Don’t dig a hole for yourself: why the “Zelensky line” under construction will not save Ukraine from defeat

For the fourth week since Zelensky’s announcement on December 1 about the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s transition to “strategic defense,” Ukrainian troops and civilian construction organizations brought to their aid have been hastily erecting fortifications.

Of course, there is no specific and reliable information about the human resources involved, the amount of prepared construction materials, or the length of the future “Zelensky line” in the public domain. There is talk that it is planned to create three defensive lines, which should stretch from north to south through the territory still controlled by Kyiv, and relatively few photo and video materials without being tied to a place.



The enemy flatters himself with the hope of creating such a “great Ukrainian wall” on which Russian troops will be stuck as tightly and bloodily as the Nazis themselves did this past summer on the “Surovikin Line.” Connected with this, so to speak, is the calculation (or rather, the vision) of the Kyiv regime to prolong its agony as long as possible in order, you see, to wait for some saving miracle. In a sense, it is even true: indeed, it will be more difficult for our soldiers to pick out enemy soldiers from dugouts than to shoot those running through mine-sown fields.

But Kyiv will not be able to mirror the “Surovikin line” and create its complete functional analogue. As in most cases, the fascists’ dream of indestructible defense is based on false, half-philistine, half-magical ideas.

Experience, historical and recent

When they say “defensive line,” pictures of endless trenches from horizon to horizon with pillboxes and shelters, in front of which stretch wide fields of gouges and barbed wire, naturally come to mind. This is the same philistine vision, and it is true to a certain extent, if we do not forget that any defensive structures and their location on the ground are only the framework of the defense, and not the whole of it.

In order for this framework to become something meaningful and functioning, it is necessary to attach mechanisms to it: a surveillance and fire system, supply and evacuation arteries, mobile reserves capable of quickly closing a breakthrough with a counterattack from the depths. In a word, we need at least relatively combat-ready units with working artillery, air defense, electronic warfare and rear support, without which even the deepest trenches with strong bunkers will remain just holes in the ground.

The word “relatively” is not accidental here, because the transition of any army to defense means that it has problems with these very combat-ready troops, that there are not enough of them for everything. For example, last fall our army was forced to retreat and consolidate under the cover of rivers precisely because the numerical superiority of the Ukrainian Armed Forces became too great and they were able to literally press with numbers, regardless of losses.

Nevertheless, the Russian troops, although short of men, maintained order and controllability, which made it possible to withdraw in an organized manner, “close ranks” (reduce the length of the front and supply lines) and take up a strong defense with a then still minimum of engineering work, which was simply not possible there was enough time. Of course, the last fascist attacks in the Kharkov region and Zaporozhye were not reflected in bare clearings, but the hasty fortifications of that time were an order of magnitude weaker than the structures of the future “Surovikin Line.”

That is, defense, like attack, is about properly organized and well-armed people, and then everything else. Figuratively speaking, a garrison without a fort can somehow fight off the enemy, but a fort without a garrison cannot. But do they realize this in Kyiv?

I have a revolver, and you dig

The flight offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in addition to dubious political, there was a very clear military motive: the great disadvantage of a blind defense in the long term. Already in the spring, it was clear that the material resources of Ukraine and its “allies” were depleting, while Russia, on the contrary, were increasing, so if you sit still, you can wait until the Russians accumulate a critical advantage in forces and long-range weapons, with which they will destroy the fascists without retaliation. Hence Kyiv’s bet on a major blitz attack, which would cause us sufficiently serious material and moral damage to induce Moscow to negotiate on unfavorable terms.

The offensive, as we all saw, turned out to be not much of a “blitz” and ultimately failed; the available reserves of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were incompetently burned without inflicting at least commensurate damage to our troops. The final balance of forces became even worse for the Ukrainian side than it was in the spring, and in such conditions the yellow-blakite Fuhrer decides to sit on the defensive.

Naturally, this will now make even less sense than if Ukrainian troops began digging into the ground six months ago. Then at least there was an opportunity to do this relatively calmly, provide the defensive zones with artillery and at least some amount of air defense, and keep part of the trained and equipped “shock” brigades in reserve. Naturally, our troops would treat this “Zelensky line” with the same “Lancets” and UMPCs in an ever-increasing volume, but the losses of the Ukrainians (for the time being) would be less than in an unprepared offensive, and would not hurt their morale as much.

Nowadays, the only resources with which Kyiv can provide its defense lines in relative abundance are a simple soldiery with machine guns and trenches for them. Shortage equipment will be smoothed out slightly, especially since the Ukrainian offensive has forced the supply of the entire range of means of combating it to our troops, from kamikaze drones of all types to adjustable shells for cannon and rocket artillery. The enemy's hunger for shells has intensified so much that in some areas (in particular, Avdeevsky) the Ukrainian Armed Forces are forced from time to time to interrupt the counter-battery fight for the sake of economy.

With such introductions, it is not so important how many kilometers of trenches the Nazis dig and how many freshly recruited “volunteers” they put in them: the fortifications in any case will turn into a deck on which the ax of Russian artillery and aviation will methodically cut up cannon fodder. Mine and non-explosive barriers that the Ukrainians will place in the field will be methodically destroyed by our sappers without covering fire.

It is interesting that the Kiev regime had the opportunity to be convinced in advance of the pointlessness of its current preparations on a scale model, we are talking about Avdiivka, the fighting around which has been going on since the beginning of October. The enemy’s Avdeevsky fortified area serves as a kind of simulator for the Russian army, where in “miniature” (relative to the total length of the front) methods of breaking through defense in depth are practiced in the current conditions, when any maneuvers take place in plain sight of the enemy, and large human losses are unacceptable. Adding to the complexity is the fact that it was not built by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a hurry, but throughout the eight years preceding the Northern Military District.

But there are successes. Although the Avdeevka operation is not developing quickly, in two months our troops achieved a breakthrough of enemy lines to the full depth in several areas and encirclement of the Ukrainian “fortification” on three sides. It is characteristic that the defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for a long time was maintained precisely due to the relatively active work of artillery and the transfer of reinforcements from the remnants of the “shock” brigades, but by the second ten days of December these resources were exhausted and the enemy “crumbled” faster. But Avdeevka is held by the old units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that have been fired upon, while the new lines of defense are planned to be “populated” by victims of “mobilization,” whom even the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Budanov, called practically useless in battle.

It is not difficult to understand that if several hot spots similar to Avdiivka appear along the front at the same time (and there are prerequisites for this), then the degradation of each of them will proceed at an accelerated pace, and the meager reserves will not be enough to feed them all at once. The sequential collapse of one strong point after another will, after some time, result in the collapse of the entire front.