The declaration of an alternative capital in Melitopol suggests that the Russian forces are facing difficulties in their attempts to seize Zaporizhzhia, a major objective of the conflict.

The following is a defence intelligence update issued by the Ministry of Defence in the UK.

“On 3 March 2023, authorities in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast published a decree that declared occupied Melitopol as the oblast capital.

The Russian-installed head of the oblast, Evgeniy Balitskiy, said that this was a temporary measure until the city of Zaporizhzhia was controlled by Russia.

Zaporizhzhia is one of the four oblasts President Putin claimed to have annexed as part of the Russian Federation on 30 September 2022.

Russia has never occupied Zaporizhzhia city, a major industrial centre of 700,000 people, which is approximately 35km from the current front line.

The quiet declaration of an alternative capital is likely tacit acknowledgement within the Russian system that its forces are highly unlikely to seize previously planned major objectives in the near future.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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48 COMMENTS

  1. Good luck with that.
    Russia is still a tough opposition for Ukraine. Forcing Russia from Ukraine is going to be a tough mission.
    We will see how the next offensives turns out.
    Russia seems to be having a bit of a quiet spell with daily attacks dropping 3/4 from 75-100 a day. They could just be having a break or it may point to bigger issues

    • I’m sure JohnMK will explain those to us shortly as being part of the Master Plan whilst the Wonder Weapons are readied!!

      Or alternatively, the Russian army is poorly equipped and badly lead with soldiers who don’t want to be there and NATO’s last generation weapons have taken out any Russian kit that is vaguely useful and munitions dumps any wagers vaguely close to the front line are identified and taken out?

      I wonder which it is…..?

    • A Ukrainian commander was sacked recently for admitting the truth around their own losses, which would appear to be significantly worse than reported, which isn’t a huge surprise considering all the information warfare going on.

      It does however mean that the idea they are going to kick Russia out might be becoming less and less realistic, as no amount of hardware from the west is going to make up for deaths of trained soldiers, which are needed for the kit. This kit should have arrived a year ago or at least 6months ago.

      Not that Russia is in any better position, I can see this war reaching stalemate at some point this year.

      Edit: the bright side for Ukraine is that making use of western countries training capability means that can train more replacements faster than Russia can, which could work in their favour.

      • The question surely real is is ‘is the differential effector of NATO tanks + APC + NLAWS + concentrated local air support enough to overcome the stalemate in an equipment matched environment?’

        If the effect is dispersed no: if the effect is concentrated yes. To my mind anyway.

        • its going to be interesting, as the front line is huge, so concentrated usage will only get them so far, nice for small gains but we will have to see if its enough to really make a difference.

          • But you use it tactically and strategically to change momentum locally?

            Once the Russian static lines have been broken through then it is a mop up operation and as the Russians have zero counter or urban skills where does that leave them?

            The thing about the Russian static lines is that it is easy to take out the key locations with say CH2/AS90/HIMARS they are all grid coordinates – then once the comms/ammunition/fuel/food are degraded then progress is enabled.

            So in a sense the Russians have handed it to the Ukranians once they use precision locally with sufficient mass.

            Then precision is redeployed to another key location.

            If I was doing it I hit one of the great aggregations of Russian force to break them and make the commanders realise it is futile.

          • Certainly HIMARS hitting the ammo dumps has made a huge difference, as the amount of russian shelling has significantly reduced but they are already there. It’s now about the 200 odd tanks that have been sent and whether they can be a game changer or not.

          • 200 tanks is a huge mass to use locally. The key thing is the range at which they are accurate in a hit to kill probability. I would say it is probably double to triple the range of the Russian junk. So that can safely shoot scoot and shoot with very little risk of realistic retaliation.

            We have seen the difference that a limited number of HIMARS / M270 has made.

            Likewise 30 or so AS90 has been a game changer as they are accurate at range.

            Taking things out is the objective not throwing rounds in the vague direction.

            So in my estimation those 200 tanks are worth 2000+ Russian tanks blasting away.

            As ever you have got to use a weapon strategically and tactically correctly to get the full effect.

          • As90s aren’t a game changer. France etc have been supplying Ukraine with better platforms for months. For sure they will help as mass is important but not going to change the war like the initial hirmars did. Who knows about the tanks, I suspect the same as it’s not like Ukraine is getting all 200 odd at once, it’s over a long period of time with a few here and there over that period.

