October 5 — Day 955 — Vuhledar Falls, Pointing Fingers, Syrsky and Joffre

Hi All!

Russia Infantry Take Vuhledar

The main operational development this week was the final Russian capture of Vuhledar, a reasonably sizable town roughly halfway between Donetsk and Pokrovsk. It was important because one of the UAF’s most seasoned brigades, 72nd Mech, had held the place, like a fortified castle under siege, for more than two years without a break. Unit emblem attached.

Unit emblem for 72nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade “Black Zaporizhzhians”. They are so named in memory of a cavalry unit raised in southern Ukraine in 1917, during Ukraine’s first war of independence. The words say “Ukraine or Death”.

These were the guys that drew the line at Morshchun north-west of Kyiv in the early days of the war, and these are also the guys that ran the first really successful, conventional defense using massed artillery fire and proper fortifications, back in Feb. 2023. A key piece of those tactics was reasonable quantities of NATO-standard 155mm shell fired from towed M777 howitzers. Back then there were no drones to speak of so the Ukrainians could (speaking figuratively here) line up the cannon and have at it. The NATO stuff outranged Russian by a good five kilometers. It still does but, foreshadowing, to win artillery duels it turns out you actually do need ammunition.

Spotters from the 72nd were first, among gunners anywhere, ever, to combine digitalized target-sharing over an open data network (Starlink + Krapiva, remember?) to lay down shell strikes that could shift with the location of a moving attacking column, or bring in single shells so accurately that it took one or two rounds, usually, to burn a stopped tank or APC.

Over the next 18 months the 72nd improved fortifications, dug in, and repeatedly turned back whatever the Russians sent at them. You may have read that Vuhledar is tactically-signficicant because it’s “high ground”. That is not really true. The terrain out that way, which I (and many others) actually have driven, is pretty much flat. Almost always the dominating terrain is coal mine slag heaps that look like little mountains rising above the farmland.

Vuhledar, being a coal mining town built in the later Soviet era, has more than its fair share of hi-rise apartment buildings, some of them 20 stories tall. If there is someone on top with just binoculars, there really is no way to move anything bigger than a car or two, without that someone seeing it, for dozens of kilometers. There aren’t forests, there aren’t big folds of terrain, and the trees that are there pretty much always line the fields. Vuhledar isn’t on top of a mountain, or a plateau, or even a gentle rise of ground. But because of all the tall buildings put up on the flat steppe, coming at Vuhledar was always going to be a big problem for the Russians — but they solved it. Image of Vuhledar attached.

Drone shot of the town Vuhledar. See the “commanding high ground?” Except the tall buildings, neither do I.

According to every account I’ve seen, and people I’ve interviewed, the Russians forced their way into Vuhledar by systematically running small, mostly attacks to take the next woodline, over and over, month after month. The pushes were far from directly towards Pokrovsk, but to the north and south, because the Russians like everyone else know that if you can put the road leading in and out of a fortified town under effective fire, the guys in the fortifications can’t hold out forever. Ammo and food can’t get in, and worse for morale, casualties can’t get out.

The Russians have some problems placing effective fire ahead of their troops because they don’t seem to have nearly the number of small drones the Ukrainians do, and because if they move up too much artillery of their own the range disadvantage hasn’t changed and the Ukrainians still have cannon to shoot back.

What the Ukrainians do not have, and have not had in most sectors for most of 2024, is enough artillery shells to deal with the small groups of Russian infantry. Were it the US Army, it would be a different story, the FOs would be calling down fires on movement, on suspected hides, they would be sending drones to follow foot paths to see if they maybe led to some enemy, and — in an ideal US Army anyway — no one would ever ask “Do we have enough shells to put in a concentration on two or three guys?”

Across the UAF, patently, that is something the Ukrainians cannot do, they just don’t have the shells. Remember how the Americans cut off all military supply to Ukraine for six months? Remember how the European artillery coalition promised about a half million shells by Oct. 2023, and managed about 100,000? The Czech initiatitive, it was going to put 800,000 shells into the UAF’s hands by purchasing on world markets — great idea, until it came time to put up the cash, and now I read that actually something like one-tenth of those shells actually got bought and sent to the Ukrainians.

