Don's Weekly, 1 January 2024: Part 3

(….continued from Part 2…)

Crimea

The large landing ship Novocherkassk was transporting munitions to occupied Feodosia when it was reportedly hit by two cruise missiles. This thread has several views of the explosion and an image of what’s left above the water…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1739448352020873541

An after/before satellite image that indicates a small 70-year-old minesweeper was also sunk and up to four other ships could have been damaged…

https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1740021446997368846

The Atesh resistance movement noted that 18 old 2S1 152mm artillery pieces and Russian personnel passed through Yevpatoria and both are likely headed to the left bank in the Kherson sector due to heavy casualties there. Atesh provides general information, actional intelligence used for targeting, damage assessments and occaisional direct action against Russian personnel and equipment…https://en.defence-ua.com/news/ukraines_partisans_note_that_yevpatoria_become_real_logistics_center_for_russian_troops_in_occupied_crimea-8962.html

Russian coastal defenses, that will never see combat, were damaged by storms…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1739338322160296410

Black Sea

A ship on its way to pick up grain run into a mine. Two crewmen were injured. To avoid flooding, the ship was run aground. Two tugs were sent to assist…https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-chorne-more-mina-balker-pidryv/32750553.html

Ukraine

Ukraine was hit by one of the largest drone and missile attacks of the war. 87 of 122 missiles and 27 of 36 drones were shot down…

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1740625521954660735

Ukraine said that critical infrastructure, industrial and military facilities were attacked…

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1740918314832933310

Someone in Ukraine’s defense industry said factories were targeted, some of which produced drones and missiles. There have been previous attacks when civilian targets were hit after missing production facilities. Early in the war the US said Russian missiles miss 60% of the time…

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1741053571938795953

A priest narrowly escapes injury in Odesa…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1740773639400903144

A shopping center in Dnipro…

https://twitter.com/pravda_eng/status/1740624438331089159

A high rise in Kyiv is hit…

https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1740627375048773654

Another high rise in Kyiv was hit after air defenses damaged a missile…

https://twitter.com/UKikaski/status/1740716293479665713

A maternity hospital in Dnipro. The mothers and babies were already in an underground bunker and no one was hurt…

https://twitter.com/ManiacMagic1/status/1740644250080133267

An apartment complex…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1740798875588547016

49 dead and 160 wounded so far…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1740653322518864177

A compilation of views…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1740691661905363417

One missile was initially reported as having landed 20 km inside Poland but it is now believed that it turned back into Ukraine as part of a planned route…https://www.voanews.com/a/poland-unidentified-object-has-entered-its-airspace-from-ukraine/7417396.html

A Russian cruise missile is shot down by a MANPADS…

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1740133056181359047

This chart tracks just missiles, not drones, but it compares this attack with previous attacks…

https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1740724218659287106

A senior Ukrainian defense official was arrested for embezzling $40 million…https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/europe/ukraine-defense-official-arrest.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231225&instance_id=110976&nl=the-morning&regi_id=139486627&segment_id=153445&te=1&user_id=130c8cdcea44369e69823bf647237422

In May, 2022, one Ukrainian soldier at the Azov steel mill in Mariupol decided not to surrender. He stored up rations and waited a week before slipping through the loose Russian patrols. With the help of strangers that risked their own safety, he traveled 125 miles for 18 days before reaching friendly lines. Even with video and pictures, his story was so unlikely that Ukrainian intelligence gave him a polygraph exam…https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/world/europe/ukraine-mariupol-azpvstal.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231225&instance_id=110976&nl=the-morning&regi_id=139486627&segment_id=153445&te=1&user_id=130c8cdcea44369e69823bf647237422

On December 25, Russia launched 28 drones and two missiles. All were reported shot down…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1739309283387286013

Ukraine needs about 10,000 recruits a month to maintain its army of 1.1 million. It can only do that through mobilization, not recruitment…https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3801304-ukraine-needs-mobilization-to-keep-existing-number-of-defense-forces-intel-chief.html

Ukraine is also considering increasing the size of its military from 1.1 to 1.6 million people. I say people because women make up 15% of the military, which is vital given Ukraine’s limited manpower. A larger army doesn’t just mean more units to mass in an offense or defense. It creates more opportunities to rotate units for rest, refit and training, all of which saves lives. A larger army preserves Ukraine’s limited manpower through sustainment, but it will also have an impact on Ukraine’s economy, which is also vital to the war effort. For instance, Israel’s economy is expected to shrink by 2% this year due to its mobilizations since October…https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-military-asks-additional-450000-500000-people-be-mobilised-zelenskiy-2023-12-19/#:~:text=Ukraine%20considers%20proposal%20by%20army%20to%20mobilise%20another%20500%2C000%20for%20war,-By%20Pavel%20Polityuk&text=KYIV%2FLONDON%2C%20Dec%2019%20(,of%20Kyiv's%20war%20with%20Russia.

It is hard to gauge the impact on Ukraine’s morale as many in the military want the burden to be shared by more people, and others not yet in the military are resisting recruitment and conscription…https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/at-what-cost-ukraine-strains-bolster-its-army-war-fatigue-weighs-2023-11-28/

I don’t know where this is, but I’m reminded of a Gary Larson cartoon of two bears being observed through a rifle scope. A Russian negotiates with a drone…

https://twitter.com/ManiacMagic1/status/1739524401828085871

A Czech reporter familiar with Ukraine provides her opinion on the internal politics of Ukraine. In summary, the different political factions never unified but put on a united front that is now cracking. But they all agree that regaining their territory is the most important objective…

https://twitter.com/erikkannike/status/1739934455702176166?

“War is when you are living peacefully and then some stupid mother-s come and start bombing your country.” 50 Ukrainian children come to a camp to try and deal with the traumas of war and the death of their fathers. I challenge anyone that supports Russia to watch this and see if they have any humanity left within them…https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/18/opinion/ukraine-russia-war-children.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20231228&instance_id=111159&nl=the-morning&regi_id=139486627&segment_id=153708&te=1&user_id=130c8cdcea44369e69823bf647237422

Zaluzhniy said that they have identified the problems Ukraine’s military faced in 2023 and identified solutions for 90% of those problems. While not publically providing a number, the mobilization of a reported 500k more people will fix current unit shortages, create new units, and cover the expected losses in 2024. He’s confident that allies will continue to support Ukraine and the new units will have equipment. He supports the discharge of soldiers that have served for three years provided there are enough reserves to replace them and the situation on the battlefield does not increase in severity. Holding the last 10% of Marinka did not place Ukraine in an advantageous position and it was not worth lives to retain the territory…

https://twitter.com/vorobyov/status/1739667467620753622

The inactive Ukrainian border is being fortified…

https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1740701432506925486

Someone’s been tracking video losses at Krynky since October 14. As with other video tracking, it doesn’t tell the full story because not all losses are recorded, but it’s a very useful trend indicator. He lists 143 Russian items and 27 Ukrainian losses…

https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/1740913302832873769

In Avdiivka, it’s 412 Russian to 31 Ukrainian…

https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/1740898334490112493

In Robotyne, it’s 558 Russian to 544 Ukrainian…

https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/1740906749027303587

(…to be continued…)