RU POV: Russian and Ukrainian advances from Day 848 to Day 850 of the War - Suriyakmaps

Following on from their recent success, Russian forces continued advances along the Karlovske reservoir, capturing the first buildings on the northing side. This little suburb is actually part of Karlivka, meaning Russia now has a foothold in 2 different areas of the town, but none in the main part.

Following on from their recent success crossing the river, Ukrainian forces captured some trenches to the east of Vovchansk. Fighting in the town itself is still a mess, and neither side is coming out on top. The intensity of FAB usage has left most of the town in ruins, making urban combat even more difficult than before.

Recent geolocated footage has shown Russian forces are now entering the northern suburbs of Krasnogorivka, clearing it street by street. The battle for the town is far from over, but Russian progress should accelerate once the larger buildings in the centre of the town have been cleared, and fighting moves to the residential area. This is due to it being significantly easier to clear individual houses, or simply shell them to rubble, than it is to do the same for the 8+ story concrete apartment buildings in the centre of the town.

Russian forces captured a treeline west of Novovodiane, in another of their dispersed small-scale assaults on the Kupyansk front.

Ukrainian forces entered the village of Starytsia, taking over a few of the buildings. Russian forces in this area are extremely limited, and the majority of their efforts to stop Ukrainian advances are with artillery and FPV drones, not infantry.

Russian forces made large gains on the Toretsk front, capturing a number of Ukrainian defences, which have been there for over a decade. I was initially sceptical of Russian claims of great success in this area, as its not the first time they have claimed to have breached the 2014 line, but recent footage and photos has shown it to be true. Russia was able to easily push forward, suffering minimal casualties due to little Ukrainian resistance, and are rapidly approaching the east side of Pivnichne (red dot below Druzhba).

Ukraine's manpower and equipment issues mean it cannot properly man every area of the front, and has to move its units around to the 'hot' areas where needed. This leaves the relatively 'quiet' areas with fewer forces and equipment. As you might have noticed, Russia has been exploiting this by rotating its attacks around, launching small assaults here and there, before pausing to dig in. This has allowed it to make sporadic progress, but in dozens of different areas of the frontline. Ukraine doesn't have the reserves to respond to every attack, and by the time they do reinforce an area, Russian assaults there have already stopped, and attacks take place in other places.

With the Toretsk area of the front, Ukraine is in trouble as other key areas (Vovchansk/Liptsy, Chasiv Yar, Ocheretyne) have sucked up a large number of their forces, leaving it with little to defend this area. If Ukraine cannot reinforce the units here quickly, Russia may be able to make great progress in capturing the town.

On the other hand, whether Russia even intends to advance much further here is unknown. I could not find much information about the size of the Russian grouping in this area, and what equipment they have, but it is a distinct group, separate to the ones operating north and south-west of them. . Russian forces here may not actually have the numbers to begin a lengthy town assault of a place as large as Toretsk, and may just be trying to draw Ukrainian attention.

Russian forces captured Yasnobrodivka (a grouping of mansions near the lake) and more of the southern fields. Ukrainian forces on the eastern side of the reservoir will almost certainly pull back across to the west side in the next few days, as their one supply route is under threat due to advances shown in picture 1, and are at risk of being cut off.