          • AS90 is much better than the Russian equivalents.

            You only have to overmatch by so such?

            Beyond that there is little material gain.

          • Are they better? A couple of years ago retired generals were complaining that we were out reached and out gunned by Russia because as the AS90s hadn’t been upgraded.

            Admittedly it’s the generals that only seem to identify issues after they retire, before everything is just fine.

          • There is a big difference between gross range and range at which hit to kill probabilities are high.

          • To an extent that was true. It was based on not getting the longer 52 cal barrel for the AS90. The 39 cal barrel was a standard NATO requirement. But with modern material technology barrels can be made longer that can sustain a higher rate of fire.

            The Soviet Union developed the MSTA-S, which was a counter to the M109, it uses an automated 152mm cal 47 barrel. After the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia continued its development and then put it in to production. The MTSA-S can lob a standard HE shell further than the AS90. There’s an upgraded version with a longer cal 53 barrel.

            Russia started the war with over 800 of these SPGs. They are still in production. They are starting to supplement them with the new 2S35 SPG. This was originally a development of the MTSA-S. It uses the longer 53 cal barrel. But supposedly the gun loading operation is now fully automatic, much like an Archer. The crew is now in the hull much like the T14’s arrangement. Numbers wise there were around 50 of these before the war.

            Russia still uses a mass of conventionally towed artillery ranging from 122mm to 152mm. The gun used in the MTSA-S, was also used as a towed gun. Manhandling the longer 53 cal barrel off road must be a nightmare. Unless they have used lots of titanium parts to reduce the weight like a M777.

            AS90 may be outranged by Russia’s newer systems. But it can still outrange the majority of older systems. Its main advantage is that it can shoot and scoot really quickly. If only we hadn’t cancelled the Braveheart upgrade!

        • Indeed, if Ukraine can use the modern equipment and precision fires to undertake manoeuvre warfare and start isolating loss poorly trained large static Russian formations you could seen another summer of swift changes and regaining some more major towns. A month or two after the end of the spring mud season will tell us how this summers Campaign season is likely to go.

      • I didn’t see that. Ukraine has lost about 400 of its T64 tanks. The conflict is an absolute nightmare but Ukraine has no option but to fight. I’m a bit surprised Russia is willing to accept such a beating for such little gains.
        I think what’s different about Ukraine stats on the war is they aren’t saying anything. Russia on the other hand just pumps out nonsense.

        • Putin has backed himself into a corner. He has no doubt promised the people around him the riches of Ukraine, and stated they will have to suffer short term from sanctions, now if he pulls out the sanctions will remain with no reward for them around him. His stuck to the end.

          • I think the west could say it would drop the sanctions and go back to business as usual if Russia pulled back from all of Ukraine. Main thing being to stop the war.
            While I don’t think putin would go for it if he had an accident near an open window a moderately sensible new president might.
            Business as usual is very unlikely to happen but that’s up to companies unwilling to work with Russia. Main thing is to end the Russian invasion

          • I don’t think the west would go for it either, many due to US polictics but also similar issues across nato. Look at the sanctions on Iran, there was a great deal done, that might have opened up Iran and eventually made them less of an issue (if you make people more wealthy they see the advanages of travel etc and become less aggressive to the wider world, marginalising the extremists) but the republicans got in and killed it, because they see it as a chance to show US dominance. Just look at Cuba, after this long a period is anyone seriously saying the sanctions worked and yet they remain and are tightened everytime the republicans get in.

            Best that would happen at this point would be partial removal. I don’t think Putin realised how many sanctions would be put into place, he thought he had control over western governments.

    • Not everything :

      – Drunkenness
      – Rape
      – Torturing civilians
      – Murdering civilians
      – Looting from civilians

      They’re very good at these. In fact, they might have no equal.

      • They also very good at
        • tank-turret airborne displays
        • organising military vehicles into compact long straight lines
        • diminishing stocks of Javelins/ NLAWS
        • getting prisoner-recruits to re-enact WW1 scenes of walking slowly in a line towards machine guns
        • using missiles to hit targets at long-range with a precision of +/- 10 miles
        • the martial art of the entrenching tool
        • portraying ignominious decisive defeats as victories
        • retreating…

        • And don’t forget cleverly following in the tracks of the previous BMP which hit a mine just seconds before. That skill you just cannot teach…….

