Ugledar: A Case Study

The great southern offensive

There was a huge panic on Russian-language Telegram over the unsuccessful assault on Ugledar a few weeks? ago (this post has been languishing in drafts for a while). There were also, however, sober-minded analyses of what went down.

Now, it used to be beyond the scope of the blog to talk in detail about tactical details when the actually interesting narrative, in my mind anyways, was the strategic level considerations, the internal political struggle and the spy games playing out on the higher levels.

I’ve reconsidered my position since then and, having spent about a year at this point acquainting myself with some basic military knowledge (never know when it might come in handy), I feel like I can zoom in from time to time and wade into analysis of specific battles now. My only qualification for doing so is that any particular story or battle that we cover has to lend itself to our understanding of the bigger picture. In other words: does the battle explain something to us about the higher strategy or the power structure of the army or something like that?

If it is just an interesting battle, I don’t really see the point in covering it.

With Bakhmut, we had so many factors at play. A mercenary group with political ambitions that was at loggerheads with the MoD. Hard to resist a story like that.

Ugledar, in contrast, did not make the cut. Just a standard military action on a tactical or maybe operational level, I thought.

But it occurred to me that Westerners aren’t really even exposed to this kind of analysis. All they have are out-of-touch clowns who simply confuse them more. Maybe just exposing Westerners to real battlefield analysis will be enough to open the eyes of some.

Let’s start by taking a look at a Strelkov-approved account of a Russian marine and his version of the story.

I'll summarize a bit. I will be brief. Analyzed a bunch of open sources and opinions. Actually, everything went approximately according to Pavlovka's scenario, when a heterogeneous grouping comes from several directions. As a result, the Marines completed their immediate task. The Red Army did not. The reasons are different, but in my opinion - the unavailability of l / s motorized rifle formations, and shortcomings in engineering training (we must recall the video where tanks are blown up on mines), otherwise this cannot be explained.

The forecast for the development of the situation before the start of the assault on Ugledar, as well as the real capabilities of the units planned for the task, was known to the commander of the Air Defense Forces, Muradov, but under pressure from the General Staff, he still decided to go on the offensive, because this is the plan of the new commander of the Northern Military District. It turned out exactly as predicted. On the "maybe" in this war one will not climb [the ranks]. Now his headquarters is trying with all his might to rectify the situation due to new losses, but the prospects are not bright.

So, instead of strategic level considerations, we see medal-chasing and what appears to be an effort to look busy on the part of the Russian generals. Actually, they demonstrated their ability to move quickly, make rapid gains and engage in large operations a year ago. Now though, they are looking for easy wins on the tactical level.

Why?

Because there is nothing to be done on the higher strategic level.

Why?

Not enough men and supplies.

This is why Bakhmut suddenly became so important.

Prigozhin could use it to put a feather in his cap and continue the fighting where, in other places along the line, it would be impossible because of the lack of military coordination and insufficient men/supplies. Fighting in a small town along the contact line? That’s doable, at least. Better to do something then.

That’s the logic at work behind the war effort, folks. Bakhmut (and Ugledar) are otherwise irrelevant, regardless of what the Duran guys have been telling you.

But we will all realize this if/when Bakhmut is taken by Wagner and literally nothing changes. No rapid advance to the Dniepr, no collapse in the Ukrainian line. Chalk this up as another one of my soon-to-be-tested predictions.

We continue:

As a result:

The marines occupied a bridgehead in the suburb of Ugledar, in an area filled with ​​dachas, and starting hacking away at the enemy. They themselves suffered losses. Judging by the leaked information, some of ours were taken prisoner. We repelled all enemy counterattacks, were surrounded, but fought back. In the most difficult shooting battles, the marines held their foothold, allowing them to develop a further offensive. THEIR TASK WAS COMPLETED!

Currently, positional battles are going on without stopping. At the same time, despite the hysteria on the Internet, the losses are incommensurable with the losses of the army neighbors and definitely not the same as the enemy’s.

The other Russian soldiers did not fulfill their tasks. You have already seen them and know about them. That terrible video where the Ukrainians blocked the column with controlled fire - it’s them on the video. The army team suffered a lot, and, in my opinion, these were unjustified losses. Here was revealed the unpreparedness of the middle and junior command level, as well as of the ordinary personnel. At the same time, the failures of the army affected the difficult situation of the 155th Marines, on whom the enemy now brought down the full power of its counterattacks, including its own reserve.

In addition, among all the units participating in the offensive, the "shell hunger" factor had a negative effect. The ammunition allocated for the operation was expectedly not enough.

In parallel with the events on the battlefield, in order to undermine the moral and psychological state of the military personnel of the 155th brigade and their families, specialists in the information confrontation of the enemy launched fake information that penetrated the Russian segment and was repeatedly reposted without verification by negligent domestic TG channels. As a result, instead of support, the boys saw mass hysteria online, which continues to this day.

Sensing their success in the informational sphere, the Ukrainians filmed a bunch of fake clips and reports on this topic, promoting them in the recommendations on YouTube.

In general, that's all I have for now ✊🏻

Afterword:

I ask all of us to think soberly and not to succumb to emotions. Any information should be cross-checked through those who are informed on the subject.

So, basically, the well-trained marines had partial success in the suburbs of Ugledar. But the regular army got picked apart by concentrated fire by the Ukrainians, ran into mine fields, didn’t have enough shells, had a very bad time.

**

Now, ask yourselves, do you get anything resembling this kind of analysis from the 5D people? Sure, they can write 10 pages on different barrel lengths and diameters of Lithuanian anti-tank guns. Riveting stuff.

But run a Russian marine’s account from Telegram through a machine-translator?

A Herculean task, apparently.

**

Conclusions?

• Russia is not fighting an army of Aborigines.

• Russia is taking losses.

• 10:1 K/D? Get real.

Time to start thinking about an exit strategy.