Ukraine War, 21 June 2023

Good morning everybody!

…I’m still stunned any kind of idiots in Hungary came to the idea to haul 11 Ukrainian POWs from Russia all the way to Budapest… I mean: it’s no secret, I consider the mass of politicians for endemically corrupt and incompetent (‘until proven otherwise’). But, this level of disgusting political idiocy is usually reserved for Pudding, Dumpf & Co KG: and yet, a country with such a ‘government’ is a member of the EU and NATO….

The only ‘good’ thing from this affair by now: three Ukrainian POWs were handed over to the Ukrainian embassy by now.

Time for an update on developments over the last few days.

AIR/MISSILE WARFARE

On 18 June, a major VSRF ammo dump outside Rykove, in southern Kherson, decided to commit a suicide through spontaneous detonation. Probably because it saw a Storm Shadow. The explosion was so massive that not only the warehouses and the railway nearby, but most likely much of Rykove is completely demolished. ‘Secondaries’ (detonations caused by the initial blow), went on for something like six hours. RUMINT has it, even as of the following morning, the Russians were still busy searching for pieces of some 52 killed and a similar number of wounded – between their military personnel (curiously, haven’t heard the Russians complaining about any kind of civilian casualties, although I guess there must’ve been some….), but I’m already sad to hear that some of guards protecting this facility were Kadyrovites…

Earlier, Ukraine also destroyed two rail bridges on the railway line from the Crimea up to Rykove and Melitopol (i.e. ‘feeding’ this and few other depots). Indeed, this strike was the latest in an entire series: previously, Ukrainians also hit the Russian warehouses in Azurnoe, Skadovsk, Genichesk, and few other places (a nice little map with all of such attacks can be found here), while on the morning of 20 June, something blew up in Korsunka, in the Kakhovka District.

This is indicating that the PSU has switched its attention: away from different Russian headquarters (savaged over the last two weeks), and over to the Russian supply depots. This is likely to have taken away about a week-worth of VSRF’s supply of artillery shells and, considering problems caused by strikes on the railway, it might be slightly more, too – and it’s going to take even longer for the Russians to scratch together the necessary ammo and then create and re-fill new depots, which now have to be build-up even further away from the frontline….

On the Russian side…

….and except for heavily shelling and rocketing the Sumy Oblast, the Nikopol area, and Kherson (where numerous civilians were murdered while involved in different evacuation and rescue operations, the last few days) – and that every single day…  

The VSRF seems to have exhausted its stocks of ballistic- and cruise missiles during the failed ‘Blitz’ on Kyiv, in May. Over the last two weeks, it’s only sporadically trying to strike with small numbers of cruise missiles. More often with Shahed LPGMs. Ballistic missiles are deployed only something like ‘once a week’.

Through 17 and 18 June, Ukrainians reported ‘only’ four Shaheds (and one Lancet) as shot down.

Around 02.39hrs on 19 June, the VKS fired several S-300 missiles in ballistic mode at the Zaporizhzhya Oblast, and then followed up with four Kalibr cruise missiles and four Shahed LPGMs. All of the latter eight were claimed as shot down by Ukrainians.  

During the night from 19 to 20 June, another 32 out of 35 detected Shaheds were shot down. Most of these (about 20) in the Kyiv area. Three came through and hit ‘critical infrastructure facility’ in Lviv. Simultaneously, a ‘large-scale airstrike’ was reported from the Zapoizhzhya (city) area, but next to no details released except for ‘utilities and private property damaged’. Apparently, there were no casualties.

BTW, according to the US Defense News, the mass of Shaheds shot down between September 2022 and January 2023 – no less than 540 – were all felled by German-made Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns:

As mentioned in my earlier reports, the last two weeks the Russians were regularly reacting to Ukrainian attacks by their Kamov Ka-52 (and, less often: Mi-28) attack helicopters. Early on, these were primarily deploying LMUR PGMs:

LMURs have a max engagement range of about 14,000m, a hefty punch, and seem to have scored a number of hits on Ukrainian vehicles over the first two weeks of this month. Meanwhile, seems the Russians have depleted stocks of such weapons (it’s definitely so that the number of related videos published on Telegram went down), and thus they returned to the use of shorter-ranged (10,000m) Vikhr. This in turn brought them within range of Ukrainian air defences, and thus it was interesting to monitor related ZSU claims:

-          14 June: 1 Ka-52 claimed as shot down over southern Zaporizhzhya (no other details);

-          17 June: 2 Ka-52s claimed as shot down between 22.00 and 23.00hrs in the evening;

-          18 June: 1 Ka-52 claimed as shot down (time and place not mentioned) early in the morning, 1 claimed in the afternoon.

-          19 June: 1 Ka-52 claimed as shot down ‘on the evening, around 23.00hrs’.

