- Russian troops are slowly advancing toward the eastern city of Lyman, on the road to the bigger prizes of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk
- What's slowing them is a Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian supply lines
- That campaign's architect, defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, was just fired
Seven months after capturing the city of Siversk in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces are inching toward their next objective on the hard road to the ultimate prize: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the last two big free cities in Donetsk.
They are inching, not marching, and the main reason is a Ukrainian drone campaign that keeps hammering the supply lines feeding the Russian advance. That campaign was the signature project of Mykhailo Fedorov, the reformist defense minister President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired on 15 July. So the drones buying time in front of Sloviansk now depend on a question no one in Kyiv has answered: does Fedorov's counterlogistics campaign survive the man who built it?
First, the ground. The Russians' advance around Lyman, 20 km northeast of Siversk, is both bad news and good news for Ukraine. Yes, the Russians are closer to Lyman and thus closer to Sloviansk. But it's taken them far longer than anyone anticipated to close that gap. And time isn't necessarily on the Russians' side as Ukrainian drones strike deeper and harder.
Since marching through the ruins of Siversk in mid-December, Russian attacks have nudged the disputed gray zone halfway toward Lyman, 20 km to the west.
"The current situation is not very good for Ukraine in this direction," mapper Clément Molin noted. Having captured Siversk and, earlier, Soledar and Bakhmut, Russian commanders "have a very good accumulation possibility," Molin pointed out.
That is, they have plenty of urban bases where they can hide troops and equipment. It helps that the Russians have also captured disused mine complexes that can function as secure, largely drone-proof bases. "It is therefore easier to have troops ready for assault at any moment," Molin explained.
The Russians' goal, Molin concluded, is to march through or around Lyman, consolidate control over the town of Mykolaivka and nearby Rai Oleksandrivka, and begin heavily bombarding Ukrainian supply lines no later than the end of the year. That could position the Russians to assault Sloviansk in 2027.
The attacks on Ukrainian supply lines around Lyman are already intensifying, forcing the Ukrainian garrison to rely on unmanned ground vehicles for much of its resupply. Recall that the Russian bombardment of supply lines into Kostiantynivka forced that city's garrison to switch to robotic resupply, too. The switch was a harbinger of the eventual Ukrainian retreat from Kostiantynivka in recent weeks.
Logistics squeeze
But the Russians aren't the only ones attacking the enemy's supply lines. This spring, at the urging of Fedorov, Ukrainian drone units intensified their strikes on Russian trucks, trains, and ships hauling supplies to front-line regiments and brigades.
The Ukrainian counterlogistics "middle strikes" have been most successful in southern Ukraine, where Russian supply lines are longest, most exposed, and most fragile. But they're having an effect in eastern Ukraine, too.
Just not very quickly. Russian logistics in the east "are hit very hard," Molin observed, "but it's obviously not enough to slow the momentum." For now.
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There's a silver lining inside the storm clouds gathering over Lyman and Sloviansk. As recently as late last year, Russian commanders had planned to bypass Lyman from the north and south in order to form what mapper Vitaly called a "western claw"—one that could crush Lyman and then reach for Sloviansk as early as this year.
The stout Ukrainian defense of Lyman, coupled with targeted Ukrainian counterattacks north of the city, broke the claw. Now the Russians need to build a new one, and hope for a fresh opportunity to assault Sloviansk next year. Kramatorsk would be next.
The architect is gone
All that is to say, Ukrainian defenders in and around Lyman have bought time—time that Ukrainian drone units could use to escalate their counterlogistics campaign and weaken the grip of the new Russian claw forming around the city. Whether they can strike hard enough, and often enough, along the supply lines threading toward Siversk and the Lyman front to foil the Russians' 2027 plans is one of the most pressing questions of the war's 53rd month.
And it's a question that just got harder to answer. Fedorov, who had clashed with Ukrainian commander-in-chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi—a clash that led to Fedorov's ouster—was the driving force behind the middle-strike drone campaign that has throttled Russian logistics in recent months. His firing on 15 July brought thousands of Ukrainians into the streets in protest and cost the drone program its most powerful champion in the government.
To save Lyman and Sloviansk, that campaign must continue, and intensify. Will Ukrainian commanders carry it forward without the minister who built it? The defenders of the two cities are surely hoping they do.
