Warfare continues and the cycle of attack and counterattack is being maintained in the eastern part of Ukraine. Donbas remains the focus of fighting. Russian troops are being redeployed from Mariupol. Seven million displaced persons. The claim is that the Russians are “several days behind schedule” in attempting to gain maximum ground by their Victory Day.
Immediate items to watch
- Russian forces attacking southeast from Izyum, west from Kreminna and Popasna, and north from Donetsk City will likely make steady but tactical gains against Ukrainian defenders.
- Russian forces will likely attempt to starve out the remaining defenders of the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol and will not allow trapped civilians to evacuate but may conduct costly assaults on the remaining Ukrainian defenders to claim a propaganda victory.
- Russian forces are likely preparing to conduct renewed offensive operations to capture the entirety of Kherson Oblast in the coming days.
- Russia may continue false-flag attacks in and around Transnistria or move to generate a more serious crisis in Transnistria and Moldova more generally.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces likely intend to leave a minimal force in Mariupol necessary to block Ukrainian positions in Azovstal and prevent partisan actions and are deploying as much combat power as possible to support offensive operations elsewhere.
- Ukrainian forces are successfully slowing Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine, which secured only minor advances west of Severodonetsk and did not advance on the Izyum front in the last 24 hours.
- Ukrainian counterattacks in Kharkiv are unlikely to develop into a major counteroffensive in the coming days but may force Russia to redeploy forces intended for the Izyum axis to hold their defensive positions around the city.
- Ukrainian intelligence continued to warn that Russian false flag attacks in Transnistria are intended to draw Transnistria into the war in some capacity and coerce Moldova to abandon pro-European policies
- Main effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv and Izyum;
- Supporting effort 2—Southern axis;
- Supporting effort 3—Sumy and northeastern Ukraine.
Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine
Subordinate Main Effort—Mariupol (Russian objective: Capture Mariupol and reduce the Ukrainian defenders)
Russian forces continued to redeploy from Mariupol on April 29 to participate in offensive operations northward to support Russia’s main effort to capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff stated on April 29 that certain units from Mariupol are deploying to participate in offensive operations toward Kurakhiv (western Donetsk Oblast, about 50 km west of Donetsk City), and an anonymous senior Pentagon official reported that a “significant” number of Russian units have redeployed toward Zaporizhia Oblast since April 20, though ISW cannot independently confirm these redeployments.[2] Russian forces likely intend to leave the minimum force necessary in Mariupol to block Ukrainian positions in Azovstal and prevent partisan actions and are deploying as much combat power as possible to support offensive operations elsewhere.
Russian airstrikes continued to bombard the Azovstal plant on April 29 and Russian forces did not conduct any major ground attacks.[3] Advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol Petro Andryushchenko reported that Russian forces are consolidating occupational control of the city and intensifying an information campaign claiming they are taking measures to ”improve life in Mariupol,” though they are reportedly failing to provide enough food for the city.[4] Andrushchenko additionally stated that Russian forces are taking inventory of residences in Mariupol to begin nationalizing Ukrainian property.[5] Russian forces likely intend to both consolidate their control of Mariupol and advance false Kremlin rhetoric of “liberation,” rather than a military occupation.
www.understandingwar.org/...
Up front: The military situation in the Donbas region appears to have little change. I suspect we’ll have a lot of that sort of news in days to come.
The senior defense official defined Russia’s progress as “incremental,” “slow,” and “fairly plodding.”
Russia has launched airstrikes and artillery strikes ahead of ground advances, but still run into stiff Ukrainian resistance, official says.
Significant effort right now is in areas southeast through southwest of the city of Izyum, in areas around towns like Lyman, senior defense official said.
The Russians appear to be setting the conditions for a “sustained and longer offensive,” but “of course” an offensive already has begun in the Donbas region, the senior official said.
Russia still has about 92 battalion tactical groups in the fight, the same number the Pentagon reported yesterday. There are still an undefined number of Russian troops moving from the southern city of Mariupol to the north.
The preponderance of airstrikes are still in Mariupol and the Donbas region, though there were strikes in Kyiv, Odessa and other locations in the last day, senior defense official said.
The Pentagon believes that Russia may have been targeting “military production capabilities” with its strikes in Kyiv, which appear to have in part hit a residential area and caused civilian casualties, including the death of a journalist.
“They could have missed” their intended target in that strike in Kyiv, the official said.
Weapons are still flowing into Ukraine at a significant rate. Twenty flights of military aid from seven countries arrived in the region in the last day, the senior defense official said.
The U.S. intends to deliver 12 more flights in the next day. They will carry more howitzers, rounds for them, radar and the first batch of Phoenix Ghost drones to be turned over to Ukraine. Those are loitering munitions.
As of today, Russia has launched more than 1,950 missiles at Ukraine since the invasion began. That number is up about 50 from yesterday.
• • •
Separatist authorities in the Moscow-backed region of Transnistria have blamed the incidents on Ukrainian infiltrators, while the Kyiv government alleged they were false-flag attacks designed to provide a pretext for an infusion of Russian troops, just as similar blasts in the Donbas preceded the 24 February Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A Russian move into Transnistria would pose an imminent threat to the sovereignty of Moldova, which, like Ukraine, has shown increasing interest in joining Nato.
On Thursday, Moldova’s deputy prime minister, Nicu Popescu, said the attacks represented “a very dangerous new moment in the history of our region”. One of Europe’s poorest countries, Moldova is grappling with a large influx of refugees and the economic fallout of the war, which has stopped nearly 15% of its exports.
With the start of this new phase in the war, a layer is being stripped away from the buffer that has thus far kept Nato and Russia from coming into direct, hostile contact, during the cold war and since, Borger writes. And if the ominous explosions in Transnistria are auguries of a new Putin gambit, Moldova could find itself to be the next proving ground where this dangerous new world makes itself felt.
www.theguardian.com/...
Russia appears to be “several days behind” schedule in its offensive on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine due to stiff Ukrainian resistance and continuing supply line problems, a senior Pentagon official said Friday.
In this latest phase of the nine-week war, Russia is attacking the region on three fronts: from Izium in the north; from eastern Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014, and from the besieged port city of Mariupol in the south, the official said.
But Russian forces have made only incremental progress, at best, and are nowhere near their goal of encircling tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops in a pincer movement, according to the senior Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments.
“It’s a knife fight,” the official said of the fierce combat both sides are waging on the flat, wide-open terrain that distinguishes this phase of the war from the urban battles in and around northern cities that defined the first several weeks.
Moscow now has 92 battalion groups fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine — up from 85 a week ago, but still well below the 125 it used in the first phase of the war, the Pentagon official said. Each battalion group has about 700 to 1,000 troops.
Many of Russia’s battalions suffered heavy casualties and equipment losses in the early fighting and were withdrawn to Russian territory. Efforts to reinforce and resupply the battered battalions were hurried, and as a result, many of the units rushed back into the fight are likely not at full strength, the Pentagon official said.
https://t.co/rEE6Zkw6Wj