prizes beyond the defensive lines in the shorter term—Zachativka to the southeast, which would be an offensive move aimed at maximal disruption for Russian defenses and logistics, or Polohy to the west, which would help shore up Ukrainian logistics for an advance much further south, such as towards Berdyansk or Mariupol..
A quick look at a railway map shows the logistical importance of both these cities.
Zachativka controls the only east-west link between Southern Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine, much like one element of Tokmak’s importance.
Capturing Polohy from the flank or behind would allow Ukraine to bypass the multilayered defenses placed on this major rail hub, allowing Ukraine easier routes of rail transportation towards the south—a likely must for Ukraine to advance on Berdyansk or Mariupol.
Don’t get me wrong, capturing Polohy is critically important. Ukraine’s simultaneous advances to the west and the east of Polohy are probably aimed at bracketing this area and isolating, aimed at making capturing this crucial area easier.
However, here, I’d like to go deeper into the importance of Zachativka and Tokmak, in particular why severing the East/West Russian rail connection is a big deal in itself.
This is a rough representation of the rail system in Southern Ukraine that connects Crimea (in the southwest) to the Eastern Front.
You’ll notice that capturing either Zachativka or Tokmak will sever the east/west connection between Russian defenses around Melitopol and Crimea from the Eastern Front.
One notable thing is there have been numerous Storm Shadow attacks on Berdyansk and Mariupol, and a very large proportion of them have targeted large-scale Russian barracks along the Sea of Azov in this precise region.
This suggests that Russia was clustering a large proportion of its operational reserves in this immediate vicinity. This makes logical sense.
A quick look at the map shows why Berdyanks and Mariupol are great locations for a central Russian reserve force. A quick few hours' train ride can put them on their way to Robotyne or to the Eastern Front. You can get from Mariupol to close to Kherson by train in about half a day, or all the way up to Severodonetsk.
it’s a centralized location that can easily allow Russia to move reserve forces to any area on the battlefield.
What happens if Ukraine severs the east/west railway? There is simply no central location where Russia can place a large reserve force that can reliably get to the most “hot” areas of the battlefield.
For example, a short trip from Mariupol to Melitopol by train (160km) becomes a 1200km trek, east to Rostov-on-Don, south to Kerch and across the Kerch Bridge, all the way across Crimea and then North to Melitopol.
Russia could certainly hold a strategic reserve in Krasnodar or Rostov-on-Don that could get a force within a day or two to either the Southern or Eastern theater. But instead of maintaining an operation reserve that can get to the fighting in either theater in 5-6 hours, it would take nearly a full day.
This is too slow to serve as any kind of operation reserve, that needs to be ready to be deployed within a matter of hours, not days.
What this would mean is if, hypothetically, Ukraine captured Tokmak OR Zachativka, Russia would no longer be able to use Berdyansk and Melitopol as a centralized holding areas for their operational reserve forces.
They will likely be forced to split this force apart, keeping one portion in Eastern Ukraine as a reserve force, and another in Southern Ukraine—significantly weakening available reserve forces in both theaters due to a lack of centralization.
If Russia overcommits to either side, Ukraine could launch a concentrated assault in the other direction, keeping Russia off-balance.
Severing the east/west rail connection effectively isolates both wings of the Russian Army, preventing them from supporting each other. This would have a major strategic effect on Russian force flexibility and responsiveness, further accentuating Ukraine’s advantages of interior lines.