The map showing the Ukrainian positions in the city of Bakhmut and the 8-week-old map show the incompetence or inability of the Russian military to conduct modern operations, explains Professor Phillips P. O’Brien in his Twitter.

O’Brien, a historian who teaches strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and author of several books on 20th-century wars, notes that a map of the current positions of Ukrainian forces shows them slowly retreating westward. outskirts of the city of Donetsk region.

“This is confirmation of their decision to force the Russians to fight for the city in recent months and an example of the fundamental flaws in Russian military plans,” he notes.

He then presents a map of Ukrainian positions from 8 weeks ago, showing how they formed a “salient” on the Russian front.

“The first thing that competent armed forces capable of conducting joint military operations would do is to strike a powerful blow at the city. They would focus on isolating Ukrainians in pockets. The Russians could not do this, even though they had Ukrainians in a vulnerable position,” explains the professor.

General military operations, great weakness of Russian troops

He reminds that, instead, the Russians “slowly and self-destructively advanced through the city, and the Ukrainians are still there, they can retreat in order and not be isolated.”

O’Brien also notes that all Ukrainian officials with whom he spoke in recent months, whether members of the civilian administration or military commanders, were unwavering in their belief that the fight for Bakhmut was in Ukraine’s interests and for the benefit of Ukraine.

“And they were right,” says Professor O’Brien.

In fact, even General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of the eastern group of the Ukrainian army, said in an interview two days ago that holding the city is crucial for the Ukrainian front in the east of the country as a whole, thus contradicting the opinions of many Western analysts who have said in recent months, that the city of Bakhmut has no special military significance.

The fact that the Russian army does not use joint military operations, which involve the coordinated use in offensive actions of infantry, armored and mechanized units, artillery and aviation, is also noted in the analysis published at the end of March by Insider.

The all-arms doctrine was adopted by the Soviet Union in the second half of the Second World War, when it went on the offensive against the German forces. General military offensive operations are considered mandatory today.

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