I have talked to drone operators, not in Vuhledar sector but Pokrovsk so close enough, and it’s hard to communicate the anger and frustration they feel when they see Russian infantry infiltrating forward and they’re no way to call in artillery on them, because that’s not a target on which the UAF can “waste”shells.

At the same time, since they were in a fortification and their location was known to everyone, the guys in the 72nd got pounded, day in and day out, sometimes less because the Russians also run short of shells from time to time, but sometimes more because high command decided this week’s attack should be priority for artillery ammunition.

The accounts are pretty much unanimous, for the last six months attrition due to Russian shell fire and later aerial bombardment slowly killed or wounded 72nd Brigade into, if not ineffectiveness, then inability to stop the Russians working their way forward.

Whether or not this was part of the overall Ukrainian general staff plan is an open question, that’s for next section. But in any case, probably not by accident, two units the 72nd crucified back in 2023, 40th and 155th Naval Infantry, were among the Russian formations whose infantry finally got footholds within the town. Then the battle was pretty much over, because there was no way the shells of a single brigade, even the 72nd , was going to be able to defend all hi-rises, office buildings, stores and whatever else you find in a Soviet-era town with more than 10,000 (pre-war) residents.

Per the information I’m seeing, the Russians effectively cut off the supply road to and from Vuhledar on Sept. 24–25, and by about the 2nd those that could escape, had.

Those of us that watch these things noted that on Sept. 29 the long-time commander of the 72nd, Colonel Ivan Vinnik, was “transferred” from the brigade, about 48 hours before the Russians’ overran the brigade positions.

I am seeing practically no video from the Russian side of Ukrainian prisoners of war, and there are some unconfirmed accounts that the soldiers that couldn’t get out numbered between 30–50, and all were too seriously wounded to move. We have seen retreating Ukrainian troops run Russian fire gauntlets before — some of us are old enough to remember Debaltseve — and I haven’t seen any credible evidence that there was a Ukrainian collapse of discipline, or rout.

The way it looks to me, the 72nd for reasons best known to brigade command and the UAF army leadership (also next section) was effectively blotted out by the Russian army at Vuhledar, but by that time if more than a few hundred men were left, I would be surprised. This was a clear and well-documented case of one of the UAF’s better units getting ground down to nothing.

72nd Brigade soldiers, old photograph from defense.com. I don’t want to know but odds are high that a couple of the people in this picture are dead.

Estonian intelligence — whom I have found to be a good deal more reliable and professional in there estimates than intelligence agency spokespeople in certain English-speaking countries I could name — says that with Vuhledar in the bag the next short-term Russian objective will be Kurahove (another place I know), and after that the goal is Pokrovsk. So expect more Russian field-by-field attacks.

Pointing Fingers

From what I can see no one in Ukraine is looking at Vuhledar and seeing a catastrophic defeat that puts the independence of the Ukrainian state into question, and opinion seems to be unanimous that what men could do, the 72nd did, and they have nothing to be ashamed of.

The problem is, pretty much everyone in Ukraine also understands that brave tactical defense no matter how heroic won’t win the war, and if the ultimate outcome of the defense is more lost ground, then even a bad end to the war is even further away, because (obviously) as long as the Russians are advancing unless their casualties are critical, they will just keep attacking.

I am seeing more than a little discussion in the Ukrainian military media that the defense of Vuhledar was inept because it was obvious how the Russians were attacking, what steps might be taken to beef up the 72nd (more ammo, more troops, maybe don’t invade Russia, etc.), and patently those steps weren’t taken. There are isolated accounts that the soldiers on the ground never got orders to retreat, which based on past battles seems to be more than possible.

