Invasion Day 482 – Summary
The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 20th June 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time).
Sloboda Front
includes the area of between Oskil and Aydar river
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- No activity reported.
Siverskyi Donets
overview map of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Bakhmut and Lysychansk vicinity
- Ukrainian drone targeted Russian troops north of Hryhorivka, further confirming our marking of the area. (source)
- It seems heavy battles are underway in Serebryansky forest, as FIRMS data shows (red cross).
- Tankers of Ukrainian 30th Mechanized Brigade attacked Russian positions in the area of Sakko i Vantsetti. (source)
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- Yampolivka, Torske, west of Dibrova, Spirne
Bakhmut Front
includes the vicinity of Bakhmut
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- Orikhovo-Vasylivka
Avdiivka Front
includes the vicinity of Avdiivka
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- Avdiivka
Donetsk Front
includes the center and southern part of Donetsk Oblast
- Ukrainian soldiers of 116th Defense Brigade repelled a Russian attack in the area of Novomykhailivka. (source)
- Russian troops re-entered Novodonetske and showed damaged/abandoned Ukrainian equipment on the streets of the settlement on June 20. (source)
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- Krasnohorivka, Marinka, Pobieda, Novomykhailivka
Zaporizhzhia Front
includes the Zaporizhzhia Oblast
- Ukrainian forces released a footage confirming liberation of Pyatykhatky settlement on June 19. (source)
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- No activity reported.
Kherson Front
includes the left bank of Dnipro river south of Kherson and Kakhovka
Ukrainian General Staff reports repelled attacks in the vicinity of:
- No activity reported.
Full map of Ukraine
overview map of current situation in Ukraine
This summary and detailed maps are based on the following sources:
General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, official media channels of Ukrainian regional administrations, Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and geolocated footage.
We also thank the following Twitter users for their geolocations and amazing work: @neonhandrail, @auditor_ya and the team at @geoconfirmed.
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Mentioned Units |
No unit mentioned.
Zelensky is right when saying that media and people think it is a Hollywood movie with expectations of Blitzkrieg results …. It takes time and it SHOULD take time to avoid massive mistakes and human / material losses ! Such big operations need to adapt to every new bad news or bad results the counter offensive planning is not engraved in marble… Let UKR soldiers and generals do their job
Indeed, what an incredible piece of wisdom from Zelensky.
The global hysteria has reached such unimaginable heights that the media has no choice but to simply repeat the story – incompetent and armed with shovels Russians will run in horror as soon the Western tanks made out of adamantium and radiating an aura of democracy appear on the frontline.
Russian army is incompetent it is a fact, using barbaric tactics and poor trained soldiers…. Victory will be Ukrainian for sure when the first defense will break ruSSians will run in despair like in Kherson and Izium ….no discipline…no supplies …no victory for Putin
I back Ukraine but without adequate air cover the ukr forces are going to struggle to màke any significant advances. RF choppers and fighters are taking out ukr armour from long range and artillary hammering the infantry.
We’ll see.
So far, it is mines, not helicopers or jets, that are the most annoying.
And if USA finally decide to give ATACMS now, helicopers won’t be a problem in the South anymore (since they won’t have any safe place to land anymore).
Combat helicopters are not an option in this war because the enemy has too many manpads to shoot them down.
actually not. Even RU missles with all their problems can easily outrange any manpad and they do. Copters do not need to fly close, as other airframes they can simply shoot from behindtheir own AA, which is a real problem for Ukr now because the only way to deal with that is to destroy landings and deployment areas. And that is not a trivial task.
If a helicopter or plane can only operate over friendly territory, then it’s not much more useful than a truck-mounted rocket launcher.
Even resptricted to Ukraine, F16 (or any other NATO plane) will be useful for one reason: NATO countries have a lot of missiles, bombs etc, with various ranges and payloads, that can’t be used by ground-based systems .They also have large stockpiles of such ammunitions.
this – exactly. The point of F16s is not some imaginary air battle as media are babbling about, but ability to carry a wide selection of weapons. Weapons, which Ukr cannot deploy either at all or (as HARMS) in DIY version. For the same reason, it does not needs to be a large number. A squadron would be enough to change the dynamics completely.
F16s are exactly that. It’s not ‘Top Gun’, sry for dissapointment.
Some analyst wrote concerning attacking south: A good army does not attack into well entrenched frontlines. Now, what I do not understand is, why does Russia try to fight outside of it’s main trench line? Why not fall back step by step, attrite Ukraine and make the stand there? I do not understand this insistence on counter attacking. Well, never stop your enemy from doing mistakes, I guess.
Precisely why Russia is firing rockets at cities outside the front lines.Trench lines are only efficient as long as soldiers occupy them. A retreat would do the exact opposite, strengthening the opponent rather than wearing it down. The enemy’s forces will be worn down where the defending army stubbornly remains in place.
