Day 1113

On 11 March, there are a lot of interesting updates from the Pokrovsk direction.

With Russian artillery support wiped out and their positions exposed, Ukrainian forces moved in to fully reclaim Uspenivka. Precision strikes on key Russian firepower paved the way for a swift and decisive assault, forcing the last defenders to retreat in disarray.

The goal of the Ukrainian forces in this area is to recapture the village of Uspenivka fully. From here, Ukrainians are attempting to build momentum and push further to the east, setting conditions to take Russians into a 6-kilometer-wide cauldron between the Ukrainian-controlled settlements of Uspenivka and Pischane.

As Russians heavily rely on their fire support, the Ukrainian forces planned to deny and destroy the artillery and armored vehicle support of the Russian troops in Uspenivka. This would allow them to set conditions to push Russians even further and tighten the noose around the Russian effort southwest of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s key advantage is the narrow river branch between Uspenivka and Novovasylivka. With the temperatures at Pokrovsk warming up and the ice melting, this left a single bridge as the only viable crossing point between the two settlements. This allowed Ukrainians to concentrate their fire and surveillance on this chokepoint, track Russian troop movements, identify reinforcement numbers, and pinpoint their strongholds within the village.

Due to intense Ukrainian drone strikes on the Russian ground lines of communication, Russians could only deploy infantry into the heavy fighting here, usually in squads of up to two soldiers each, which accumulated in Novovasylivka and then deployed to Uspenivka under cover of night.

Due to this lack of armored support, the Russian forces are trying to compensate by shelling the Ukrainian positions more intensively with artillery shelling. The high rate of Russian fire made their artillery pieces easier to detect and engage, allowing Ukrainian drone operators to quickly relay their exact positions to counter-battery units and kamikaze drone operators.

Ukrainian forces continue to devastate Russian artillery positions, striking multiple pieces despite Russian efforts to conceal them. Among the key targets was a rare and powerful 240-millimeter Tulip self-propelled mortar, one of only forty in active Russian service. The Tulip is specifically designed to destroy heavily fortified positions, indicating that Ukrainian forces were well entrenched in the area. The Russian inability to dislodge them with conventional artillery likely forced them to deploy such a scarce and specialized weapon, only for it to be detected and destroyed. Even when Russian artillery was hidden inside damaged buildings, Ukrainian drone operators successfully identified and struck them.

Ukrainian forces discovered and destroyed a massive Russian munitions depot near Selydove, stocked with thermobaric artillery shells used in TOS-1 systems. The explosion was enormous, wiping out a significant cache of these devastating munitions. This strike was particularly critical, as a full barrage of thermobaric munitions on such a small settlement would have been nearly impossible to survive. As Russian thermobaric launchers have a particularly short range, with the TOS-1 having a range of 3 and a half to six kilometers, this munitions depot was likely the primary Russian storage of thermobaric munitions in the Pokrovsk direction.

With their artillery fire support eliminated, Russian forces struggled to prevent Ukrainian counterattacks and quickly lost control of the situation.

Ukrainian tanks rolled in, destroying key Russian strongpoints that held together their fragile position in the village. In a desperate attempt to stabilize the front, Russia sent a BMP-2 across the bridge, only for it to be destroyed immediately, with the Russian infantry on top being eliminated by small arms fire even before they could dismount.

As Ukrainians cleared the last Russian presence from Uspenivka, Russian forces were pushed back to Novovasylivka, only now with even fewer men to hold the line.

Overall, the Ukrainian precision strikes on the Russian thermobaric artillery, Tulip heavy mortars, and standard barrel artillery diminished their fire support, exposing a window of opportunity for the Ukrainians to counterattack and regain control of their positions in Uspenivka. With Ukrainians now in a much better position, they could possibly cut off the Russian forces on the western flank of Pokrovsk through a pincer maneuver in tandem with their efforts at Pischane and Shevchenko.

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.

Read also:

• Frontline report: Ukrainian elite units break through southern Toretsk as Russian defenses crumble after 9-month battle
• Frontline report: Ukraine recaptures part of strategic Chasiv Yar as new French VEB armor doubles combat power
• Frontline report: Russian logistics network collapses under Ukrainian drone campaign near Pokrovsk