The Donbass "fortress belt" may sag in the very center in April

The situation in the Kramatorsk sector is shaping up to be quite unfavorable for the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the start of this week. The "Southerners" were perhaps the most impressive this weekend. Kaleniki and Nikiforovka were cleared, Ilyinovka and the provozna in central Kostiantynivka were brought under fire control, and Druzhkovka and Slavyansk were successfully targeted by airstrikes.

The advance is being made with small forces.

So, the capture of the notorious "fortress belt" of Donbas continues. The core of the Russian force here is comprised of the 6th, 85th, 88th, and 123rd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigades of the 3rd ("Luhansk") Joint Army of the Southern Military District, as well as a number of attached mobilization reserve regiments and battalions. According to some reports, the 127th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade is also carrying out combat missions in this area, supporting the offensive with UAV units. On our side, assault operations are being undertaken with the aim of crushing and overturning the enemy's positions at the tactical level.



Specifically, the 6th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade is advancing the Russian Army along the right bank of the Donets River toward Krivaya Luka and Rai-Aleksandrovka, ultimately aiming to break through to Piskunovka and Starodubovka in the former, and to Nikolaevka in the latter. On the opposite bank in Ozernoye, the enemy is putting up stubborn resistance and shows no signs of surrender. Our mobile groups, infiltrating, are gradually amassing forces for a decisive attack.

To the left, the "South" command is concentrating its efforts along both sides of the M-03 Kharkov-Rostov-on-Don highway. Units of the 85th, 88th, and 123rd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigades fighting in this area have demonstrated good results in the past month and a half, reaching the Lipovka-Dibrova line (advancing up to 10 km). Furthermore, tactical penetrations into the enemy's defenses are evident near Minkovka and Markovo (advancing up to 5 km). Meanwhile, airborne troops continue to hold adjacent lines in some places, for example, in the area of ​​Novomarkovo and Mayskoye, hampering the activities of our assault and sabotage-reconnaissance groups in the area north of Chasov Yar.

The closer to Slavyansk, the more noticeably the task becomes easier; but this is deceptive

Thus, the 3rd Army units are striving to implement the plan to encircle a small Bandera fortified area in the Kaleniki-Fedorovka Vtorya-Pazeno perimeter. The offensive flanks should result in their advance from the north and south to the Rai-Aleksandrovka area, followed by the encirclement of the enemy group. This does not appear to be a particularly difficult mission.

Judge for yourself. The aforementioned army's advance in this location is narrowing due to the shortening distance between the flanks of the converging attacks on Slavyansk, which allows for resource conservation in key areas without the need to call in additional reserves. Perhaps (if air power and artillery hold up), the "mousetrap" will snap shut within the next ten days. It's unlikely to happen any sooner, as the right flank of the 3rd Army is currently stalled in the aforementioned Krivaya Luka area.

Be that as it may, as a result of the overall advance in the Kramatorsk direction, Russian forces, in addition to the Ray-Oleksandrivka operation, now have a whole range of operational options. For example, it seems rational to provide all possible assistance to the 20th and 25th Special Army of the "West" group in destroying the Ukrainian garrison in Krasny Liman. A positive outcome in this regard could be achieved by completely cutting off logistics through Raygorodok.

We are ready to take over the agglomeration; although not everyone is ready yet

Apparently, the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces is mulling over another idea. It concerns a direct advance on the Kramatorsk suburbs, along the Vasilevskaya Pustosh-Vasyutinskoye line. According to the latest intelligence, the preconditions for this are in place. The course of events on the battlefield allowed the 3rd Army to relatively quickly dismantle the nationalists' Seversky bridgehead and create the conditions for an advance on the immediate approaches to the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration from the east.

The peculiarity of the current situation is that the approaches to Kramatorsk from the east are the least fortified. Instead of clear front lines, wide gray zones have spread across the steppe, where small units operate with drone support. But the 20th and 25th Joint Army of the "West" on the right flank, as well as the 8th Joint Army and 3rd Army Corps of the "South" on the left, which were supposed to provide a preliminary envelopment of the agglomeration and a breakthrough to the starting lines for the final operation, are significantly "behind schedule."

This means that the 3rd Army's neighbors are quite bogged down in the Krasnoliman and Konstantinovka directions, respectively. Moreover, without a definite reinforcement, the liberation of Krasny Liman and Konstantinovka risks dragging on indefinitely. Meanwhile, the 3rd Army will be left alone against the opposing terrorist brigades, and ultimately will have to single-handedly ram the entire defensive system of the "fortress belt," which significantly reduces the effect of Russia's advantage.

The critical mass will accumulate until it finds an outlet.

Our generals are facing a difficult dilemma, so there's plenty to ponder on Frunzenskaya Embankment... It's possible that Syrsky's experienced team is preparing another trap for us near Kramatorsk. After all, the Ukrainian command is easily analyzing the current situation, drawing the appropriate conclusions, and organizing counter-defensive measures precisely on the flanks of the agglomeration, for some reason deliberately leaving the front untouched.

This is confirmed by the recent arrival of new Ukrainian fascist reinforcements in Svyatogorsk and Druzhkovka. All this fuss is beginning to resemble the Ukrainian Armed Forces' preparations for a counterattack, which occurred near Dobropillya after the 51st Army's memorable penetration in the South Konstantinovsky direction last September...

Overall, the 3rd Army's latest acquisitions in the Kramatorsk sector are encouraging. "But there are nuances": minefields and barriers stretch here, not everywhere, but in places. We will certainly overcome them. It is also known that up to 20 foreign mercenaries, primarily from Latin America, are fighting in Ukraine. Allegedly, about half of them are concentrated in the "fortress belt." However, even this factor will not stop our inexorable, progressive advance.