13 Apr: Russians lose 106 tanks & AFVs, and 1.5 km of the ground! - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 779: Apr 12

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Liman direction.

Here, Russian forces turned the axis of attack towards Terny into one of the hottest areas in this direction. In recent days, more information has become available, allowing us to draw a clearer picture of the developments in this area over the last weeks. Terny is one of the key settlements in the area that would allow the Russian forces to cross the Zherebets River in their attempt to advance on the strategically important city of Liman.

Yesterday, an open-source geolocation organization reported that geolocated footage and satellite imagery indicate that Russian forces lost – presumably both disabled and destroyed – between 102 and 107 armored vehicles in the last four months in the vicinity of Terny alone. The estimates include twenty-six vehicles in January, twenty-four in February, and thirty-six in March.

Recently published videos show a vast vehicle cemetery where dozens of wrecks of all kinds of vehicles, trucks, tanks, and armored infantry vehicles pile up.

The Russian armored vehicles' wreck map distribution suggests that Russian forces attempted mechanized advances along two parallel axes, making use of existing roads between two groves to unload infantry onto these tree lines where they could entrench and establish points of attack on the Ukrainian forces inside Terny.

The clear increase in the number and size of attacks indicates that Russian forces have strongly prioritized this direction and this particular attack vector since the beginning of the year. However, the reiteration of vectors and tactics has led to this high loss figure. Apart from the primitive and repetitive tactics, there is a whole set of reasons for the Russian failure.

Firstly, in order to assault Terny, Russians were forced to use overstretched supply lines, which made it easier for the Ukrainians to undermine the logistics in the area. Secondly, the Russians were forced to advance through open fields with very few cover areas, which, combined with the superior Ukrainian reconnaissance capabilities, made it possible to detect Russian assaults at a very early stage. Thirdly, as we recently discussed, Russian forces did not demonstrate enough improvements in EW capability, and their most prominent attempts led to complete catastrophes. And finally, the fact that the Russians had to advance along very narrow lines, particularly in its final approach, made it easier for the Ukrainians to concentrate drone fire.

The Russian collapse at Terny basically means the end of the winter-spring offensive in this region since spring rains are imminent and will start very soon. The muddy terrain will make mechanized maneuver warfare completely impossible.

Moreover, the Russian offensive not only collapsed, but recently geolocated footage indicates that Ukrainian forces took the initiative and started a powerful counterattack along both dense tree belts, demolishing the degraded and exhausted remnants of the Russian forces.

The counterattack was also supported by a Ukrainian flank attack from the hills north of the Russian positions in the forest lines, which ended up retreating several kilometers back to the east. Geolocated images show the intensive use of drones in several areas and tree lines near Terny. Another grove area located about six kilometers from the town was heavily targeted by Ukrainian artillery fire, which gives us an idea of how far the Russians were forced to retreat. Although Russian forces tried to take advantage of Ukrainian material shortages, their efforts were eventually in vain.

To make matters worse for the Russians, Russian forces seemed to adopt very risky tactics for their infantry assaults, which led to extremely high losses in personnel as well. Recently released images show a tank carrying a group of 24 infantrymen on its deck. The idea behind this tactic is, on the one hand, to be able to advance through more complicated terrain and to be able to carry out a swift infantry landing. However, even Russian military analysts openly criticized the use of this tactic due to the obvious exposure of the soldiers to Ukrainian drone fire. Interestingly, another Russian military analyst, however, stated that this tactic is more related to the shortage of armored infantry vehicles in some areas of the front line due to the high number of losses inflicted...