Category Russia

Project SKYSWEEPER

This is a new blog post from TDI associate Chip Sayers, who has able to make the Third HAAC in person this time:


Project SKYSWEEPER

Armed First-Person Point of View (FPV) drone use in war zones has become a major topic of discussion in the last number of months and news this week of multiple breaches of security at U.S. military bases in the homeland have brought home the point that we need a general strategy for use against drones anywhere, but that also works in U.S. airspace.  In a war zone, a solution could be relatively straight-forward in that use of “lethal force” on the battlefield is expected.  That doesn’t hold true for use in U.S. airspace.

While this photo is almost certainly for propaganda purposes — it beggars’ belief that such small drones could lift off while burdened so outrageously — this photo does generally illustrate the armed FPV drone concept.

This FPV quadcopter sports twin M-72 -class light anti-tank weapons fixed to fire straight down on unsuspecting armored vehicles. 

The title of this post is an homage to the scale model I built as a 9-year-old of a US Army M-51 “Skysweeper” 75mm automatic antiaircraft gun. The Skysweeper had revolver magazines giving it a rate of fire of 45 rounds per minute, and an on-mount gun-laying radar and fire-control computer that ensured its proximity-fused shells would be placed with deadly accuracy. A similar system could put paid to the drone threat in areas where firing artillery is acceptable. 

In the 1990s, Oerlikon created Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction (AHEAD) ammunition for its line of 35mm antiaircraft guns. AHEAD, when fired, passes through three coils on the end of the gun’s barrel.  The first two measure the muzzle velocity of the round and compares that to the measured range of the target from its fire-control computer. The third sets the shell’s fuse to burst at the optimal point to damage the target. AHEAD rounds carry a payload, depending on the shell, of between 152 and 860 tungsten projectiles that can effectively shred anything in its path.

This proof plate from an AHEAD round detonation should be terrifying to anyone on the receiving end of its wrath, especially low-flying aircraft — manned, or unmanned.

A Gepard Flakpanzer. The 35mm AAA system is self-contained with search and target tracking radars, fire-control computer and guns on a turret with a Leopard tank chassis.  Note the coils at the ends of the gun barrels for programming AHEAD rounds.

The German Gepard 35mm Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun (SPAAG) has been sent to Ukraine and, according to reports, the Gepard has proven to be highly effective against Russian drones. NATO countries have managed to scrape together 52 Gepards to cover potentially 1,100 kilometers of frontage, leaving an average density of one Gepard for every 20 kilometers in a simplistic, but illustrative calculation. Ammunition has also been a problem because Switzerland — the country of origin — objected to “violating their neutral status” by selling it to combatants. It begs the question of what they thought their weapons and ammunition were going to be used for — Fourth of July celebrations?  NATO has obtained through hook and by crook a quarter-million rounds, but that’s less than 4.4 minutes of fire, across the force. 

However, AAA is of no use against drones operating in U.S. airspace.  This brings to mind “the Battle of Palmdale” when a Navy drone went rogue and overflew Los Angeles in August 1956. Air Defense Command interceptors attempted multiple times to down the drone with unguided rockets, only to have the rockets’ high-explosive warheads wreak havoc on the ground below.

As we saw in last year’s shootdown of a Chinese balloon which crossed the entire breadth of the Continental U.S. (or CONUS), once the aircraft enters U.S. airspace, we must be concerned with wreckage crashing on the good citizens of Muleshoe, TX or other sparsely populated points of the country. Gone are the days when USAF Air Defense Command envisioned using rockets with nuclear warheads in U.S. airspace to defend against Soviet bombers with much larger nuclear payloads aboard. In last year’s incident, once the decision was made to finally bring down the Chinese balloon, USAF interceptors were held back until the balloon had cleared the U.S. coast, but not so far as to cause the wreckage to land in deep water.  While the high-altitude interception went off like clockwork (believe me, it was not as easy as it looked) we obviously need a means of dealing with threats that don’t risk causing physical harm to bystanders.