          • It’s fortunate that it’s an innate skill as they apparently don’t give them any training 😏

  3. Not a surprise really. They’ve been trying to take Vuhledar for a year now and not succeeded. In one attempt the Russians lost 136 tanks and AFVs.
    Meanwhile the Ukrainian artillery based there can target any train running on the only line linking the Crimea and the Donbas.

      • It would be a good jumping-off point for a push south to the sea and Melitopol, splitting Russian forces. But before doing a concerted drive like that, it would make sense to do deep raids…

  4. So much for the much feared Russian spring offensive. It’s turned out to be a very attritionally costly damp squid.
    To qoute Wellington…”they are coming on in the same old fashion” meaning no change to the human wave attacks, no integrated arms approach, no armoured breakthrough.
    The Russian army really is quite rubbish. I’m about to go fight in Ukraine Vs Ruskies with my 90 year old granny. She thinks she can defeat the Russians alone with her armoured camode and Zimmer frames. 😅🤣😅😂😅 What do you think to that Johnski you Putinbot?

  5. Really if that’s true then we don’t need to send any more supplies do we fact is Russia is manufacturing 490,000 artillery shells a month the us and nato combined cannot match that and are in the process of mobilising 1.5 million troops there at about 700,000 at moment only one end to this war unless we all join in

    • What are you talking about? NATO hasn’t mobilised anyone. The USA has moved a few more troops to Europe, but no-one is calling up reservists or starting conscription.

      As for shell production – there is a massive shortage of shells in the Russian Army – Wagner does nothing but moan about how little ammunition they are getting – meanwhile the West is (albeit slowly) ramping up production with multiple EU countries committing to 500k to 1 million shells per annum (the US is also massively boosting production)

      One of the theories behind Russia sending T54/55s to the front line is that they have large stocks of 100mm shells and the T54/55s are the only tanks that can fire them

  6. I must admit I am a bit apprehensive with regards to Ukraine’s forthcoming counter-offensive. If they are waiting for their 200 Western tanks to turn up before kicking off, then it makes sense. As the Leopards especially, should be used in masse as one battle group along with other key enablers such as HIMARS, Archer, Pz2000 etc.

    But, this is the bit I’m worried about, say Ukraine get lucky and only loose 1/3 of the tanks through damage or destroyed etc. They will need to recover them for repair, hence why we, the Canadians etc are giving them the recovery vehicles to do so. But what if more than 50% of the recovered tanks cannot be repaired?

    Does NATO (barring the US) have sufficient spare tanks (Leopard 2/Challenger 2) to give Ukraine as a second tranche, thereby maintaining their operational incentive? We have a finite number of Challengers. We do not at the moment have the capacity to build more. Germany has switched overproduction to the Leopard 2A7 in 2014, it is producing them in small numbers for ta number of customers. France has yet to give any LeClercs, plus its production line shut down years ago.

    Perhaps it would be prudent for our MoD to start looking at other options. I’m pretty sure BAe could start up a new Challenger production line if the Government was to commit to a relatively large number of tanks (300+). But it would take at least a couple of years to get it going, as pretty much everything has to be built from scratch. So would be no good for Ukraine in the short term.

    The quickest option to getting some tanks to Ukraine, is to buy-back the 18 Omani Challenger 2s that are being replaced with the Korean K2 Black Panthers. These tanks are still operational.

    The middle term option is buy-back the 400 odd Challenger 1s from Jordan. These were gifted to Jordan, so Jordan should be honour bound to gift them back along with the support vehicles. These vehicles have been put in storage and as far as I’m aware are in sheds, not in the open.

    The question of how many can be made serviceable is a reasonable question. But I believe Jordan were also given a massive spares package, so I would like to think at least 2/3 could be made serviceable.

    The Challenger 1 did not have a hunter-killer function, as the commander did not have a thermal sight, but relied on the TOGs system mounted over the main gun. Did Jordan fit a commander’s thermal sight? From my understanding when Russia are refurbishing their T62/64 and 72 tanks they are fitting them with Gen 1 thermal sights, as that’s all they can get their hands on. If this is the case TOGs is better as its Gen 2. How much of the Jordanian Challengers kept the original British kit. Do they still have the Clansman radio or was this replaced with something more modern? Were Jordan given the additional Chobham applique armour? If we did get back the Challenger 1s, how much of it could be upgraded quickly?

    I think this question definitely needs putting forward to Ben Wallace. As I believe Ukraine will need a second tranche of tanks, before the US can send their Abrams towards the end of the year! The Jordanian Challenger 1s could meet this requirement.

