Don's Weekly, 8 January 2024: Part 3

(….continued from Part 2…)

Ukraine

Two Ukrainian forward operating bases were hit…

https://twitter.com/WarVehicle/status/1743044104043278818

Ukraine’s tally of drones and missiles that were shot down last year…

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1743608263004819964

Prisoners tell of their experiences in Russian confinement…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1742828189087404064

A defender of Snake Island returns to Ukraine and calls him mother…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1743176759846056064

Other prisoners released were glad they weren’t forgotten…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1743015049168396738

230 prisoners were returned, including 45 that were considered MIA and presumed dead. Six civilians and a policeman illeagally detained were also returned. Russia received 248 of its prisoners. A little more than 2,500 Ukrainian prisoners have been returned and maybe 4,000 remain in custody. There’s less information available on Russian prisoners. This was the largest prisoner swap in the war and the first since August. Turkey brokered previous prisoner swaps but last July Zelensky flew to Turkey and returned with five prisoners that Russia said were supposed to remain in Turkey until the end of the war. This exchange was mediated by the UAE…https://medium.com/improve-the-news/facts-about-russia-and-ukraine-exchange-hundreds-of-prisoners-in-largest-swap-of-the-war-02d60eac2a83

A Russian pontoon bridge surrendered to Ukraine…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1743951077467156751

Russia

Ukraine says that Russian hospitals in Ukraine are overwhelmed to the point where lightly wounded are not treated and severely wounded need to be transported to Russia. Also, the wounded are no longer given leave because they do not return…https://gur.gov.ua/content/poranenym-okupantam-ne-daiut-vidpustok-cherez-masove-dezertyrstvo.html

Novorossiysk air defense was active, but there were no further details…

https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1743010141115486507

After a substation caught fire, there were many in Moscow without electricity or heat…

https://twitter.com/FreudGreyskull/status/1742777893355442575

The war that Ukraine started is killing Russian youth, the oligarchs aren’t paying their taxes, but because of Putin, Russia now has tangerines all year round…

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1742921922621698395

A lot of Chinese cars are being bought with death benefits. They seem to have problems with extreme cold weather…

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1743688576695427155

A Russian glide bomb module failed and crashed without exploding in the Belgorod area…

https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1742659097449898188

Two Russian air defense systems were destroyed in Belgorod…

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1743713267657121903

Zaporizhzhia Rail Network

As shown in the map above in the Marinka section, there is only one east-west rail line across Zaporizhzhia. Since part of it runs close the the front lines, Ukrainian conventional artillery renders it unusable. Russia was constructing a new rail line further south to avoid the conventional artillery, but Stefan Korshak reports that a bridge under construction for that new line was destroyed near Hranitne, probably by an M31 rocket fired by HIMARS/MLRS…https://medium.com/@Stefan.Korshak/january-7-day-683-the-hranitne-bridge-its-up-no-it-s-not-fd226a5aef09

Despite all the rivers in the region, there are very few bridges on the existing east-west rail line. The reason is because there are two river basins and the rail line runs along the divide between those basins. Rivers to the north of the rail line eventually flow into the Dnieper river. Rivers to the south of the rail line flow into the Azov Sea…https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-hydrographic-zoning-of-the-territory-of-Ukraine-2016-River-basin-district-1_fig2_344456146

There are exceptions. Outside of Svitlodolynske are two bridges that span the Molochna river (47°04'43.4"N 35°29'11.9"E and 47°04'43.4"N 35°29'11.9"E) and another one crosses the Tokmok river (47°12'43.8"N 36°07'25.5"E). That river could only be avoided by making a 20 km wide detour north of Tokmok to Robotyne. Many might remember the ridge between Novoprokopivka and Verbove. That ridge is part of the divide between the two water basins and the railroad would have to run along it or parallel to it in order to avoid those two rivers. Since it was such a wide detour and would avoid the population centers of Tokmak and Chernihivka they built some bridges instead.

If you continue south to Melitopol and beyond, the next bridge encountered is at Yakymivka (46°40'26.5"N 35°09'23.8"E). That bridge is out of range of the M31 rocket but partisans dropped it in April, 2022…https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/04/28/7342686/

They did so again last June…https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3721430-partisans-blow-up-railway-bridge-near-occupied-melitopol-ukrainian-army-officer.html

In addition to the 40+ km route passing from Melitopol through Hranitne, there is a report that Russia started constructing another rail line from Yakymivka to Rostov-on-Don, a distance of about 350 km. This route cannot avoid the rivers flowing into the Azov Sea, which means multiple bridges, but if it stays south of Melitopol and close to the coast it will remain out of range of the M31 rocket until the route approaches Mariupol. There are no reports on when the route might be finished but it will take a while…https://www.kyivpost.com/post/23773

The existing route from Donetsk is too close to the front lines and the Russian assault at Marinka-Novomikhaylivka would have to push the Ukrainians back 20+ km to put the rail line out of range of Ukraine’s conventional artillery. A 40 km bypass being constructed can be nullified any time Ukraine wants to expend some M31 rockets. And a 350 km southern route will take a long time to finish and would still be threatened around Mariupol if the current front line holds. The southern route cannot avoid the need for bridges, and these bridges would be within the range of ATACMS should the non-cluster, 230 kg warhead variants be sent. While Russia can continue to use the Kerch bridge and the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, they will not be able to use an overland rail route from Donetsk in the foreseeable future.

Equipment

A report that shows in the last four months, Ukraine conducted more drone attacks against infantry than Russia did except for December. Ukraine demonstrated even more dominance with attacks on vehicles. The data was from Andrew Perpetua is limited to videos published by others and collected by him but this is still a strong indicator of Ukraine’s advantage with drones overall…

https://twitter.com/HartreeFock/status/1742562500938256442

North Korean ballistic missiles were used by Russia. “Several dozen” were sent to Russia a few weeks ago…https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/01/04/russia-north-korean-missiles-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR3AF3dwhm1_Oh_ztUMXBeitJoqvNLL1NnfsGIuQ3lLYiWmqKsgcDE2S2aM

Russia is planning to buy short-ranged Iranian ballistic missiles…

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1742887069246963778

Ukraine’s superior rate of fire in artillery last summer was a result of a surge in ammo drawn from South Korean stockpiles. The total allied production cannot currently support such a rate of fire. Such a rate of fire is not likely to happen again until the projected 2025 production levels are reached…

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1743573944446120425

A Russian Lancet targeted Iris-T decoys…

https://twitter.com/WarVehicle/status/1742912706095538475

Two months ago a Ukrainian drone jammer, the Piranha AVD 360, passed field testing and was ready for mass production. Mounted on a vehicle, it interferes with GPS signals and signals between the drone and the operator once the drone flies within 600 meters…https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/11/2/7426896/

This was mentioned before but here is a training with a remote controlled machine gun. The motor to move it laterally is on the left leg of the tripod. There are also motors to move the gun vertically and to fire it. Manpower must be used to set up the gun, change batteries and provide additional ammo, but it reduces exposure at vulnerable positions that are still important to defend…

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1743434193156370925

A 2021 test fire of the North Korea KN-23 missile…

https://twitter.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1743122775374512444

The US has more than 1,500 ATACMS in their inventory. Lockheed produces about 500 missiles a year, 209 of which have already been sold to foreign countries…https://breakingdefense.com/2023/11/on-atacms-for-ukraine-dont-settle-for-a-job-half-done/