In Southeast Asia, reconnaissance drones were used in large numbers to photograph denied areas of North Vietnam.  Usually, they were launched from DC-130 motherships, flew over their North Vietnamese objectives, and were recovered over the South China Sea by waiting CH-3 helicopters that snared the drones’ recovery parachutes, lest they be damaged on landing. The system proved incredibly reliable with one source claiming that in 2,700+ attempts, over 2,600 were successful — a remarkable recovery rate.

A USAF C-119J demonstrates the parachute recovery technique.

USAF CH-3 helicopter with a Ryan AQM-34R Lightning Bug reconnaissance drone in tow.

The sad end of a happy warrior (he’s seemingly smiling). The North Vietnamese took the drone threat seriously and VPAF interceptor pilots were given full victory credit for shooting down a drone.

In a similar manner, helicopters or small cargo planes could use capture nets to sweep up drones fairly cheaply. Obviously, this would require a fairly permissive air defense environment, such as that found in U.S. airspace, Israel and parts of Ukraine. It is a simple, but likely effective technique when used appropriately. The most difficult part of this scheme is having the helicopter (or cargo plane) on station when drones are in the air.  Aircraft could be put up preemptively when the likelihood of drone incursions is high and aircraft available for other missions — such as aircrew recovery — could be ready as quickly as attaching the catch apparatus to an external cargo hook. In Israel’s current situation, one could envision a lot of helicopters and other aircraft being very busy, indeed. However, by using aircraft already on hand, there would be little sunk cost other than aircrew training.

Another approach would be to jam the drone’s control signal. This, of course, would not work on drones that have an autonomous guidance system similar to the U.S. Lightning Bugs flying over North Vietnam, though that carries its own set of issues. Rather infamously, the Lightning Bug that was to provide the final reconnaissance for the raid to free prisoners from the North Vietnamese POW camp at Son Tay in 1970 went astray because the drone turned to soon and didn’t see that the camp had been flooded by monsoon rains and evacuated. In any event, jamming drones in the CONUS could potentially interfere with civilian bandwidths, causing the same kind of complaints that caused sonic booms to be banned over the U.S. mainland. Nevertheless, relatively low-powered jammers that could be located in the center of a large military installation might still be useful.

High-power microwave generators can be highly directional and could interfere with a drones electronics to the point that its circuit boards are “fried,” knocking the aircraft out of the sky. While purpose-built HPM weapons may appear on the battlefield in the very near future, the primary radar of the Lockheed F-35 Lightning II is believed to be capable of performing such duties and are becoming operational at such rates that they could be tasked for this under certain circumstances.

Air defense lasers may be an ideal weapon for dealing with drones, but they have been long promised and thus far failed to achieve operational status. Whatever their issues, particle beam weapons are probably further out on the technology horizon than lasers.  In the meantime, laser “dazzlers,” designed to temporarily blind pilots, have been out there — and effective — since the Falklands War, 42 years ago. Laser dazzlers could at least keep the drones from getting good optical reconnaissance data and deter amateurs from overflying facilities that may easily ruin their drone’s optics (whether or not they really can).

While we wait for these perfect weapons, rather more primitive arms may just fill the bill: just prior to WWII, the British developed an antiaircraft weapon the consisted of a multiple rocket launcher where the rockets trailed cables to ensnare German Stukas trying to bomb Royal Navy capital ships at sea. A similar system might be effective against drones that would be brought down by hitting or being hit by the streaming cable. Better still would be if they could successfully boost a net into the air. This approach would be particularly attractive as the threat drones are generally relatively slow and are unlikely to see such an attack unless it is launched from directly in the drone’s flight path. It would also be a relatively low threat for accompanying infantry. Such a “monkey catcher” could be mounted in pairs on an armored vehicle’s turret. On the platoon or company command net, the order “drone left,” “drone forward,” or “drone right,” the unit’s vehicles could slew their turrets to face the threat and each fire a net in that direction. An individual monkey catcher might not have a high probability of success, but multiples firing from different angles would have a much higher chance of knocking down the offending drone.