I am guessing here, but I think battle chaos and a general view one can always hold on a bit longer, is probably at least partly responsible. I would expect it goes like this: (1) the top command (General Syrsky and his staff) say “Hold ground but let us know when you can’t and we will consider retreating” (2) the regional command, in this case joint forces Khortisiya, says “We have orders to hold unless the situation is absolutely disastrous, let us know if and when that happens” (3) the brigade commander and his staff are fighting a battle like they have been for years, and they are not the kind of guys to give up on the strength of some panicky radio reports or pass that information to higher unless they are absolutely sure the situation is a disaster (4) at the battalion level you have a guy who is probably one of the most seasoned combat officers on Earth right now, he is a patriot and he volunteered for this job, but, he is tired, he never has enough firepower, he can’t call in big strikes on the Russian infantry because of the shell shortage, the Russian army is trying to kill him, and the Russians are attacking his communications. So if his chain of command ever asks him “Are you SURE things are collapsing?” he never can answer that fully, because it’s a battle and you never know.

A more professional army than the UAF (NATO) would of course, they say, pass battle information more systematically and make battle judgements with clearer heads. But no one in NATO has ever been shot at like the guys in 72nd Brigade, not even near it. Attached is a picture of the former (see below) Brigade commander, Ivan Vinnik. You decide, is he a guy to conceal bad news from his chain of command? An army pedal pusher (always presses down on his men so he can rise up in his personal career)? A solid guy who puts his soldiers first and the Hell with what command thinks? Some one who panics? A Ukrainian who isn’t a “real professional” soldier like in NATO?

Colonel Ivan Vinnik, until recently commander of 72nd Brigade. When we try and figure out why the Ukrainian army fights the way it does, what we are really doing is trying to figure out how guys like this influence other soldiers.

My point here is that, at this critical points in the battle, it’s just shorthand and misleading to say “unit” or “formation” or “tactics” or “strategy”. Individuals and personalities don’t just count, they are decisive. Vinnik was a critical piece of the Vuhledar defense. We ignore him as an individual, and we torpedo our chances of understanding battles like Vuhledar.

Critics of the UAF senior leadership like the journalist Yury Butusov and the MP Mariyana Bezgulya (pictured) this week have been outspoken with criticism of top brass in the handling of the Vuhledar battle. According to them, General Syrsky, President Zelensky and the national leadership sold out Vinnik and his men. In their view, the top of the UAF ignored clear danger signals and thew away one of its best combat brigades in a futile defense intended, they say, to keep bad news out of the news cycle for as long as possible.

Ukrainian MP Mariyana Bezgula. She says the loss of Vuhledar was a big mess and that the top command of the Ukrainian military is at fault.

But of course, we don’t know what Vinnik and his staff were sending up the chain of command, or what his boys were telling him. And we don’t know that, for every command level, but we do know that from about brigade and lower they were in a position where the Russian army was trying hard to kill them, which probably complicated things.

On the last days Vuhledar was still under even tentative Ukrainian control, those critics have said, Zelensky and Syrsky both were visiting other sectors of the front doing the standard meets with commanders and troops, hand-outs of (deserved, it’s a big war) medals and group photos. They say army leadership should have been bending every effort to save what could be saved at Vuhledar, rather than conducting business as usual and, maybe, trying to distract public attention from another tactical defeat.

A parallel argument is that, the army high command is not building fortifications deeper in sector, which in turn will sentence the next brigade or brigades thrown into the path of the Russian assault, to unnecessary casualties and create the exact same conditions that led to the Vuhledar defeat.

Those critics certainly have a case, I would say. One interpretation of Colonel Vinnik’s transfer, is that the top command decided to sacrifice the 72nd and he just quit in protest.

Bloody-Minded, Just Dumb, or Smart Like a Man With an Excellent Moustache?

However, my view, we have to consider the possibility that the UAF leadership has become a lot more brutally calculating than us civilians, and as wartime leaders they just concluded the best way to maximize Russian losses and delay Russian attacks elsewhere, was to draw out the defense of Vuhledar as long as the defenders there could take it. The brigade already was destroyed so “saving” the remnants would require commitment of one or more combat brigades to the sector that the UAF may well not have.

Nor is it a given, and we all know what we suspect, that even if there had been an extraction operation been contemplated at Vuhledar, that there was sufficient artillery ammunition available to execute it.

