Occupants develop new offensive tactics, Ukraine not able to formulate effective response - ISW

The army of the aggressor country russia has developed a new offensive tactic to which Ukraine has not yet been able to formulate an effective response. Institute for the Study of War (ISW) analysts Jessica Sobieski and Jenny Olmsted told about this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

According to them, the new model of the offensive includes two stages. The first is to isolate the Ukrainian military with the help of drone strikes, the second is to directly assault the exhausted defenders of the positions.

At the first stage, the occupiers are trying to isolate logistics. Using UAVs, the russians attack supply routes at operational depth. This allowed the invaders to significantly complicate the work of the Ukrainian defense.

"Russian drones complicate the work of Ukrainian supply lines, which partially meets the objectives of the air blockade on the battlefield and negatively affects Ukraine's defense actions, which depend on a stable supply of equipment, resources and personnel," the publication quotes ISW analysts as saying.

The logistics blockade is followed by the second stage - an assault on the exhausted Ukrainian positions on a pre-prepared battlefield.

ISW analysts believe that Ukraine has not yet been able to find a way to counter this russian offensive tactic. The Ukrainian military has not been able to effectively combat the air blockade of supply routes.

"Ukrainian troops are also facing an increasingly acute shortage of personnel and equipment, which allows the Russians to exploit gaps in their defense. The shortage of artillery and other traditional systems limits the Armed Forces' ability to operate in adverse weather conditions, when drones are less effective," the analysts said.

They added that Ukraine has begun to partially apply russian approaches. We are talking about using UAVs to block the battlefield in the near rear of the occupiers. The use of such approaches is recorded in the Pokrovsk direction.

The ISW believes that movement in this direction will allow the Ukrainian army to significantly limit the offensive potential of the russians. Ukraine has the means to defeat the occupiers in the rear, but they are not enough. Therefore, the country needs support to scale up their production.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on December 17, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Ukrainian troops returned control over 16 square kilometers of territory in the northern part of Pokrovsk.

As a reminder, on December 16, the Atesh guerrilla movement reported that the russian military are organizing "self-firing" in the Pokrovsk sector to avoid an assault on Ukrainian positions.

We also wrote that on December 13, the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the russian army deployed additional forces to the Pokrovsk direction.