Don's Weekly, 5 February 2024: Part 1

Hello everybody!

There you are: an extremely busy week - not only with my usual work, but with monitoring the USA and allies instigating the beginning of the end of the ultimate downfall in 110 (+) years of Western attempts to establish and maintain control over the Middle East - and I’m already ‘overdue’ with at least 3-4 different features. Indeed, even this issue of Don’s Weekly is more than 12 hours late.

Sadly, that’s life. That said - and provided nobody instigates an additional major war in the next 2-3 weeks - I’ll catch with all the topics announced. Simply because there is so much to discuss.

Anyway: let me not waste your time with any additional introduction, and let Don update us on all the developments of the last week.

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Western Luhansk

After failing to take a village near Kupiansk for several months, Russia has taken two in two weeks, advancing 4 km to take Tabaivka. Ukraine says they are still fighting for the village, and some of that is truth. It’s so that the Russians are meanwhile demolishing any Ukrainian defence positions they can find. Yes, you’ve heard it right: defence positions. So - and as explained by Don already weeks ago (in relation to Avidiivka) -whenever a position is demolished, Ukrainians withdraw to avoid unnecessary losses. Then the Russians advance. Ukrainians then counterattack with mechanised troops, and smash them: some of such counterattacks are successful, others less, depends on the quality of troops and their equipment (the 47th Mech has it ‘slightly easier’, thanks to its M2/M3 Bradleys, which are simply superior to anything else of similar kind in this war). If they’re given enough time, Ukrainians then rebuild their defence positions and the entire exercise is repeated. If not, then the Russians ‘capture’ the ruins of the village, which usually means: it’s becoming no-mans land, with one party holding it for 1-2-3….10 hours, the other for 2-4….8 hours etc.

That said, and to answer few related questions and thus make sure: nope, this does not mean the Russians are now going to drive to Kupyansk and then to Kharkiv of any other place that far away from the frontlines. As explained again and again over the last 1,5 years, the Russian armed forces have lost their offensive capability. For why and how, see this: West of Kreminna, Russia lost 40 vehicles in a three square kilometer area…

https://twitter.com/small10space/status/1751189875640930684

The 103rd Brigade attacks Russian dugouts by Svatove…

https://twitter.com/sternenko/status/1753410361619874276

Bakhmut

The 93rd Brigade reports that in two months their FPV drones killed 31 Russians and wounded 45, destroyed 9 dugouts and 1 drone team position. They also destroyed one self-propelled gun and damaged two more, as well as damaging 8 towed artillery pieces. Here is the complete list…https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/ukrainian_military_told_how_many_targets_were_destroyed_hit_in_two_months_by_fpv_drones_in_just_one_brigade-8684.html

About 25 km south of Bakhmut, a Strela-10 air defense system fires a missile at one drone and is destroyed by another…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1751192997939613850

Avdiivka

Two weeks ago the Russians used a tunnel to briefly take the restaurant and from there, some took the sewers to emerge in the southern neighborhoods of Avdiivka. As reported earlier, Ukraine reclaimed the restaurant in a counterattack and then eliminated all the Russian forces trapped behind it. That much about that story.

Sure, to the east of the restaurant, Russia advanced 500 meters out of the industrial park. And to the east of the coke factory, the Russians advanced 1500 meters down a narrow strip by the lakes.

Much of the artillery and aerial bombardment in the city is a result of the Russians hunting for Ukrainian drone teams, which are causing a lot of casualties, especially since artillery ammo is low (as explained again and again: both sides are increasingly replacing their missing artillery ammunition by FPVs). The data on the maps is a function of videos that are posted, and there aren’t videos of every event, and which of those videos Andrew Perpetua has seen. Each airstrike represents two glide bombs, unless it is an attack from a helicopter that uses rockets. With one helicopter airstrike, that map represents 76 bombs dropped from January 28 to February 4. A Ukrainian journalist reports that from January 1st to February 2nd, more than 600 bombs were dropped on Avdiivka…https://www.facebook.com/butusov.yuriy/posts/pfbid02XLtkiKog5rsqv9Qmu6d1oUffRDCBzbBKKAK7axVV7Awtg6b9Y4A718nHc3ZrH81Gl

The Russians recover a Dutch IFV abandoned by the 110th Brigade…

https://twitter.com/WarVehicle/status/1751176751319790011

A Ukrainian report says that after the Russians took the restaurant in the south, they used the tunnels to emerge into the very southern edge of Avdiivka, only to be wiped out…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1751532298711765085

There are still civilians in Avdiivka, including where the Russians briefly had control. This video, without English subtitles, is providing some of their experiences. Below is some of the transcript.

00:30 They drove us into one room like dogs!
00:45 When the Russian troops came in, it was not even a nightmare... blood, deaths, looting.
01:10 34 years in the mine and everything I did for my family was destroyed.
01:43 They shot indiscriminately at the windows, ran into the house and shot everything.
02:00 They killed my mother. We were able to bury her only on the fifth day, in the garden.
02:54 It's not worth it. You only have one life.
03:16 We forgot about hot water, it's such a blessing…

Marinka

Exactly like Avidiivka, this is another ‘particularly unpleasant’ area for the ZSU - and that ever since February 2022 - foremost because

• a) it’s far from better-protected ZSU’s logistic-hubs along the Dnipro (indeed, from Kyiv, this is the ‘most-distant’ sector of the frontline);

• b) the loss of southern Donetsk and southern Zaporizhzhya moved the Russian bases closer to this part of Ukraine;

• c) and left it ‘encircled’ - on strategic and operational plan - by Russian positions east and south of it, and thus close to Russian bases in southern Donbass and the Rostov area.

Several Russian assaults were stopped by some artillery and a lot of drones. The drones destroyed or damaged lots of vehicles. The map shows how much Russia has advanced in the last month (mostly during the last week’s multiple assaults).

This Ukrainian AT gunner killed 40 vehicles and damaged 20 more…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1751553735480799588

11 Russian vehicles were destroyed in one assault. (See #1 on the map)…

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1752778670547042479

Kherson

Civilians in Kherson continue to pay a steep price for Russia’s brutality. Attrition continued throughout the region, including two Ukrainian boats that were sunk, but Ukraine did grab a 500 x 150 meter section of land west of Krynky. Ukraine limits the number of troops it puts on the west bank because they need to be supplied by boats and boats are vulnerable to Russian drone attacks.

A Russian drives by the remains of a BM-21 (See #2 on map)…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1753192421091877031/video/1

Crimea

On the afternoon of January 31, three Su-24s of the Ukrainian Air Force (PSU) fired six Storm Shadow/SCALP-EGs at the Belbek air base. Ukraine says that three aircraft were damaged. Su-30 and Su-27 aircraft are located at the base. A general and ten other personnel were also killed…

https://twitter.com/Heroiam_Slava/status/1752756347039371640

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/27514

On the evening of January 31, the Ivanovets, a Russian corvette, was sunk by six naval drones just outside Lake Donuzlav. (The lake was connected to the Black Sea in 1961 when a 400 meter wide channel was dug). The 480 ton ship had a crew of about 40 and was designed to fire anti-ship missiles…

https://twitter.com/SimonOstrovsky/status/1753065996708143448

The time and location of the attack on Ivanovets…

https://twitter.com/Dmojavensis/status/1753867125469626553

13 of 68 ships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet have been destroyed…https://t.me/operativnoZSU/134595?fbclid=IwAR1YxJv7veU7N_tCcnIUmgMITjteW_CUPLFoCHGf152Hjo6IqRW1nOoae-0

(…to be continued…)