As far as I can say, none of this is confirmed, yet: at most, the Russians released a video shown one of Ka-52s jettisoning drop tanks and missing most of its fin… That said, it might be that some of Ukrainian claims are related to the deployment of the SAMP-T air defence system (jointly developed by France and Italy), meanwhile confirmed as ‘in Ukraine’ by official Paris. The first battalion arrived together with 700 Aster-30 missiles.

BTW, when one counts that the VKS received about 150 Ka-52s so far, then deducts the number of those visually confirmed as shot down (some 47), plus the number of non-operational examples visible on the left side of the photo here… turns out the total Russian fleet is meanwhile down to about 40-50.

Elsewhere, on 20 June, the Russians claimed a PSU Mi-24 as shot down by their interceptors in the Kramatorsk area, and a Mi-8 by ground based air defences in the Orikhiv area. No evidence has been provided for this, but along reports from the GenStab-U, the number of combat sorties flown by the PSU is meanwhile down to between 15 and 20 a day. That’s down ‘from more than 20 a day’, earlier this month, which is likely to indicate some attrition.

BATTLE FOR DONBAS

Kupyansk-Svatove-Kremina…On 19 June, official Kyiv reported that the VSRF launched an offensive in the north-western Luhansk:

• one prong from the Pokrovske area in direction of Kupyansk, and

• another from Kremina in direction of Torske and Lyman.

‘Heavy shelling’, ‘hot battles’, and ‘difficult situation’ were reported  - mostly by Ukrainians. The heaviest attacks seem to be run by the 76^th VDV Division in the south, in direction of Yampolivka and Zarichne. The ZSU is defending with the 23^rd Rifle, 111^th and 126^th TD Brigades there, apparently with some support of the 95^th Assault. Further south, the BARS-12, -16, and -20 are attacking through the forest along the Siversky Donets. The ZSU has the 63^rd and 67^th Mechanised there.

Essentially, this is an interesting attempt to force Ukrainians to lessen their pressure upon southern Zaporizhzhya and south-western Donetsk, and re-deploy some of their reserves to the north. That itch in my small toe says: a good sign.

The Russians have a massive concentration of forces deployed in ther rear of the Svatove-Kremina-Rubizhne-Lysychansk sector. They’ve had the option of re-deploying these to southern Ukraine, or ‘doing something’ with them where they are. Have opted for the latter. How good is that going to work: no idea. Can only say that even the VDV units are limited to operations by daylight, and lacking communications, training, and equipment to outmatch the ZSU on 1 for 1 basis. For example: lately, Ukrainians are monitoring a growing number of Russian armoured vehicles abandoned because they were in much too poor technical condition: were pulled out of mothballs and sent to the frontlines without necessary overhauls (arguably, the same is valid for up to a third of what NATO is sending to Ukraine….but, Ukrainians do not deploy broken Western stuff in combat without necessary checks and maintenance).

Bakhmut…. The 57^th Motorised seems to have been inside Berkhivka, on 17-18 June, but was then hit by a severe Russian counterattack from three sides. This forced it back to south-western outskirts. South of Bakhmut, the 3^rd Assault is still grinding in direction of Klishchivka…

Avdiivka…the ZSU is pushing into the area north of the town, approx. two kilometres north-east of Brevno and south of Krasnohorivka, and seems to have made some advances in direction of Novoselivka, back on 18 June.

Mariinka… the Russians are running local attacks into Krasnohorivka (north of Marinka), into Mariinka, and south of it, but all of that is ‘going nowhere’…

SOUTHERN ZAPORIZHZHYA (& SOUTH-WESTERN DONETSK)

Vasylivka (‘disclaimer’: that’s the eastern side of what used to be the ‘Kakhovka Sea’ until the Russian scum blew up the Kakhovka Dam, which is something half the ‘West’ still ‘cannot officially confirm’….usually because ‘it’s complex’….)…

On 16 June, the ZSU secured the ruins of the village of Lobkove. On 17 June, the ZSU attacked Pyatykhatky from two sides, causing panic between the Russians: indeed, the latter claimed that ‘Ukrainians wearing uniforms of the VSRF’ penetrated the ‘4^th Military Base’ (VSRF: an unit usually stationed in South Ossetia), west of Luhove (that’s some 10km south of Kamianske and 10km south-west of Lobkove), ‘but’, that they ‘burned’ all the ‘militants’ – until it turned out these were their own troops. Then they fell silent.

Through 18 June, the Russians counterattacked, claiming massive losses to the Ukrainians. Think, they did cause lots of troubles, and destroyed some 7-8 armoured vehicles. However, Ukrainians brought in reinforcements, and attacked again, destroying a battalion of 300 of either the 4^th Military Base or the Storm Ossetia Battalion, including its commander (less than 20 Russians came away). Some claim the actual designation of the unit was the ‘80^th Brigade’, but I’m not sure about that.

