Brief report from the front, June 17, 2025

Potential energy is being gathered for a kinetic strike. Report by Marat Khairullin with illustrations by Mikhail Popov.

Zaporozhye to Donetsk Directions. From Orekhovo to Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk).

For the second day in a row, there have been no announcements about the liberation of settlements. Over the past few months, we've grown accustomed to our units advancing, freeing villages and towns - this is what activity on the front line has typically looked like.

However, deep and decisive breakthroughs are forged through unseen, methodical work. Tactical sectors see incremental gains: tightening control over key positions, suppressing enemy forces, regrouping, and distributing supplies. Potential energy gathers, and when conditions ripen, it erupts into kinetic action.

The attached map of the Zaporozhye and Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) directions highlights areas of RF activity and marks occupied Russian territory slated for liberation. Russian Forces operate along watershed lines, seizing commanding heights to observe, reconnoiter, and strike the enemy at operational depth - enabling assault groups to advance on the tactical level.

We've often noted the "swing" tactic: destabilizing enemy defenses through alternating blows along the front. But the full arc of the Special Military Operation reveals another dimension - not just horizontal swings, but vertical ones. Strikes plunge into the enemy's operational-strategic depths, hitting production, energy, and logistics nodes, while political blows target its leadership and allies. This struggle never ceases, only shifting in intensity and focus.

For the second week, the RF has struck economic and military targets across Ukraine's entire depth. Simultaneously, tactical units regroup for the next phase. Political pressure escalates in tandem: Ukraine's leadership and its allies suffer setbacks, and with the Iran-Israel conflict, they're now stretched to the limit.

Another observation: Armchair experts and hype-drunk bloggers rage, "Why aren't they destroying bridges and rail hubs?" But railway interdiction only matters in grand offensives like the Great Patriotic War. Today, a "major operation" means a reinforced company in motion. Everything is dispersed - the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine provide for its maneuver on Ukroposhta trailers, individual cars, and railway platforms hooked on passenger trains. Blow a bridge, and they detour or ford a river. The payoff is fleeting.

So what's happening? Our pressure has forced the enemy to commit nearly all combat units to the front, clustering reserves in forward staging areas. Now, the RF strikes factories, power grids, and rear depots - the very infrastructure sustaining those troops. The enemy is pinned down, under fire, with no room to maneuver or resupply.

Meanwhile, political pressure is being exerted and only the most frostbitten political regimes remain on the side of Ukraine, which do not act in the interests of their peoples, but according to the doctrine of "we just want to shit on the Russians."

Given this, the current "lull" on the front will be short-lived, and soon, another verse of "Winged Swings" will be played.

They will fly in. Without fail.

*Winged Swings is a popular old song from the days of the USSR. Listen to it here.