Don's Weekly, 16 November 2023: Part 1

Hello everybody!

Thank you for your patience: hope, you’re all well and didn’t miss us all too much. With a slight delay we’re back to our usual updates on the developments in the War in Ukraine. For the start here’s the Don’s Weekly that was actually due out on Monday, 13 November, but which I couldn’t post on time because I was underway.

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Russia keeps the pressure on in Avdiivka but keeps paying a high price for little gain. A thin Ukrainian force backed by artillery and drones slowly increase their gains in Kherson. And the Russian navy continues to lose assets.

Western Luhansk

Russia keeps attacking without success. Ukraine has launched some limited counter-attacks that have regained a couple of fields.

17 km east of Kupiansk, two smoke shells give cover to two Ukrainian BMPs that race across the field to attack a treeline. At 0:27, the first BMP reaches the treeline, firing its cannon and discharges the vehicle’s smoke grenades as the infantry dismounts…

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1723427846427672819

East of Kupiansk, the 14th Brigade stops a Russian night attacks…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1723987677907759204

West of Sievierdonetsk, at a different slagheap 2.5 km from the front, a Russian exposes himself and is hunted down…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1721872998058139963

3 km outside Lysychansk, two Russian trucks are damaged by two accurate grenades. There’s no definitive footage at the end to determine how seriously they were damaged…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1723061769264836982

In what would have been a catastrophic hit on a Soviet-built tank, a Leopard crew survives an ATGM strike due to the blowout panels for the ammo. It’s hard to say of the tank is damaged or destroyed…

https://twitter.com/AndreiBtvt/status/1719032551405133837

Bakhmut

In front of Yahidne, Russia was able to flatten out the Ukrainian bulge, pushing them back 1.5 km. There’s been no reports of progress around Kurdiumivka or east of Andriivka, although the Russians are counter-attacking in that area as part of their defense.

A Russian tank is damaged by a dropped grenade with a great on a long lead. As a second tank arrives to tow it away, the grenade is close to dropping down the hatch as the crew disembarks. The crewman is understandably shaking as he climbs out…

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1723389362325402005

A 19 minute video showing a work day for a drone unit with the 3rd Assault Brigade (with English captions). It shows their banter, preparations and execution of missions. When launching a drone with live ammo they make sure everyone is out of the immediate blast zone before flying begins. Why they do this becomes clear later. An inexperienced pilot flies a mission and gets plenty of coaching. The signal fades in and out because of terrain between the drone and the pilot and he’s told to fly higher.

Based on the last image before impact, the team seemed confident that the drone hit, but a recon drone shows that it wasn’t immobilized. That is not unusual. It takes, on average, five drones to destroy a vehicle for various reasons (loss of signal, shot down, miss, hit but not sufficiently damaged). They prepare another drone at 16:40, but the round detonates before take off. It was a close call and no one was injured, but it did break the window on their vehicle parked some distance away. The leader explains that Khorne, the blood god of Warhammer, doesn’t care if Russian or Ukrainian blood flows. Since the IFV wasn’t destroyed, someone else must die in its place. So they prepare yet another drone to appease the blood god. On the drive home they summarize the day’s events. Notice how one soldier talked about the frustrating mission after lunch in which he used ten rounds on the infantry to achieve one dead, one wounded, and another wounded they might die…

It’s that time of year where I constantly mention how much mud sucks for the infantry. It’s important to keep the feet warm and dry and rotate the troops to the rear or risk losing them as a casualty…

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1723328235344146519

South of Bakhmut, the Russians attacked the 58th Brigade and end up killing some of their own…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1723987019041329368

Members of the 58th Brigade talk about their experiences fighting Wagner, how some of them were treated when captured, and what their families experienced…https://mipl.org.ua/en/currency-for-wagner-where-did-the-fighters-from-the-58th-brigade-go/

Avdiivka

On the southern flank the situation is unchanged. Backed by heavy artillery support, Russia made a direct push onto Avdiivka from the southeast of the city, but it went nowhere. The strongest effort and most fluid situation remains the northern flank. Russia has a firm control of the hedges along two kilometers of the railroad but have trouble generating a sustained assault beyond it, each gain being turned back. Russia has firm control of the Slagheap but all the defensive positions Ukraine dug faced east, so Russia hasn’t generated a lot of offense from this position. The factory is a key position that Ukraine needs to hold onto. They hold territory up to 3 km away to the east of the factory so it hasn’t been seriously threatened so far.

Ukraine says the Russian offensive in Avdiivka cost them 100 tanks, 250 APCs, 50 artillery pieces, 7 Su-25s, and 10,000 men so far…

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1723058690561847760

Open source video observations confirm 65 tanks, 130 APCs, 7 artillery pieces, and zero aircraft. Not all destruction of equipment is captured on video. On the other hand, some vehicles that are knocked out can be recovered and repaired. These two sets of figures represent the upper and lower estimates of Russia equipment losses. The loss of 10,000 men is certainly possible. It represents and average daily loss of 300 men and Russia reportedly lost 1400 men during one particular day. Two additional Russian brigades have been moved to this sector and Russia reportedly has over 30,000 men in the area so they’re not going to run out of troops anytime soon.

On the other side, Ukraine doesn’t list their losses and Russia lies. Video observations could only find 16 pieces of Ukrainian equipment knocked out, almost all the armored vehicles lost by the railroad tracks by Stepove. I haven’t seen any estimates on Ukrainian troop losses…

https://twitter.com/naalsio26/status/1723105900662030588

The 47th Brigade destroys a Russian column…

A Bradley fires its 25mm gun at close range along the railroad…

https://twitter.com/John20230/status/1721482469269029134

A couple weeks ago, four Bradleys and a Leopard were hit by drones and listed as abandoned by Andrew Perpetua. Another one was hit by a drone last week…

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1721955788934242648

One Bradley evacuates another…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1723440534881018171

Once off the battlefield, they’re transported to a repair depot…

https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1723468618019569926

A Bradley was damaged and a T64 destroyed by drones near Berdychi, behind the railroad lines…

https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1723401546787176913

A building was destroyed in Donetsk, reportedly a Russian drone pilot school and/or informational warfare location…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1721958690540929043

A drone explodes before it hits a Bradley…

https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1722358913230590393

A thick minefield and a lot of Russian dead…

https://twitter.com/GloOouD/status/1723603640869343250

Robotyne

Ukraine is still moving forward a few fields at a time, but none of the progress seems to be further south. Instead, they are pushing west and east, widening the pocket instead of deepening it.

Russian positions at the edge of Verbove are shelled…

https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1722198670702161947

A Russian stash of ammo and mines out in the open was somehow detected by drones…

https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1723377193848328410

18 km south of Kamianske, a Ukrainian shell lands within 30 meters of an air defense unit. It may or may not have been damaged by shrapnel, but it was intact enough to drive away. If Ukraine had enough ammo, about six of the $800 shells would have been fired at once and it very likely would have been destroyed…

https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1721855857917333836

The official count is 19 servicemen and 1 civilian killed, 11 civilians wounded in the missile attack during the awards ceremony for the 128th Mountain brigade’s artillerymen. The number of military wounded weren’t confirmed…

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1723327298043044278

A Russian EW system is destroyed 25 km from the front lines. 47.182137, 35.947999…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1719770818203336743

(….to be continued….)