Survivors of either the 4th Military Base or the Storm Ossetia Battalion.

On 19 June, the 128^th Mountain Assault attacked Zherebianky from two sides (the place is held by the BARS-32)  Shortly later, the VSRF launched a counterattack on Pyatykhatky (or rushed ‘reinforcements’ to the place because it didn’t know it was lost?): Ukrainians fell back to their starting positions and then threw the Russians back with losses in armour, while launching another attack from Pyatykhatky into a small forest on a low hill south-east of the place. Ironically, Russian contacts have confirmed the attack and the presence of the 128^th Mountain Assault, nothing else, but: they’re not making jokes about this ZSU unit any more (the 128^th was in Melitupol and early during the war fought a terrific – but also sad – withdrawal battle from that town via Tokmak and Polohy to Hulyapole; because of this, the Russians regularly mocked it and were publishing fantastic claims about its losses).

As of 20 June, the 128^th was back to attacking into Zherebianky…and I wonder: is this going to prompt the 49^th or the 58^th CAA (not sure which is responsible for this area) into another ‘operational-level’ counterattack or not? …or was this already smashed by the ZSU artillery, while still some 10km south of the frontline, as some claim?

Novodanylivka….since 16 June, the ZSU was making a slow, but good advance in southern direction. First ‘they’ brought in ‘something’ that started suppressing the effects of the Russian electronic warfare. Apparently, this did suppress Lancets, too, even if not the Ka-52s or the Russian ATGMs (these were still, and regularly, scoring ‘kills’, until two days ago). Then the cleaning of additional lines through the minefields was completed. Plus demining around own positions. Took a lots of artillery support, to knock out whatever the Russians tried to use to hinder this effort. In turn, that enabled better manoeuvrability of ZSU troops and a sustained influx of supplies (the same wouldn’t work with reinforcements because pumping too much troops into a too small zone would be too dangerous).

Anyway, by 17 June, the ZSU reached the northern outskirts of Robotyne, in the south, and began a systematic (even if slow) decimation of the Russian garrison there. On 18 or 19 June, the VSRF reacted with a major counterattack and claims to have pushed Ukrainians some two kilometres back. Ever since, it appears to be ‘silent’ there. Further east, Ukrainians have continued widening the penetration through the Russian minefields by cleaning additional lines about 5-6km south of Mala Tokmachka.

Hulaypole….still not sure about what’s going on between Marfopil and Pryyutne, because both sides are releasing next to no news, except denials of enemy claims, and 0+0=0… Gauging by reports about captured ZSU troops and MRAPsa from the southern fringes of this area, I guess Ukrainians are raiding around Pryyutne, though…

Staromaiorske/Staromayorske… (formerly ‘Velyka Novoselivka area’ or the ‘Vremivka Bulge’, but I think there’s no point in determining the area by a place that’s meanwhile well away from the frontline)…

On 15 June, the ZSU began a push along most of the Russian line between Urozhaine and Kermenchyk, which resulted in some of its units reaching approaches to Kluchove and….’slightly further south-east’ (yes, ‘again’).….which prompted Pudding’s PRBS-machinery into another wave of reports about ‘massive Ukrainian losses’. Actually, the move really took the Russians by surprise. Not only because they’re still busy trying to secure the link to their ‘besieged’ garrison of Rivnopil, and wasting troops while ‘counterattacking’ Makarivka, but because it seems this attack was also supported by ‘somebody’ bringing ‘something’ related to electronic warfare to this area, and – at least temporarily – suppressing the activity of the Orlan+Zola+Lancet combination (such ‘things’ tend to overheat easily, when worked at full power for longer periods of time).

Net result: as of 19 June, the ZSU was ‘well in between’ Zavitne Bezhannya, and Kermenchyk, and pushing south, but: also in western direction, over the Mokri Yaly River, again…

Overall: the ZSU is still grinding, cautiously and methodically, through the (actual) 1st defence line in the south. Such approach is necessary in order to limit own losses to the bare minimum, while securing maximum possible support for assaulting troops: is a major switch in ‘tactics’, in comparison to early this month. The Russians are still counterattacking at every opportunity: sure, their lower- and mid-ranking officers are simply awful, and the mass of their units along the 1st line meanwhile reduced by at least a third. However, their training, communications, and planning are better than expected, and there is no doubt that their top commanders are attempting to exploit every single opportunity to cause losses to the ZSU. With other words: they still know what are they doing and have their troops under control. However, they’re hopelessly outmatched in nocturnal combat, and this is what the ZSU is exploiting to the maximum, meanwhile - exactly like the superior defence capability of its units: it seems that nowadays, thanks to superior training and fire-support, a single Ukrainian battalion can outfight two or even more of Russian equivalents.