Don's Weekly, 5 November 2024: Part 2

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 1…)

***

Western Luhansk

Most of this sector was static - which means the two battalions from the 3rd Assault brought in to restore order and create a new defence line, have managed to stop most of the Russian assaults, the last week. However, Senkove was hit by airstrikes. The one exception was down south. After defending against attacks from the east for over two years, Terny is now threatened from the north.

On October 25, a Ukrainian bomber drone knocks out an air defense launcher and hunted down a fleeing air defense radar system.

***

Siversk

The 10th Mountain Brigade (one of ‘large’ brigades of the ZSU, and then a very effective one, too: it’s holding this sector for over a year, meanwhile) - destroyed 15 of 22 vehicles and killed or wounded about 42 of the 120 infantry involved in just one Russian assault.

***

Toretsk

After Ukraine cleared out the centre and southern Toretsk, the battle lines remained static this week, but Russia bombarded Ukrainian positions with thermobaric rockets and artillery. The 12th NG Azov brigade worked over Russian infantry with drones. Indeed, through the last two days, this brigade pushed even into Druzhba, NE of the town. This Ukrainian counterattack is supported by a large number of FPVs.

***

Pokrovsk

The northern and western battle lines were static, but the Russian advances in the south accelerated.

A Russian vehicle travels along one of their supply routes, which has been interdicted by Ukrainian drones for months. The wrecks are a testament to their work. The route taken is indicated in yellow below. Not shown in the video is another supply route marked in red. There are plenty of wrecks along that stretch of the railroad, as well.

5 km behind the front lines, a Ukrainian drone flies down the main road in Mykhailivka choosing a target from all the infantry wandering about the street.

***

Kurakhove/Uspenivka

The 46th Brigade stopped another large attack on Kurakhove, but the town was heavily bombed and a Leopard 1 was knocked out.

Uspenivka was bombarded by an airstrike. The village of Trudove, south of Uspenivka, was hit by a large airstrike. Just north of Katerynivka, the village of Antonivka was hit by rockets. Rockets also hit the Ukrainian positions in the woods south of Pobieda.

These bombardments, undermanned Ukrainian defenses and large Russian attacks enabled Russia to close in on Kurakhove from both the north and east. Indeed, over the last two days, the Russians have secured Kremina Balka, are inside Novoselydivka, and have seized Ilinka and Ostrivske. With this, the battle for Kurakhove is starting in earnest.

Here is another case in which a Russian BTR drove directly towards a Ukrainian tank, which then fired at point blank range. The location is indicated by an asterisk (*) on the map. Russian forces broke through at two points and managed to penetrate 4 km and more. This tank belonged to a Ukrainian force that was eventually encircled. Russian communications weren’t very clear and the BTR believed that the Ukrainian forces were further away and that the tank was Russian. Several Russian vehicles were destroyed. By Ukrainian standards, their casualties were high.

‘Archive footage’ of fighting for the Number 1 mine back in September. It illustrates the low numbers of troops on both sides. Individual Russians are running around in between the buildings and there’s no one, or at least not enough, Ukrainians on the ground floor to cut them down as they enter the building.

***

Zaporizhzhia

Videos are still marking circles with commentary like ‘128th Brigade stopped a Russian attack that used 40 vehicles.’ It didn’t: this was the Russian attack into the joint between the 113rd TD Brigade and that lonesome battalion of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, south-east of Shakhtarske. So, what you actually see here is the Russian tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles breaching through the Ukrainian lines: sure, some of them are knocked out in the process, but in grand total, as next they drove behind the lines of the 128th, and then into the back of that battalion, as described by Tom the last week.

***

Crimea

Russia has lost a Ka-52 helicopter in the Kerch Strait. The crew of two was killed.

***

(…to be continued…)