Stubbornly defending a well fortified line seems more logical then stubbornly defending 10 kilometers Infront of it, at least to me. But hey, I am not a military man.
In Soviet doctrine it is an area where to slow down (damaging) the attacker and where the defenders can retreat to prepared intermediate positions. The objective is to avoid the opening of a sudden breach with the collapse of the front (Kharkov style)
In case anyone doesn’t know this channel yet:
https://www.youtube.com/@ab3army/videos
The last videos are about the battle in Bachmuth. My girlfriend almost cried during individual scenes, so harrowing and grueling are the individual stories of the soldiers….
War sucks and the invention of weapons is the biggest mistake of mankind.
If war sucks then why are there so many spin-offs of it? Checkmate pacifists!
I dont know a film who say war is good.
It was a joke about there being a lot of wars, not so much about movies
Regarding the topic of Ukr’s counteroffensive, my question is how many kilometers per day on average does a counteroffensive need to advance to be considered successful, especially in its early stages and given the large frontline we are talking about? Is Ukr. committing all its forces?
A counteroffensive is successful, if it fullfills it’s startegic goal. Here that would probably be cutting to the sea of asov.
Ukraine has only committed about a third of it’s reserves for this offensive. So we still can’t be sure about the strategic goal.
The main advancement or retreat usually comes more or less suddenly, as it happened in Kiev, Kharkiv and Kherson, so there is no average km.
Afghanistan 10 years of trench warfare until the Russians left the country. Chechnya, almost 10 years until there was a negotiated solution. Syria for over 5 years, Russia is in the country and has gained nothing.
Ukraine: Russia will never leave the entire country without being allowed to keep any of it in the next 5 years.
But Russia won in Chechnya? Sure at the cost of thousands and with a lot of resistence. But the pro-Moscow goverment was esteblished. Russia is a horrid country but they arent incapable of anything.
Also, “gained nothing”? Once again, I do not support Russia but they have made significant gains in Syria (helping a tyrannical goverment, but still). While I dont like Assad and Iran, I hate ISIS even more.
Syria is the RU success (putting aside how this kind of success made country unliveable) because of bases mostly.
Chechnia less so it is still a costly (Moscow practically pays off Kadyrov and keeps lifeline for the territory) pain in the side.
Afghanistan was as much of a ‘success’ as Vietnam was for US – at best.
Kadirov clan won in chechenia. Ru was force to let them the control on chechenia.
The Kadirov clan switched sides in the second Chechen war after first fighting Russia. And this change of sides made it possible for Russia to suppress the rebels. Because of loyalty, Kadirov became president. Russia needed someone to do their bidding and keep the country under Russian rule.
I see exactly the same. The only way to fight russians like Afgans did is to fight with them every house and square meter with everything you can have.
Ukraine cannot really organize a resistance like Afghanistan did, those resistance movements are only succesful where there are a lot of mountains or forests, Ukraine is a giant plain.
Even during WW2 partisans were most active in mountainous Yugoslavia and Italy and forested Belarus and Baltic states.
cities and towns are vectors of resistance.
(bear in mind that this is a wisdom of elaborated truck-squad manager AKA ensign in logistics and engeneering company (ok, we had one BMP in the platoon) from ~30 years ago)
Depending of the terrain 10 up to 20 km per day would be ‘lightning move’ of spearhead elements if everything is just great and the opposing force is so nice to run even faster. Even if such condition –>
such movement is unsustainable for a longer period and is only possible if all stars align pretty well. While assaulting reinforced and manned (that’s an important detail) positions with extensive minefields, actualy any movement forward is a success. And you need to make a daily sacrifice for any known god of war and shitfest that your batallion CO ordered your squad in the right direction.
Why i still like what i see:
This is a war of atrittion.
MoD Ukraine reports:
Oryx:
Combining this with the small ground gains of Ukraine and some ugly losses in the first attacks i would argue that we see a campaign like in Kherson with Ukraine being able to keep losses on pair or better than Russia. This is not to bad for an offensive. If you believe that Ukraines reports are indicators for what is happening in the south, then this may end as it did in Kherson.
I see it opposite: time works for russisct … in two months I expect real counteroffensive from ru and if Ukraine will not have bigger success then they will loose. The only way for Ukraine to win is to build more army in shorter term than ru. West equipment will not solve all problems.
I have absolutely no ground to see how Russia could mount an offensive. 1) It does not have the personnel. It would need to make a mobilization wave before. Last time it took 2 months to get them to the frontline and that offensive failed miserably. 2) and more importantly, with which gear? Chinese? If it is supposed to be Russian, may be next winter, but not at current loss rates, see above.
Don’t forget the Wagner factor. Tens of thousands. It is reported they should be back sometime in August – unless of course the MOD is stupid enough to sideline them.
