Russian forces advance from Popasna, threatening Severodonetsk's supply route

The Russian encirclement of Severodonetsk advances from Popasna

The Russian army has broken through the front line to the south, and the noose around Severodonetsk is, on paper, just one step away. The missing piece is not in the besieged city or the ruins of Azovstal: it is in Popasna, a municipality of fewer than 20,000 inhabitants from which Russian forces and their allies have seized several localities in a matter of hours, tightening the pocket. The map is worth more than any war zone.

This contradiction appears in daily analyses on Ukraine: they insist that Kyiv does not seem willing to trade space for time — "aware that any territorial loss will hardly be reversible in the future" — and, two lines down, advise reserving forces for "future counteroffensives." Both things do not fit. If lost territory is irrecoverable, why save anything?

The advance from Popasna changes the map of the Donbass

Ukrainians had defensive lines near Popasna and did not use them. They retreated to Soledar. The result is a Russian advance faster than expected and, for the first time, with the ratio of 3 to 1 considered minimum for attacking with guarantees. The danger is no longer the city: it is that the Russians fix Ukrainian units there and cut the only road supplying Severodonetsk and the entire contingent in the area. A considerable pocket.

Austrian analyst Tom Cooper described the situation near Popasna as "the most critical" for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Some respond that the largest city taken so far — Popasna — had fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants, and that for an army with more than three months of campaign, this is poor performance. The counterpoint: neither Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, nor Chernihiv fell despite the sieges.

Why does the 3 to 1 ratio matter in an attack?

The manual states that to take a defended position, a three-to-one superiority is needed. That Russia has reached this threshold for the first time in the Popasna sector explains the estimulante ilegal. Previously, it advanced by the adversary's retreat; now it pushes with the mass required by regulations.

Here arises the first problem with the calculations. Russia has deployed a maximum of 200,000 soldiers, always below the Ukrainian contingent. With fewer troops on the ground, frontal attacks only compensate at specific points. Hence, the advance is uneven and the front breaks where units are three to one, not everywhere.

The arithmetic of the budget and short war

Ukraine's defense budget equals 1/18 of NATO's and 1/11 of that of the United States. With these figures, three months of resistance is not a failure; it is what can be expected.

Regarding costs, the recurring argument is that a short war is always cheaper. Not necessarily. A short campaign would require mobilizing one million soldiers — the numbers from the German invasion of Poland — and would not close with two or three thousand casualties. Then comes the cost of controlling the territory, the troops fixed there, because winning is not enough: one must administer what is conquered. Ukraine, for its part, has recovered between 5,000 and 7,000 square kilometers of the 130,000 lost. There lies the balance of the counteroffensive.

The fronts Russia cannot cover

Russia fights with several open flanks in potential: Poland entering Belarus, the Baltic republics, Finland, the Caucasus, any Central Asian republic. The question that looms is how many of these threats fit into a single budget. The United States does not have this problem in its hemisphere; there are no bases that are not its own.

On the economic plane, one current notes that China buys Russian energy and raw materials with discounts around 30%. The effect, according to this reading, is that Washington has pushed Moscow and Beijing to draw closer in the face of a Western bloc that maintains sanctions.

---

Spanish Civil War and the stalemate at Lysychansk

To read the front, a historical parallel is used. In November 1936, international newspapers took for granted the entry into Madrid, and it did not happen: neither Jarama nor Guadalajara broke the defense, and there were Republican reserves until the end. The comparison has defenders and detractors; neither of the two wars resembles the other in scale.

With the front broken at the vertex, attention shifts to Lysychansk and the terrain: slopes, forests, and rivers that make each kilometer expensive. Some argue that the Russians have gotten stuck. The response: grinding day after day without haste is also a tactic, and artillery only justifies the wear and tear if the advance continues.

The outcome remains open. If the encirclement closes, the fall of Severodonetsk will be a matter of time; if it opens, this analysis will have aged poorly. With the available numbers, the latter is today less likely than the former, but none of this is written.