If we assume the Ukranian army/national leadership is competent, and at the same time able to be absolutely brutal when it comes to making decisions about the fate of formations committed to battle, then the way Vuhledar played out has a certain logic to it. Russian casualties were extremely heavy, and front-line Ukrainian morale is more or less intact because the Russians had to attack in a very narrow sector. No one can say 72nd Brigade didn’t pile up the bodies, literally.

In terms of available HARD evidence, it’s just as possible Colonel Vinnik got transferred because senior command decided to write off his unit and rather than watching him stand and die with his men or watch the Russians capture one of the UAF’s most skilled and experienced brigade commanders, Syrsky just made the hard-nosed decision to yank Vinnik out of command and away from his men.

At the pace the Russians are advancing, it will take a year or more for them to reach just their declared objective of the Donetsk Oblast’ border. Everyone understands that were they to reach that line — quite possibly at the price of another 2–300,000 men killed or wounded — the war wouldn’t end. The Ukrainians say they are consciously following an attrition strategy calculated to trade a little ground and relatively few Ukrainian lives, for Russian casualties Russia cannot sustain.

We don’t have much idea about the scale of losses taken by Russia capturing Vuhledar past some anecdotal reports that in about five days two Russian brigades the actual size of battalions, the 155th and the 40th, took 50 percent casualties, or maybe 500 men killed or wounded. Since Russia has been making attacks in this area for about six months, ratio that against a single Ukrainian brigade starting with 2,000 men or so and by the end certainly reduced to less than 500, count the probable Russian dead and wounded from eighteen months of attacking, and do the math.

By that brutal calculation the Ukrainian attrition strategy is working in the sense that a single Ukrainain brigade over the past year probably eliminated, conservatively, the equivalent of six or even ten or twelve Russian combat brigades. If you are willing to forget it’s human flesh and blood and that’s Fathers and Husbands and Sons and Brothers that are dying or getting maimed for life, that’s not just an excellent exchange rate, it’s one that will frighten the Kremlin.

Don’t believe me? Show me a Buryat-dense Russian formation in heavy combat right now.

The basic question is, for the next big town battle — and like I said, Estonian intelligence is pointing to Kurakhove — can the UAF find another brigade willing to sacrifice itself to wipe out six or more Russian combat brigades? Because everyone understands that the Russian army has a global breaking point.

The point I would make about Vuhledar is, before one concludes the UAF doesn’t know what it’s doing and this is more proof of the same — and there are well-informed people making that argument — one has to be sure the UAF leadership isn’t a lot more hard-headed and bloody-minded than the rest of us, because it’s they that have to decide which Ukrainians live and which Ukrainians have to die, to kick the Russians out of their country.

This is why I’ve posted a picture of Marshal Joseph Joffre, the overall World War I Allied ground troops commander, the man who defeated the Imperial German Army using a strategy of attrition. Those of us who read history know, Joffre said that in his job he couldn’t afford to do anything but to look at his soldiers and their lives as just another resource that had to be expended, as it worked out in the millions, so that German soldiers would not occupy portions of France.

Marshal Joseph Joffre, senior Allied ground commander in World War One. He oversaw successful application of attrition strategy on the battlefield, but, his troops weren’t always happy about it.

History records that Joffre’s strategy ultimately was successful, and that he was a thoughtful man who understood the soldiers he was sending to destruction were real men who, unfortunately, he could not allow himself to empathize with.

Of course, history also records that Joffre was sacked for not delivering victory and getting too many of his soldiers killed, in 1916. In 1917 the French army, under a new general, effectively mutinied, and refused orders to attack again, in order to execute the attrition strategy. Which ultimately worked — by not by any measure perfectly.

Extra factoid for those who like to read a lot

NATO in its wisdom just changed the way it watches air space around the Black Sea and Ukraine. I’m not saying there’s a plan for a no-fly zone, nor am I predicting one. But absolutely, we have just seen a possible precursor, you can’t have a no-fly zone without constant AWACS presence, and after 30 months of conventional war on NATO’s eastern tier, that overwatch just started.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/39923