At some point, laser air defense weapons will mature and be fielded, ending the current threat. Until that time, “out-of-the-box” thinking may provide a more near-term solution to the threat we face today.


 

What is happening with the Pokrovsk offensive?

Of course, the main offensive this summer has been the Russian offensive towards Pokrovsk. The Second Battle of Kursk is kind of a sideshow. But this offensive toward Pokrovsk has been dragging on all summer, advancing very slowly across ground of no particular significance towards an objective of no particular significance. Lately, as they get nearer to Pokrovsk, the Russian offensive has slowed down from a crawl to a snail’s pace (these are precise technical terms). The Russians are currently from 7 to 12 kilometers from Pokrovsk.

The significance of this ground is that it is clear that Russian expects a ceasefire to be negotiated at some point (this fall, next fall, the fall after next fall?). When a ceasefire is negotiated, Russia expects to keep anything it has taken. Over the course of this entire summer, it has taken about 1,000 square kilometers (an area about the size of Fairfax County). I gather they are assuming that this will be part of their gains for “new Russia.” So, while the ground it not particular significant militarily or even economically, it is part of what appears to be a permanent expansion of the Russian border, fought over each square kilometer at a time (there are 2.59 square kilometers of a square mile). 

Just for the record, Pokrovsk is large town with a population of 60,127 in 2022. It is 56 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of Donetsk and is the administrative center of the Pokrovsk Raion. The Pokrovsk Raion has an area of 1,316 square kilometers (508 square miles) and a 2022 estimated population of 386,451. In the 2001 census 87% of the people were Ukrainian, 11% were Russian. In the town of Prokrovsk it was 75% Ukrainian, 22% Russian. The composer Sergie Prokofiev (1891-1953) was born here (at Sontsivka) and died in Moscow the same day as Stalin. He is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery (along with Khrushchev and half the senior commanders at the Battle of Kursk, see my big book for their grave pictures).

So, @Warmapper has been faithfully tracking this offensive for a while. It is listed in Wikipedia as starting 18 July 2024 and is still going on. This is date of the capture of the small village Prohres. There was an offensive going on before that, starting with the Battle of Avdiivka (10 October 2023 – 17 February 2024) and continuing up to the capture of Prohres. Let us crib some maps from Warmapper for a moment:

This map is dated 24 August 2024. The part in blue is the pre-February 2022 border of the DPR. One can see their push from the border near Avdiivka toward Pokrovsk. This is an advance of around 40 kilometers. Not exactly earthshaking and not all done this year.

Here is the advance as of 30 August (zoomed in):

The real danger is if the Ukrainian Army is getting so ground down as be unable to hold the line and Russia achieves a penetration. This was probably a more serious concern a month ago, but with Russia slowing, it is looking less likely. Also, the weather will get colder and sometime in November, operations will have to halt. So, if Ukraine can hold for the next two months, then it is probably good until spring 2025. It is debatable at this point if Russia will get to Pokrovsk, let alone take it.

I am not sure I am going to put together a blog post on losses in the Pokrovsk campaign like I did for Kursk (see: So what have the Russians lost around Sudzha? – The Dupuy Institute). 

So what have the Russians lost around Sudzha?