Wagner *was* tens of Thousands. Most of them were killed/injured in Bakhmut. Now, they are maybe 5-10k (or a bit more, depending on the new recruits).
if your assessment is correct they won’t come back. We’ll see.
they were already replaced by other PMCs. Ru’s Duma recently legalised and normalised convicts’ conscriptions – so normal Army can get them with no problems and no special decrees required now.
Wagner seems to be pushed out from the table and redirected back to the shady businesses in Africa (mostly) and Asia. At least for now.
I know but I still don’t see them packing. They have recruiting and training centers across the country. Their popularity is sky-high among volunteers. They are a useful irritant keeping the MOD on its toes. And they have plans: https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/06/22/wagner-group-to-recruit-former-law-enforcement-officers-for-military-police-in-occupied-ukraine
they ceased to be an effective force (besides their normal operations). WHat will be in a next few months I have no idea
Remember the economy! Ukraine is supported by many countries. Russia is under sanctions and exploited by several countries. Front on the map is not the most important.
Regards.
Russia is supported by China. They have also unlimited resources and what is most important they are east so dont care about people and lifes. This war will be over either Putin lives either States will pull back support.
The real Russian offensive already happened. And the result: they conquered Bakhmut. If there’s anything else that they could do, they would have done it already.
In Bakhmut was offensive done by wagner to occupy Ukraine forces. russians are preparing something diging like orcs, wait and see.
No bakmut implicate wagner, dpr and regular troops. Maybe other troops too.
And this winter ru attack on all the lign. Near kupiansk, bilohorivka, avdivka, marinka, vulhedar, …
This winter was the most activ moment of this war. With massiv engagement. Both camp with 2 or 3 time the power they have at the beginning of the war
and Soledar in January
I really don’t see the Russians leaving the south. A repeat of the Kiev/Kherson scenario would expose Crimea, which is sacred. Expect more bloody battles ahead.
That could be a weakness to be exploited. But I doubt ut. Defending Crimea is still easier, even if it has to be supplied by boats.
I hear a lot of people claiming that it’s too early to say how the counteroffensive is going, but it does not seem as if Ukraine is currently making any real progress. I heard of an operational pause, but is it normal to lost gained territory during such an event?
If the opponent counter attacks, which is Russian doctrinal way of defending, well yes, if you do not have enough forces commited you will lose the won ground.
We know that Ukraine hasn´t commited anywhere close to the prepared forces, about a third until now. So befor those two thirds show up, we can´t judge on the performance.
And, as i would argue, we do not know how hard Russia is being hit by the undermining of Russian logistics by Ukraine. Ukraine may not gain much ground for a long time, until Russia decides to retreat because their position becomes untainable, as in the Kiev and Kherson campaigns.
Thank you, Max! I assume that a success of Ukraine being able to destroy the Russian logistics would result in them having to focus their efforts on strategic objectives such as logistics hubs and strongholds along the front line. Do you share this understanding of the matter?
To whoever downvoted my question: Is it a crime to ask a simple question? I thought we were here to discuss and learn.
Speaking of questions, here’s another one: Why do you guys and gals think that Russia is using so much artillery in the north? Shouldn’t they reserve those shells along the southern front line? If I were the defending party, then I would accept some losses in the strategically-less-significant north. I have gotten the picture the last few months that there is an acute shell shortage.
The problem is probably still more a question of getting the munitions to the frontline, see logistics above, and less one of having enough.
I heard about a month ago that there was an urgent shortage of ammunition, but I guess that the situation got resolved by increased product and purchases of ammunition from foreign states.
That is what they are doing with storm shadow cruise missiles and himars rockets.
Yeah, but will it actually be sufficient to destroy the bridges to Crimea? It required a lot of heavy bombardment for a long time to destroy the bridge in Kherson. Also, why didn’t they do that earlier? Only because no one would send them Storm Shadow cruise missiles earlier? I feel like “the fear of them being used in Russia” is just an excuse to not send weapons. Ukraine really needed this stuff
If I were Zaluzhnyi, then I wouldn’t wait that long to start the main thrust along the southern front line to reach Berdiansk. Doesn’t every day that he waits give the Russians more time to move resources there? I don’t really get why they chose to have an operational pause so early on. Just find the weakness and then push there. Why wait so long? What’s there to see beyond the probing?
The Kherson counteroffensive started in August and ended with liberation in November. Zalushni is probably the greatest general of our time, so I am confident, that he has good reasons. Here is my best guess: The Kherson campaign worked because Russia had to support it’s troops through bottlenecks under ukrainian fire control. The same holds true now, just on a larger scale.
The longer it takes and the more support is brought in through those bottlenecks, the more resources Ukraine can destroy there. A war of attrition 21st century style. The fight on the frontline would be there to force more resources through the bottlenecks. At some point things start falling apart, that’s when you want to attack big or Russia will retreat. All this will take a while.
Jerome,mark Urojainoe and Staromayorskoe on the map. (Donetsk front).