Don's Weekly, 25 November 2024: Part 2

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 1…)

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Toretsk

Only a couple of days after Ukraine cleared out the southern half of Toretsk and pushed back the Russians into the center of town, the Russians reclaimed much of that ground. In the center, a Russian runs along the roof to drop a mine on Ukrainians in a different part of the building. Ukrainian drones and Russian drones are in heavy use by both sides.

Notably: gauging by maps released by different Russian war-monitors - and also by few of Pudding-fans abroad - the 12th NG ‘Azov’ Brigade seems to have been withdrawn from Toretsk. At least, nobody ‘there’ is mentioning it any more.

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Pokrovsk

The northern and western sectors were stable this week. In fact, the 425th Assault Battalion conducted a minor counterattack that gained 600 meters at the expense of a Bradley. Nearby, Magyar’s Birds helped stop a Russian BMP with remote mining and later destroyed it.

A Russian-occupied house is hit by a Ukrainian airstrike.

Ukrainian armored vehicles are attacked by Russian drones. The results are unknown.

A Russian air defense system was destroyed by a Switchblade 600 drone.

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Russian artillery is still causing about 80% of Ukrainian casualties, according to doctors at aid stations, but due to uneven artillery ammo supplies, Ukrainian soldiers in some sectors say that their drones are causing up to 80% of the Russian casualties.

In one engagement involving the 38th Marine Brigade, Russian APCs unloaded 30 soldiers - and drones eliminated them on the spot. Another Russian wave dropped off 30 more and they were wiped out. This continued for half a day and the Russians ended up losing more than 200 people at one location - which is, once again, closely reminiscent of what was going on in Bakhmut about a year ago. In a different six-hour fight the drone team killed 132 Russians.

Adjacent to the 38th Marine Brigade are several independent battalions used to fill in the gaps in the defensive lines. The lack of a unified command (in the form of divisions and corps) has led to communication issues. Like when the drone teams pick up thermal signatures of soldiers whom they can’t clearly identify as friendly or enemy. To avoid friendly fire, they contact their brigade headquarters to find out if any friendly troops are operating in that area. The brigade then has to contact the adjacent battalions to find out the information. This takes time and if it’s an assaulting Russian unit then it might reach the Ukrainian lines before an answer is available.

In a theoretical unified command, the brigade could just ask the divisional headquarters, which would be tracking all friendly operations. The drone team could receive an answer within a couple of minutes, plenty of time to engage a Russian assault team, if that’s what they were. In fact, in a unified command, a good divisional headquarters would proactively inform its brigades of friendly operations in the sector. The brigades could then inform the drone teams ahead of time so they would already know if friendly operations were taking place in that sector.

Of course, the GenStab-U knows better and therefore - and because its ‘Soviet generals’ (to use the latest and ‘friendliest’ description) are keen to keep all the majors and colonels with extensive combat experience away from their offices in Kyiv - have decided that the ‘divisional structure’ would be ‘too expensive’. They merely intend to introduce the corps-level into the organisational structure.

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Kurakhove

As Russia continues to advance on the side of the cauldron, Ukraine withdraws to the west.

Two weeks ago, the Ukrainian Marines from the 35th Brigade were rushed to patch the frontline near Novodmytrivka. Their drone spots for an airstrike on Sontsivka.

After hitting the forest southwest of Trudove the Russians assaulted it. Some of the video is from the viewpoint of an assaulting Russian tank.

A Russian T-90 turret went airborne in Maksymiianivka.

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(…to be continued…)