17 Jan: Freezing Weather Led To An Unexpected Turn Of Events - Reporting from Ukraine

[TexasTowelie]

Day 328: January 17

Today there is a lot of news from the Donetsk region. One of the reasons why the was so little movement in this region is that there are a lot of rivers and lakes that create natural obstacles. However, two weeks of freezing temperatures covered the waters with ice, creating new opportunities for offensive actions. There are three main directions: Avdiivka, Marinka, and Vukhledar.

The most important developments happened today in the Advdiivka region. Here, the main goal of the Russians is to push the Ukrainians from Avdiivka by any means. Avdiivka is one of the closest Ukrainian positions to Donetsk and Makiivka, which creates enormous problems for the Russians.

For example, if you still remember, right before the new year, the Ukrainians destroyed a huge Russian base in Makiivka, killing approximately 600 mobilized soldiers that were about to be sent to the front. Of course, HIMARS would be able to strike this base regardless of who controls Avdiivka, but identifying this base and constantly monitoring the ground with UAVs would be much more difficult without such a valuable toehold. So, having this stronghold right on the porch of the biggest cities in Donbas gives the Ukrainians a huge tactical advantage. Unfortunately for the Russians, storming Avdiivka in front like Bakhmut will not work at all because if we zoom in and switch to satellite view, we can see that there are a lot of lakes, bridges, and tree belts. And if we look at the topographic map, we can see that Ukrainian and Russian positions are separated by the lowlands. For all these reasons, the only viable option remained to take Avdiivka into a pocket, which they started doing by storming Vodiane.

However, the Russians faced a huge problem – the natural barrier in the form of a river did not allow them to breach the Ukrainian defense, and they got stuck. There was a series of attacks and counterattacks in this region which resulted in no change in the situation, but the weather conditions changed everything. For the last two weeks, the temperature has been below zero, meaning that the water has frozen and created a natural bridge between the northern and southern parts of Vodiane. Over the last several days, the temperatures once again started to increase, and from tomorrow they are expected to turn positive, so the window of opportunity to start storming Ukrainian positions from ice started to close. That is why today, the Russians launched an attack on the eastern outskirts. The first group reportedly established a toehold, and the fights broke out. As attention shifted and the operation developed, the Russians started sending reinforcements, which the Ukrainians tried to counter from the central part and stop them right on the ice. Unfortunately, the frozen water changed the setting and turned the least viable direction for the Russians into the most viable. The latest news suggests that the Russians have established control over the eastern part of Vodiane, but the fights are by no means over. The Ukrainians can support their units in Vodiane easily, unlike the Russians. The Ukrainians will likely try to prolong the battle until the above-zero temperatures return and eliminate the possibility of supplying Russian groups over the ice. On top of that, some Russian sources raised the alarm that the whole offensive operation is in danger because the last batches of artillery and mortar shells received in Spartak, Pervomaiske, and Vodiane are bad and cannot be used.

Overall, despite a lot of interesting developments, the fights remain largely positional. As long as the Ukrainian defense stands and the Russians cannot build their bases in Donetsk and Makiivka, Russian actions do not harm Ukrainian operational goals.