Vexing vegetation: frontline update

Kill zones and green zones. Russian advances under tree cover. 'Getting to the positions isn’t much easier than surviving on them.' 200 days in a frontline hole.

‘if you flip through the pages of history, it becomes clear that after prolonged battlefield stagnation, one side inevitably starts collapsing entirely. We certainly don’t want that side to be us.’

Before we get to the full text that quote comes from, a somewhat unexpected element that has been disrupting frontline stagnation - nature.

Spring is generally associated with life. This is true on the frontlines too. This, however, is not to everyone’s satisfaction.

The war is not simply a war of trenches. Trees are just as important, if not moreso. In Russian and Ukrainian, these are called lesoposadki or lisosmugi - wooded areas, tree lines dividing up steppe agriculture. It is under cover of such greenery that infantry is able to evade drones and encircle trenches. That way, as I’ve covered many times in the past, even quite impressive trench constructions can become useless through being outflanked.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a flurry of worry among Ukrainian troops that the regrowth of greenery is making it harder for drones to spot Russian infantry as they infiltrate Ukrainian defence lines.

Stanislav Buniatov, April 29:

Now that the greenery is starting to grow, it’ll become harder to hit the faggots. I strongly advise brigade commanders to seriously consider mastering remote mining of forest strips and the production of anti-personnel mines — otherwise, we’re going to have a problem

Officer, April 30:

The weather is making its adjustments, which are now more beneficial to the faggots.

In spring, the number of assaults significantly increased, and I’m referring to the last 2 weeks, when the "greenery" appeared and the ground dried up completely, allowing for unrestricted access to our positions with any kind of equipment, and, if necessary, quick landing and hiding in the tree lines.

The enemy's efforts remain focused mainly on the Pokrovsk direction.

Officer, May 3:

The green has grown, the ground has dried, the weather has warmed up, and overall, the weather conditions have improved, which has sharply contributed to the intensification of assault operations, especially in the Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka directions.

And while in the latter the enemy is trying to sneak up to the city through villages, in the Pokrovsk direction, it’s mostly fields and tree lines, through which the enemy is trying to advance to the administrative border of the region.

It's tough in both areas.

It seems like the greenery effect may be statistically observed as well - according to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT project, Russia took more territory in April (175 square kilometers) than it did in March (133 square kilometers).

This is the first time since November 2024 that an upswing in Russian advances has been recorded. Note, however, that this excludes the hundreds of kilometers of territory Russia retook in its Kursk oblast in March.

Could it be that a significant factor behind the slowing of Russian advances in the December-March period was the winter-time barrenness? This is plausible, given that the Russian tactic for advancing has been the deployment of small (2-5) infantry groups to outflank Ukrainian defenses. Due to Ukraine’s manpower deficiencies, it can only counter this with drones. When the tree cover disappeared in wintertime, they became much harder to avoid.

Given this pressure, new recruits are as precious as ever. No wonder that Jehovah’s Witnesses were denied the ability to avoid service on religious grounds by Ukraine’s high court on May 1.

No wonder the army is doing its best to recruit more youth. The latest advertising strategy to get those aged 18-24 to sign the military contract aimed at them doesn’t focus on roblox and female attention, like previous ones did - now it’s shoes:

How many pairs of shoes does the average Ukrainian man own? For those who’ve signed a contract, at least six: shower shoes, everyday wear, summer shoes, autumn shoes, winter shoes, and extreme winter boots. Sign a contract at 18–24, earn up to two million hryvnias, and get footwear as a bonus!

The 18-24 contract hasn’t been particularly successful, despite the PR campaign. The army announced in mid-April that only 500 have actually signed up on the program. Nevertheless, the government has decided on another vector for recruits - the elderly.

On April 30, parliament proposed a new contract aimed at those aged 60 and older. While the legislation refers to non-combat positions the elderly could take, one wonders how it would look in reality. That’s because in reality, the list of 'non-combat’ positions is constantly shrinking. On April 31, the ministry of health announced that a range of different medics would lose their exemption from mobilization.

Young or old, any newcomers to the Ukrainian army will have to abide by the trendsetters – the neo-nazi Azov movement. This popular sentiment is expressed in the following May 5 post by Stanislav Buniatov, commander of the Aidar Batallion, an allied but smaller nationalist unit:

"Azov" is 11 years old 🫡

Much has already been said about the heroism of this unit, but I want to highlight the most important point:
through its example, Azov pushed all units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces toward reform — and that deserves respect and a separate chapter in Ukraine's history.

Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the Nation!

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