Ukraine Fights to Widen Its Puncture of Russian Front Lines
Trent Telenko, a former official at the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency who has studied Russian military logistics. Extending the front to within 6 miles “will make Tokmak useless as a road-rail transportation node," said Telenko. At that distance, Ukrainian artillery can stay about 10 miles behind the front, which he said is a sufficient distance to be relatively safe from Russian counter-battery fire.
Even without getting so close to a target, each mile of advance allows Ukraine’s longer-range ground-launched rockets to hit more Russian assets. Ukraine’s Western-made Himars and M270 mobile launchers fire projectiles with a range of at most about 50 miles. The M14 highway is about 50 miles south of Robotyne and Verbove, but the launchers must stay several miles back from the front for safety, so Ukraine’s recent gains still don’t yet put them in firing range of the Russian supply artery.
Ukrainian military leaders hope that piercing the Russian front at Verbove will allow them to open a much larger breach and flood it with dozens of Western-made tanks and armored vehicles. To protect such a high-profile force from Russian attack, combat veterans say Ukrainian forces must clear a path at least 10 miles wide—and preferably much wider—which will be difficult. But even a smaller gap threatens Russian forces, said Dave Demorrow, a retired U.S.
Army noncommissioned officer who spent years in front-line military intelligence during the Cold War and in Iraq. Smaller, less-armored vehicles such as Humvees or speedy attack squads operating behind Russia’s forward-facing lines could cause chaos, he said. “Russians can’t fight in 360 degrees—they’re just not trained for that," Demorrow said.
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