The Russians captured Bakhmut city center, there are street battles in the city, but the occupiers are still unable to surround it. The situation at the front on the 411th day of the full-scale war — with maps

Western analysts and politicians discuss Ukraineʼs future counteroffensive. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has publicly stated that he expects a counteroffensive in the coming weeks. This is not a secret in Ukraine either — Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has already said that the counteroffensive will begin in April-May in several directions at once. Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, emphasized that no more than five people in Ukraine know when and where the counteroffensive will begin.

All this is reminiscent of the summer of 2022, when the Ukrainian authorities also publicly talked about plans to reconquer the south. Because of this, the Russian army transferred some of its best units to the Kherson region, and also built several lines of defense there. At the end of August, the Ukrainian military actually launched a counteroffensive in the Kherson region, and within a few days went on the attack in the Kharkiv region, liberating almost the entire territory of the region, and then Lyman in the Donetsk region, and came very close to the cities of Svatove and Kreminna in the Luhansk region. Only thanks to mobilization, the Russians were able to restrain the offensive of the Defense Forces of Ukraine and stabilize the front line.

Meanwhile, classified American documents appeared on the Internet, some of which refer to Ukraineʼs counteroffensive. Some of them began to be distributed on April 5-6 in Russian Telegram channels. Due to this, many investigators and journalists drew attention to the documents — The New York Times was the first to write about the leak, and the Pentagon has already begun inspections. In general, investigators have already discovered dozens of leaked documents. Most of them relate to the war in Ukraine and contain sensitive information about the Ukrainian military, but there are also reports and intelligence on events in other parts of the world. The documents contain estimates of the losses of Ukraine and Russia, a description of the process of training and equipping new brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, an assessment of the state of the soil in Ukraine, an analysis of Ukrainian air defense and its location, etc. Russian intelligence was immediately suspected of leaking the documents, but investigators, in particular at Bellingcat, found out that the documents were first published on some Discord servers at the beginning of the year. And the Russians only now noticed them and made them public — and even edited them, significantly understating their losses and overestimating Ukrainian ones.

There is reason to believe that these documents are genuine. They contain a lot of verified public and non-public information, are created in a uniform format, use NATO military definitions, and were most likely photographed on someoneʼs desktop. In one of the photos, in addition to the document, a piece of a brochure of one of the American companies that sells cameras and night vision devices for both hunting and military sights was found.

The Russian army is actively preparing for the defense of Crimea. The Washington Post published a series of satellite images showing the Russian defense lines in the north of the peninsula — several rows of trenches, between which passages and places for equipment are arranged. In addition, the Russians are moving equipment from storage bases to the north of Crimea.

There have been no massive missile strikes on Ukraine for a month. The Russians mainly use either Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones, or missiles from the S-300 complexes, or guided aerial bombs in the front-line regions. The occupiers have almost stopped hitting energy infrastructure, now they are targeting mainly military facilities.

In the Kharkiv region, the front line remains unchanged. The Russians still control a small area in the northeast, near the Russian-Ukrainian border. The occupiers are trying to advance in the direction of Kupyansk and along the Oskil River in order to throw the Ukrainian army behind it. They attack in the area of the villages of Hryanikyvka and Masyutivka, but without success.

In the Luhansk region, the Russians also advance every day, but without much success. They advance hundreds of meters in separate directions. The occupiers are trying to advance on the villages of Nevske, Makiivka in the Luhansk region and Terny and Yampolivka in the Donetsk region. Fighting also continues in the area of the village of Dibrova and in the forests south of Kreminna. The main goal of the Russians is to push Ukrainian troops away from the cities of Kreminna and Svatove, as well as from the route between them.

On the southern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River — the administrative border between the Luhansk and Donetsk regions — the Russians are trying to advance on the village of Bilohorivka and the villages of Verkhnyokamyanske and Spirne. These points cover the flank of the Ukrainian military, which restrains the Russians behind Soledar and prevents them from reaching Siversk quickly and simultaneously from several sides. The occupiers will pay less attention to this direction until they capture Bakhmut.

Around Bakhmut, the Russians were stopped completely. The occupiers were never able to surround the city thanks to Ukrainian reinforcements, which hold several small roads to the city. Because of this, the Russians shifted all their efforts to street fighting in Bakhmut itself. They captured the city center and several administrative buildings. In particular, the owner of Wagnerʼs PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin even announced the "legal seizure of Bakhmut" and waved the Russian flag at the place where the local administration was. Now the building is completely destroyed, like many others around it.

The Russians in Bakhmut are now trying to advance on the railway which cuts through the entire town from north to south. The fiercest battles are fought over the Bakhmut railway station and the bus station, which is located nearby. So far, the occupiers could not cross the railway, behind which are located blocks with high-rise buildings and the territory of the military unit. Before the full-scale invasion, the 54th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was based in Bakhmut. In general, Ukrainian troops now control about a third of the city — its western part.

In the rest of the directions in the Donetsk region, the situation has hardly changed. The occupiers are slowly advancing to the east and north of Avdiyivka, simultaneously destroying the city with aerial bombs. But there is still a long way to surround Avdiyvka. Fighting also continues in the town of Maryinka, but the Russians are unable to advance there. On the other hand, the situation has stabilized in the area of the city of Vuhledar, and the occupiers are not yet actively trying to advance.

The front line does not change in the Zaporizhzhia region. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has yet attempted a large-scale attack in this direction, but they continue to fire each other. Almost every day there are explosions around the occupied Melitopol.

In the Kherson region, the front line doesnʼt change either — it stabilized along the Dnipro River. Mutual shelling across the river continues there. Most likely, the front line along the Dnipro here will remain unchanged until the occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region is liberated.

Ukraine continues to receive Soviet aircraft from the West. Poland began to transfer its MiG-29 fighters. Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Ukraine will receive a total of 14 such fighters. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Poland and agreed on the purchase of other Polish weapons. This refers to about 150 Rosomak armored personnel carriers, Rak self-propelled mortars and Piorun portable anti-aircraft missile systems.

On April 4, the United States announced another $2.6 billion package of military aid to Ukraine. It consists almost entirely of various ammunition, in particular for air defense systems and HIMARS. Also, the States transfer refueling stations, anti-drone systems, fuel tankers, pontoon crossings, radars, etc.

On March 30, the government of North Macedonia approved the delivery of combat helicopters to Ukraine. Prior to that, the countryʼs defense minister, Slavyanka Petrovska, said that the Ukrainian army would receive 12 Soviet Mi-24 helicopters. North Macedonia bought them from Ukraine in 2001.

Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.

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