Ukraine War, 31 October 2024

….that much about my ‘few days off’…

(Indeed, have kind of ‘sworn to myself’ (and to a few contacts) I’ll shut up for a few days but… sigh…)

Essentially, the last few days, the ZSU positions in south-western Donetsk - in the area between Zolota Nyva and Vodyane, that ‘forgotten corner’ of this war - all but collapsed.

The Russians first breached the frontline in the Shaktarske area, causing one battalion of the Territorial Defence to flee, in turn opening the flank of a regular battalion. Then the Russians drove into the back of that regular battalion and, de-facto, destroyed it.

With other words: what you get to see when watching such videos like this one:

…is actually showing last-ditch defences by rear elements of the Ukrainian battalion in question (I’ll not go into more details). Yes, the Ukrainians destroyed 4 T-72s and 4 BMPs, but the rest drove past them, and then into their back.

….and a video showing an Ukrainian tank (probably T-72) blowing up a Russian BTR:

…is actually showing advancing Russians running into a lonesome Ukranian T-72, cut off by the Russian advance and fighting for naked survival.

Syrsky reacted in his usual fashion. See: sending another regular battalion to the scene…, but with the Russians assaulting with at least two motor-rifle regiments and a tank brigade (could be up to 8,000 troops), and then entering an area with next to no ZSU fortifications, no minefields, and having destroyed the FPVs of most of ZSU units...

...well, it’s unsurprising that they’ve meanwhile secured Yasna Polyana, Novoukrainka and Bohoyavlenka.

As of today, the Russians are in the process of assaulting Maksymivka, and Trudove.

That not only means a loss of more than 300 Ukrainian troops killed, captured, or missing in action (i.e. approximately an equal loss in two months of offensive into the Kursk Oblast), but also a Russian advance rate of 10km in 5 days - which in turn means that by around 10 November, the Russians are going to have Kurakhove encircled - from the south.

…which - for those insistent on ‘how much territory has what of parties captured this year’ - means that yes, the Russians are going to end the Year 2024 with capturing something like two times as much territory in Ukraine, as Ukrainians have captured in the Kursk Oblast (all provided the ZSU might be able to retain any kind of a serious foothold in the Kursk Oblast by the end of this year).

The Russians are also successful in the north: they've established a bridgehead west of the Zherbets River in the Novosadove area... (that's half-way between Kupyansk and Kremina). And… well, if you follow my coverage of this war since back in February 2022 for example: by now you should know what a ‘Russian bridgehead’ means.

Arguably, there are ‘good news’ too - like that the 12th NG Azov smashed the mass of the Group Tsenter’s hordes inside Toretsk, and liberated most of that town, the last few days.

But, that’s also the only really important success of this week.

The problem is the usual: in Kyiv, nothing of this matters. The President of Wonderful News is distracting the public by complaining about leaks of his glorious 'peace plan' in the Biden admin, while the General of Great News is mobilising another 160,000 so he can create brigades 160-169 so he can find jobs for additional of his buddies... and a few of Zelensky's idiots are less vocal in announcing construction of fortifications aiming to defend the cities of Zaporizhzhya and Dnipro...

…gosh, I could go on with counting all the additional failures of both the Ukrainian presidency, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Buddies (GenStab-U) of the last few days - without an end.

That would easily fill a book, though. Thus, I’ll stop here…

But well: I'm a 'drama queen' and 'overdramatising it all the time', so no need to pay attention. Let me get back to my corner and keep quiet now.