Frontline report: Ukrainian forces unleash flying machine guns against Russian assaults west of Avdiivka

Day 805: 8 May 2024.

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Avdiivka direction in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

Here, Russians have paid a heavy toll in their attempts to cross the fields in front of Umanske.

After breaking through the Ukrainian defenses in the north and taking control over the settlement of Ocheretyne, Russians have slowly diverted their offensive actions towards their objectives in the North.

This change of direction confused many analysts, as Russians had initially focused on the Ukrainian defenses to the West. The ultimate Russian goal to the West is to take control over Pokrovsk, which serves as the main Ukrainian headquarters in this direction. However, if we look at the developments in the fields in front of Umanske, we can better understand how the Russians have been forced to deprioritize their ambitious goal of taking Pokrovsk.

As you may remember, Russians had conducted a large wave of attacks in the fields between Umanske and Tonenke. Ultimately, these attacks failed due to a multitude of reasons. Firstly, if we look at the geography of the region, we can see that Russian attacks through these fields are funneled together by the rivers to the north and south. Additionally, the river branch stretching through the fields condenses the funnel even further.

This forces any Russian attack to follow a predictable path, making them far more manageable for Ukrainian defenders, as they can open fire on them from multiple directions.

Secondly, this direction was being defended by the Ukrainian 25th airborne brigade and the 53rd mechanized brigade.

Both consist of experienced and well-equipped soldiers who are more than capable of fending off Russian attacks. A Ukrainian military blogger stated that Ukrainian defenders had established well-prepared positions, utilizing the terrain to draw Russian assault groups into kill zones before finishing them off with anti-tank mines, ATGMs, artillery, and FPV drones. The Ukrainian blogger also stated that Russian assault groups lacked tactics in their attempted breakthroughs, being unprepared to dynamically face the Ukrainian defense.

After these failed assault waves, Ukrainian military bloggers shared satellite images showcasing the huge Russian losses in the fields in front of Tonenke. The military bloggers state that the fields in front of Tonenke had turned into a graveyard of Russian armored vehicles.

The images show the disabled and destroyed wreaks of 77 Russian armored vehicles, to only 5 Ukrainian vehicles. The military bloggers also stated that the satellite images only show the most intense and concentrated clashes between Russian and Ukrainian units. Russian forces had also conducted numerous attacks with smaller assault groups consisting of one or two armored vehicles at a time. Adding these Russian losses to the total amounts to over 100 Russian losses in tanks and armored vehicles alone.

After these failed initial attacks, a Russian officer stated that Russian forces would ultimately be able to overload the Ukrainian defenses if they only sent forward more waves of armored assaults. As it turns out, the Russian commanders followed his advice and immediately started a monthlong operation to cross the fields. A Ukrainian soldier active in the area stated that throughout this operation, Russians conducted constant artillery preparations on Ukrainian positions with artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, and air strikes with “FAB” glide bombs and “KAB” guided munitions.

In response, Ukrainian drone operators undermined Russian close-fire support capabilities by targeting Russian mortar emplacements with FPV drones.

Russian forces attempted to hide these emplacements in the settlement of Tonenke. Still, they were constantly spotted, as the intensity of fighting here had left the settlement in ruins, leaving little cover for the Russian mortar teams or infantry.

Over the next two weeks, the Russians continued their mechanized assaults through the fields. Ukrainian forces released a multitude of combat footage showing how they repelled or destroyed these Russian attacks with guided anti-tank missiles and FPV kamikaze drones. As the monthlong battle went on, and Russian armor losses kept mounting, Russian forces started decreasing the armored support of their infantry fighting in the fields.

Ukrainian fighters in the area stated that Russians started using tanks more sparingly and from increasingly larger ranges as indirect fire platforms.

They also added that Russians had begun relying on all-terrain vehicles, buggies, and off-road motorcycles to reinforce their assault groups in the fields. Geolocated footage confirms this, as Ukrainian drone operators shared footage of them destroying numerous unarmored transports with FPV kamikaze drones.

As Russian infantry in the fields lost their armored support, a Ukrainian military blogger stated that the Russian assaults had devolved into mass assaults of infantry with little armored support.

To combat this increased concentration of infantry, Ukrainians began experimenting with new variants of drone warfare.

Ukrainians mounted their heavy octocopter drones with machine guns to strafe Russian infantry assaults and fire into the trenches from above.

The operators of this drone also stated that Russians did not even try to shoot down these drones, likely in shock and understandable fear of this new tactic. At the moment, the biggest issue that these drones deal with is the recoil. Some Ukrainian sources mentioned that certain drone teams are already developing and testing various stabilization systems.

If the issue is fixed, the drones will become far deadlier than ever before. Right now, Ukrainians are using two types of drones against the Russian infantry: grenade-dropping drones, and kamikaze drones. Dropping grenades accurately is extremely difficult, especially if the infantry is moving, or if the infantry has electronic warfare kits that necessitate operating from a much higher altitude, further reducing the accuracy.

The kamikaze drones, in turn, can only be used once. The development of gun mounts, combined with thermal vision and machine aiming, will change the setting completely. Overall, the heavy Russian losses in armor and infantry, with little territorial gains to show for it, likely deprioritized this direction in favor of Russian objectives to the North.

However, Russians did not decide to conserve their manpower and equipment by stopping these attacks; instead, they simply stopped reinforcing these assault groups with armored support. This forced Russian assault groups to use higher concentrations of infantry along with unarmored transport vehicles, which Ukrainians exploited by testing a new and deadly drone variant.

In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.