Warspotting is a site that takes all those reports and photographs of tanks, IFVs and other vehicles and equipment destroyed, and plots them to a map. They are here: Map ∙ WarSpotting — documented material losses in Russo-Ukrainian war

They do report for August and September of 2024 a number of Russian vehicles in and around Sudzha. There is probably a way of posting the map to the blog, but let me describe what we are seeing (as of the evening of 9 September 2024):

  1. There are two vehicles destroyed from March 2024 in the western part of the oblast, and two in May and June near Korenevo and seven near Sudzha dated May and June. These eleven wrecks are not part of this battle.
  2. In the west three pontoon links reported destroyed on 8 September across the Seym River.
  3. There are 11 wrecks around Budki from August & September: A Gaz-66 on 31 August 2024 near the Seym River, three pontoon links across the Seym River reported destroyed on 7 September, four KrAZ-255 and two pontoon links reported destroyed on 28 August, a KamAZ 6×6 truck reported destroyed on 28 August 2024. Clearly some clever selective targeting.
  4.  4 wrecks: Further to the southeast down the Seym River is a KamAZ 8×8 truck that is part of the pontoon bridging units. It was reported destroyed 20 August 2024. To its north is a KamAZ 6×6 truck, also reported destroyed 20 August 2024. North of there is a BMP 1 or 2 and BMP-2M “Berezhok’ reported destroyed on 24 August 2024. 
  5. Further north there are eight wrecked trucks in Oktyabrskoye on highway E38 This includes seven KamAZ 6×6 and one Ural-4320, all dated 8 August 2024. 
  6. Outside of Korenevo are nine wrecks:  two Ural-4320 dated 12 August and 7 September, KamAZ 6×6 dated 12 August, Ural-43206 dated 2 September, UAZ-452 dated 18 August, BTR-82A(M) dated 7 September, unknown T-80 OBr. 2022 tank variant dated 23 August, T-90 “Proryv’ tank reported captured on 19 August (see picture), BTR-82AT dated 17 August 2024.
  7. Clustered around Sudzha are 18 wrecks: one KamAZ 6×6 dated 7 August, KA-52 “alligator” attack helicopter dated 10 August, six T-80BVM Obr. 2022 tanks dated 6, 8 (captured), 9 and 10 August, two KamAZ 6×6 tractor unit dated 6 August, GAZ “Tigr-M’ dated 8 August, two BTR-82A(M) dated 14 and 21 August, two Ural-4320 dated 7 and 16 August, two BMP-3 dated 13 August, and one unknown vehicle date 5 September 2024.
  8. Note that two T-80s are designated to be from the 4th Tank Division (First Guards Tank Army) and one is designated as taken out by the 80th Air Assault Brigade.  

This is a total of 53 wrecks (including eight pontoon links) and includes eight tanks, eight IFVs, and one APC.

Warspotting does not record Ukrainian losses.

Now Naalsio (@naalsio26) is also tracking losses for both sides during this operation. They are reporting on Twitter:

                                     Russian losses                        Ukrainian losses
6-13 August               22 (4 tanks)                              29 (4 tanks, 8 IFVs)
As of 15 August         +5 (+2 tanks, +3 IFVs)       +22 (+4 IFVs)
As of 20 August        +13 (+5 tanks, +2 IFVs)     +14 (+4 IFVs)
As of 27 August        +19 (+3 tanks, +3 IFVs)     +22 (+5 tanks, + 7 IFVs)
As of 3 September  +12 (+1 tank)                          +19 (+2 tanks, + 6 IFVs)
As of 9 September  +12 (+1 IFV)                            +17 (+6 IFVs)
Total losses:            83 (15 tanks, 9 IFVs)       123 (11 tanks, 35 IFVs)

There is a discrepancy in Russian losses between Warspotting with 53 items destroyed/captured including 8 tanks, 8 IFVs and Naalsio with 83 items destroyed/captured including 15 tanks, 9 IFVs.

 

See: (1) Naalsio on X: “#Kursk Offensive confirmed equipment losses as of 13 August 2024 In summary: 29 Ukrainian 🇺🇦 losses vs. 22 Russian 🇷🇺 losses This list includes all losses in Kursk Oblast, Russia and Sumy Oblast, Ukraine since the offensive began on 06 August 2024. Spreadsheet showing the https://t.co/Uc2NOpLMoZ” / X

Second Battle of Kursk – part two

The original Battle of Kursk (4 July – 23 August 1943) was actually the single largest battle in World War II. This one is a lot smaller.