    • The Challenger Tank conundrum has been discussed on here with great enthusiasm over the last few months, information seems to be scarce about moves to secure any supplies from Oman and Jordan. Regarding the Jordanian CR1’s Nicholas Drummond on twitter thinks that this idea can’t progress for one of two possible reasons (1) as highlighted on here by a few posters their poor material state makes it a non starter, or (2) the Jordanian government are not prepared to play ball and release them, make of that what you will.

      • Agreed, but as far as I’m aware, the tanks were put in sheds for storage. I have not read or heard on what state the tanks are in materially.

        We have very good relations with Jordan. I haven’t seen anything that has altered this relationship. Especially as we have aircraft patrolling their border and flying through their airspace fully armed.

        The onus is on the Foreign Office to sweet talk Jordan in reciprocating our gifting of the Challengers to them.

        I‘ve read Nick’s posts for a number of years. We have had our disagreements, but in general agree on most matters. This issue is that no one, as far as I’m aware, has done an on the ground assessment of the tanks. Until then it is purely speculation on their material state and whether it would be cost effective to take them back to then gift then to Ukraine.

        • We didn’t gift the CR1s to Jordan – they made a payment. I agree that it is speculation that the 392 tanks we sold them are all in poor condition.

    • We are sending 14 CR2s to UKR – that is 10 tanks for the tank company and 4 Attrition Reserve. I strongly believe that we could and should send more than this figure.
      Not sure why you are talking about the feasibility of re-opening the CR2 production line?
      I agree that it would be good if Oman offered its 38 CR2s and if Jordan offered its several hundred CR1s (which could be refurbished (in a minor way) quickly and cheaply in Jordan at KADDB) – I wonder if anyone from UK MoD has asked them? I hope so. Jordan is much better placed to refurb CR1s than the UK as they will still have some CR1 spares and KADBB has capacity and low labour costs, as well as CR1 expertise.
      We would not have supplied Jordan with its CR1s with Clansman installed – that would have been swapped across to our CR2s. Jordan fitted their CR1s (known as Al-Husseins) with some desert mods such as air con and sand filters; some tanks were converted to sport a slimline Falcon turret.

      • The Falcon unmanned turret sadly didn’t go anywhere. Had a different crew layout to a T14. Where the gunner and commander were sat on the turret floor below the upper hull line and moved with the turret. In some respects they would have had better situational awareness than the T14s. As if and when the cameras fail, they would both able to see to the sides and rear. Looks like it also had a new 120mm smoothbore gun replacing the legacy L11.

        With regards to the reason for restarting the production line for Challenger. That is quite simple. Ukraine is on a war of attrition with Russia. With the best will in the world, Ukraine will and is suffering substantial tank losses. It is estimated that they have lost 400 of their T64s, over 100 T72s and at least 40 T80s. Admittedly they have captured something like over 500 Russian tanks. But also a good portion of these have been taken out.

        If Ukraine do get their 200 ex-NATO Leopard and Challenger tanks. How many of these will be lost in the upcoming counter-offensive? I would say a 1/3 as a rough guesstimate. Ukraine is not facing the Iraqis after all! Ukraine will need more tanks to replace the ones it looses to sustain its momentum.

        We have a finite stock of Challengers. With 386 delivered and supposedly only 227 being operational. Are the ones earmarked for upgrade to Challenger 3 coming from the operational or reserves stock? Similarly, were the 14 given to Ukraine from the reserves, or from front line stock?

        If Ukraine losses those 14, they will need more. Could we afford to give them another 14 and so on. At some point in the future, there will be a threshold, where we won’t be able to give them any, as it will be biting into both our front line units and those earmarked for upgrading.

        I fully admit that it will be very difficult to restart the line, but it is not insurmountable. It just needs the will of the Government. Plus they will be getting first had performance feedback, so it may be necessary to speed things up modification wise.

        After all, those 14 Challengers along with the Leopards, will be facing the enemy they were originally designed for, not the Iraqi Army. This will be their proper test against peer armour. How well they do, will be seen in a few weeks or two!

        • I am aware that Ukraine has requested 300 western tanks and there is a promise of about 200 by several countries. The USA has offered 31 but these may not even be delivered this year – hopeless and not a superpower response.

