Big Surprise For Russians
- 26.12.2025, 13:26
How the new defensive line of the AFU is arranged in key areas of the front.
OSINT researcher Cleman Molen analyzed satellite images, photos and video from the construction of the new Ukrainian fortification line. The overall conclusion is positive: in open sections of the front where the Russians planned a rapid advance, this line is capable of either stopping the enemy or slowing it down significantly.
The New Donbass Line - Ukraine's massive fortification program
This year, Ukraine has built important fortifications that could stop or slow the advance of Russian forces. These fortifications, as seen from space, have already proven useful.
- The line has a small number of crossings, for example, one has only two passes for 16 kilometers.
- The line is simultaneously designed to stop both infantry and armored vehicles, with 21 rows of barbed wire, three rows of anti-tank ditches, and three rows of concrete hollows ("dragon's teeth").
- Overcoming a line of this depth already in itself provides serious difficulties for any forces thrown into the assault.
- The only part of the front where the fortifications are not yet complete is the Zaporozhye region, and the Ukrainians are now trying to speed up their completion, while the Russians are intensifying their onslaught, trying to break through before the line is ready.
- Potentially vulnerable are the roads that run through the line, but they are essential to continue supplying Ukrainian troops behind the line and retreating behind it when the need comes.
- At the same time, the Ukrainians are clearly prepared to concentrate fire damage on the road sections, as the Russians tend to attack there.
- There are hidden fortified positions behind the line of fortifications, providing cover for infantry and UAV operators.
- The Ukrainians have clearly taken into account the experience of the Russian breakthrough at Dobropillya and are making the line as continuous as possible without ignoring wooded areas and rivers.
- Ukraine's defense forces are short on manpower, but the fortification line will save them by holding their positions with fewer troops.
- Of course, the line could be breached with concentrated air, artillery and drone strikes, but the 150-meter-wide barriers would require multiple precision strikes.
- Even if a section of the fortifications were destroyed, the advancing Russians would still have to withstand heavy fire from Ukrainian defenders to overcome it.