One will note that this map (from the book Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka) does include Sudzha, just to the northeast of Sumy.

Now I have blogged about this second Battle of Kursk before on 15 August: The Second Battle of Kursk – The Dupuy Institute. My concluding remarks were: “Anyhow, this was a clever move by Ukraine…Its impact has probably been overrated by many commentators.”

So, over the last three weeks, the Ukrainian control in and around Kursk has expanded slightly, from about 1,000 square kilometers (about the size of Fairfax County) to around 1,300 square kilometers. It is clear that Ukraine has taken all it can or wants to, and it now settled into a holding operation.

Around 28 August, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Ukraine had 5,000 troops inside of Kursk oblast. This sounds about right. I gather the offensive was initially conducted on 6 August by two brigades, the 22nd Mechanized Brigade and the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, with the 80th Air Assault Brigade added early on to the mix by 10 August (when they reported capturing a T-80 at Sudzha). Now Wikipedia lists nine Ukrainian maneuver brigades in their order of battle, but I really don’t buy into that. If they had two-three reinforced brigades involved and partly or mostly committed, then one would end up with 5,000 or so troops deployed forward. It does seem to line up. I don’t know why they would need to or want to commit more.

Russia has not pulled any troops from its rather slow advance on Pokrovsk. they may have pulled some from around Kharkiv.  Russian has at least 557,000 ground troops (see previous blog post for details) with at least 450,000 of them deployed in Ukraine. That gave them 102,000 or so troops in the rear, they could shift to contain and battle up the Ukrainian Kursk oblast penetration. This should be enough, even though their quality is suspect (I assume more of the troops in the rear are still training up). Around 5 September, Zelenskyy (President of Ukraine) claimed that Russian had moved 60,000 soldiers into the Kursk region. I suspect this figure is high, although it is possible. 

The only real surprise so far in the lack of urgency on the part of Russia in reducing this penetration. They have clearly moved troops in the area, containing the breached area, but so far have not done any major attacks to reduce the penetration. Perhaps this is because they are using only partly trained rear elements and recent conscripts, and really don’t want to conduct failed attacks and run up the losses.  

So, not much has changed around Kursk and things have only changed slowly around Pokrovsk. I will go into that in a later blog post. 

Got a couple of more blog posts coming out this week on the subject.

 

New 1420 Moscow street interviews are back on YouTube

Well, it looks like 1420 is back in action and posting on YouTube. It is a Moscow based site where the young adult (Daniil Orain) who ran it did street interviews in Moscow about current events. He later expanded the interview to other cities, towns and villages. It was interesting to hear the responses of the man-on-the-street and how their willingness to openly express opinions changed from 2022 through 2024. He finally quit doing interviews in early 2024 because he wanted to move on and then last month Russian shut down YouTube.

So now, as of this week, they are back to doing new interviews and posting them on YouTube. This latest one is on the Ukrainian operations in Kursk oblast:  People in Moscow about Ukraine’s invasion (youtube.com)

 

Previous postings I have done about 1420:

1420 – The Dupuy Institute

1420 – second posting – The Dupuy Institute

1420 – third posting – The Dupuy Institute

1420 – fourth posting – The Dupuy Institute

1420 – fifth posting – The Dupuy Institute

CBC on 1420 – The Dupuy Institute

1420 – sixth posting – The Dupuy Institute

It looks like 1420 may have quit broadcasting – The Dupuy Institute

The 1420 YouTube site decided to quit doing street interviews – The Dupuy Institute

 

 

The Second Battle of Kursk

The Battle of Kursk (1943) was the largest battle of World War II. I have three books out on the subject (the big book, The Battle of Prokhorovka and Aces at Kursk). There are two more planned (The Battle of Tolstoye Woods and The Tank Fields of Prokhorovka). I also have one book out in the war in Ukraine (The Battle for Kyiv), one that we are about to submit another to the publisher (The Siege of Mariupol) and several more planned. I have also done a couple of hundred blog posts on the Russo-Ukrainian War. So, I guess as measured by page count, I am kind of an expert. Still, this doesn’t mean that I have any unique knowledge or understanding as to what is going on right now in Ukraine; but let me take a shot at it.