          There are a huge number of Leo2s in European hands (in-service and out-of-service (in storage) and several hundred should have ben offered up.
          The way ahead is surely for the US and European nations to hugely uplift their offer of Abrams and Leo2s respectively.

          I feel that our contribution of 14 tanks is very modest and that we could and should send more – but I can’t see that reopening the CR2 build line and then building hundreds of tanks is realistic.

          Opening the CR2 line. CR2 was built 1993-2002. I had thought that there would be no jigs left but another correspondent to these pages astonished me by saying that they do exists – trouble is, are they complete and usable? You need more than jigs to build tanks from scratch. You need a fully resourced tank factory not mere Assembly halls – BAE’s tank factories at Newcastle and Leeds are no more. Newcastle stopped making tanks in 2012 and the factory is now owned and operated by the Reece Construction group. The Leeds factory closed in 1999 and became storage for M&S and is now likely to be demolished by a property developer. Many parts will be unavailable now and many parts will have a very long lead time – two years or so is not unheard of.

          The 14 tanks we have supplied are 10 for the tank company and 4 attrition reserves. That happens to match your 1/3 loss figure.

          You are right that we bought 386 CR2s and the 2010 defence review reduced that figure to 227 tanks in-service, and it is said that 84 of the 159 out-of-service tanks were scrapped.
          I understand that the 14 going to UA are in-service tanks and I would suppose that they are from the Attrition Reserve or the Repair Pool rather than from the Trg Org or the armoured regiments holdings.
          The 148 tanks going to feed the CR3 line are likely to be the best of the 213 (227 less 14) ie in-service tanks and could be drawn from all 4 sources:
          Armoured regiment holdings
          Repair Pool (in storage)
          Trg Org
          Attrition Reserve (in storage)
          Also, it is possible that a few could come from the 75 out-of-service tanks, but I would expect them to be mostly in poor condition with many parts removed for spares.

          • Cheers Graham. it’s as I thought.

            My cousin was REME attached to the Royal Scots’ before they swopped they’re Challengers for Jackels. Then he went down the brown shoe route! I have a lot of Challenger stories from him. Apparently one of the most difficult items to get hold of, were replacement tyres for the road wheels. A lot of the time the good/better ones were rotated amongst tanks that were needed for deployments/exercises, with those going in the sheds for maintenance. So I wouldn’t be surprised that the ones in long term storage haven’t been robbed for good wheels.

            I think the Ukraine War has startled some politicians in regards to how quickly military equipment and ammunition is lost and expended in conflict, hello those in the Treasury, I’m looking at you! Which therefore implies that reserves and stocks become much more critical, but also that they must be fully resourced with a long term plan. The other part of the equation is how quickly can the items sent from reserves be replaced? Our industry that supplied the Army has been left to wither, die off or be bought out. A lot of the problem is allowing the Army to soldier on, with vehicles and equipment that should have been replaced 20 years ago. Therefore, there is no industrial incentive to produce locally, it simply is not cost effective.

            I do get the “why do we need to restart the Challenger line” question? I’m fully aware how difficult it will be to get manufacturers and subcontractors to start producing items needed to produce new tanks and the time line that entails. Similarly I do welcome the Challenger 3 upgrade. However, in reality it is just a sticking plaster. It is not solving the real issue of being able to design and produce a new tank to replace Challenger. Its just pushing the problem further to the right.

            The Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) is suffering the usual headache of work share and design direction issues. France want a lighter replacement of LeClerc, whilst Germany sees the advantages of protection. These two opposing views will keep stalling the program. Italy is looking at designing a replacement of Ariete, as it couldn’t get a large enough workshare from MGCS. Whilst Poland is going to licence build the K2 and possibly the future K3 tank.

            Which is why I think the UK needs to take a hard look at the Challenger replacement. As the next time we are using them in combat, the enemy may be a peer, so we will suffer losses. But this time we will have no means of replacing them!

          • Great post! The CR3 project is well overdue – we should have fielded such tanks a few years ago – maybe retired CR2 in 2018-2023 after 20-25 years service, replaced with CR3 – whilst being well on the way to development of the tank after CR3 – let us call it CR4.
            If CR4 is MGCS, I would consider that to be evolutionary from Leo/Leclerc and unlikely to be revolutionary. CR4 needs to be revolutionary.
            [Replacing losses – just 148 CR3s allow for a very small Attrition Reserve – this is worrying].
            The loss of true tank factories is also a massive issue – we just have Assembly Halls now, which have their limitations.

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