Now, this Second Battle of Kursk is nowhere near the size of the first one, but like the first one, it is also really not at Kursk. In fact, this seems to be a fairly small affair, involving elements of two Ukrainian brigades and so far no significant Russian forces. The area involved is the size of Fairfax County. Ukraine has taken around 1,000 square kilometers. This is not particularly significant, making up less than 0.002% of Russia. It is not a region of any particular economic value. The population of the main village in the occupied area, Sudzha, is last reported as 5,127.  The whole Sudzha district (which is 996 sq. kilometers) is 26,964 (2010 census and is now probably less).

courtesy @War_Mapper

This operation is just a classic case of hitting them where they ain’t. There was a reason Russia was not defending this border area. Ukraine also does not directly defend large parts of its border areas. What I assume both sides do (and this is an assumption) is to hold a couple of regiments or brigades back in central locations, ready to move towards the border if need be. So far, it does not appear that Russia is doing even that. I suspect Ukraine is, and it may have been some of those forces around Sumy that were used to conduct this operation. So a large extended masking operation probably was not needed, the forces used were already nearby. But, neither side has a continued fortified border to the northwest of Kharkiv, so these little land grabs are possible by either of them. They are relatively meaningless militarily.

But, it could result in an expansion of the front. Right now, the front has been effectively 700 kilometers in length (see: The front is really not 1,200 kilometers long – rev. 1 – The Dupuy Institute). This excludes all that area to the northwest of Kharkiv, including Sumy to Chernihiv. It also excludes the Kakhovka Reservoir and the part of the Dnipro River going down from there to Kherson. So, it is possible, by expanding the front to include the entire border between Ukraine and Russia, that we could end up with a 1,200 kilometer front line. Who benefits from that?  

Right now Russian has about 450,000 troops located in Ukraine (Ukrainian estimate, Putin says 617,000). I am guessing that Ukraine has 300,000 to 400,000 opposite them and engaged with them. Ukraine supposedly has more than 700,000 mobilized, but I gather many are still training and holding down inactive or rear areas (like, for example Sumy and Chernihiv). The Russian Army, according to Wikipedia (IISS estimate for 2024 is the source) consists of the “Ground Forces” of 500,000 (including 100,000 conscripts) and the airborne forces of 45,000 (2023, source TASS). Their naval infantry are 12,000. So, 557,000 ground troops. There are also air force, navy and rocket forces for a total armed forces strength of 1,320,000 (December 2023, AP). Also see: Density of Deployment in Ukraine – The Dupuy Institute. Theoretically, if Ukraine has 700,000 mobilized (as the president was claiming in 2023), then Ukraine could gain an advantage by stretching out the front line. I really don’t think that is the case. 

So what is the Ukrainian objectives? Are they going to set up a Kursk Peoples Republic or hold the territory? I doubt it. I assume over the next week or two, Russia will build up its force in the area, and I suspect the most likely answer is that Ukraine will declare victory and go home, withdrawing from the area as the pressure increases.

The problem is that if you hold this Fairfax County-size piece of property inside of Russia, you not only have to commit one or two or three brigades to holding the area, but you have to also secure the left and right flanks of this area with ground troops. This is at least a brigade on each flank. So now, we are talking about 3 to 5 or more brigades committed to this effort. The Ukrainian army is only around 40 to 60 or so brigades active (I have not attempted to do a count in over a year). Are they really going to commit 10% of their ground forces to hold this little area. I doubt it.

So, I suspect Ukraine will withdraw. Still, the operation does three things for them:

  1. Propaganda value.
  2. They have captured over 100 Russian prisoners which they can later exchange. Ukraine had thousands captured in 2022 and have never held enough Russian prisoners to exchange for all the people Russia holds. This helps.
  3. They force the Russians to more seriously protect these border regions, which they obviously were not doing. This ties down more forces from a ground army of 557K that has 450K in Ukraine.

Anyhow, this was a clever move by Ukraine, but hardly a brilliant piece of operational art, as quite simply, no significant Russian forces were enveloped and destroyed. In the end, winning large extended conventional wars is usually done by destroying armies. This does not do that. Its impact has probably been overrated by many commentators. 

 

Also see: 

The Russo-Ukrainian War is still a limited war – The Dupuy Institute

Area Taken in Ukraine – The Dupuy Institute

Area Taken in Ukraine

Just saw some great graphics from @War_Mapper that is worth repeating (dating goes from Feb. 2022 to July 2024).

His map as of 1 August is here: 

Now, he is saying that for the month of July there was a net gain of around 177 square kilometers (68 square miles). This is kind of like taking an area the size of 17% of Fairfax County or almost all of Washington DC. 

A numerical count is provided here:

 

This from November 2023 to July 2024 totals 776.59 square kilometers (300 square miles). This is almost 75% of the area of Fairfax County. Or, to match it up to a state, it is almost 0.2% of the state of California or 12% of the state of Delaware. Not earth shaking, but nibbling. As it is, Russian currently controls 17.72% of Ukraine.


For the record, @War_Mapper provided a number of maps that were used in my book The Battle for Kyiv and provided one map for our upcoming book The Siege of Mariupol.

Front Line Traces in Ukraine

With the help of some volunteer labor, we have produced a more precise set of front-line traces. I have done a couple of quick and dirty estimates before, but I never took the time to measuring it up right. Now we have done something a little more exacting. The google maps with the borders that we used is here: Google Earth. Clicking on the left hand menu will allow one to see how the border was measured. This was the work of Jack Flairty.

1. Length of the front line on 1 January 2014: This is land border with Russia.

  • 1,974 kilometers
  • 1,227 miles

2. Length of the front line 2016-2021: The border of the LPR and DPR and Ukraine.

  • 336 kilometers
  • 227 miles

3. Length of the front line 24 February 2022: This includes 1) part of the border with Belarus that is used by Russia, 2) part of the border with Russia from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy to Kharkiv, 3) the border of the LPR and DPR, 4) the border with Crimea.

  • 1,706 kilometers
  • 1,060 miles

4. Length of the front line 1 March 2022: This includes 1) part of the border with Belarus that is used by Russia (they did expand it), 2) the front line trace from Kyiv to Chernihiv, to Sumy, to Kharkhiv down to Izyum, 3) the front line trace down to Mariupol. 4) the front line trace through Zaporizhzhia and Kherson province.

  • 3,011 kilometers
  • 1,871 miles

5. Length of the front line 1 April 2022.

  • 2,333 kilometers
  • 1,450 miles

6. Length of the front line 1 May 2022: This no longer includes Belarus.

  • 2,144 kilometers
  • 1,332 miles

7. Length of the front line 1 June 2022

  • 2,418 kilometers
  • 1,503 miles

8. Length of the front line 1 July 2022

  • 1,900 kilometers
  • 1,180 miles

9. Length of the front line 1 August 2022

  • 1,753 kilometers
  • 1,089 miles

10. Length of the front line on 1 June 2024.

  • 1,633 kilometers
  • 1,015 miles

 

Previous posts on the subject:

The front is really not 1,200 kilometers long – rev. 1 – The Dupuy Institute

Length of Front Line Trace in Ukraine – The Dupuy Institute