My daily update! #ukrdailyupdate
It is late because I got distracted (I actually finished it like 6 hours ago!)
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The Kharkiv area: Russia attempted to attack Dementiivka from the north west today, and it ended with their assault group taking significant losses (1). They also pushed a recon team into Borshchova (2).
South east of Kharkiv, in Chuhuiv Russians bombed a theatre where people were hiding in the basement in a bomb shelter.
The Slovyansk area: Russians were defeated in yet another attack on Bohorodychne (3).
Here you can see what happens to Russians in Bohorodychne.
In the Siversk area: Russia finally captured Berestove, which Ukraine had abandoned days ago. They then pushed an attack up from Berestove towards Ivano-Darivka (6) and down from Verkhnokamyanka towards Ivano-Darivka (4). Both attacks were repelled.
Russia also tried to push through the final defenses of Spirne (5), and were repelled.
The Bakhmut area: Russia has shifted their focus from failing to attack Soledar to attacking Bakhmutske (7). Fighting is ongoing. The Wagner terrorist mercenaries are attacking Pokrovske from the south (9) and east (8) and they are making small but steady progress.
The Wagner mercenaries have established a strong foothold in the southern portion of Pokrovske, and about half of the town is now contested. This is the heaviest fighting currently going on in Ukraine.
The Vuhlehirsk area: This area has a lot going on, and some of the descriptions of the fighting are confusing. From what I can tell, Ukraine has lost all of the areas on the east of the power plant (11,12). And they have lost some parts of the plant itself (10).
However, they retain overall control over the plant, for the time being.
In Novoluhanske, there are many conflicting reports. Some say Ukraine still holds the entire town, others say they are withdrawing or possibly have fully withdrawn.
I do not know how to interpret that situation, so for the moment I have labelled Novoluhanske as contested. Russia is attacking Novoluhanske (13,14), and personally I think it is likely they will have full control over this town and the power plant in the next few days.
I do not have any particular news from the battles going on in any other part of the battlefield. There is a news blackout in Kherson, and not very much seemed to have happened in the southern part of the Donetsk oblast or in Zaporizhzhe oblast. At least beyond shelling.
I do have one completely bizarre piece of news. It is so bizarre I tend to believe it cannot possibly be true. There are rumors that Russia is building a pontoon bridge directly underneath the Antonovskiy Bridge. This is weird to a point where I'm lost for words.
Sources like warspotting and lostwar withhold losses from their counts when they are not clearly identifiable. Ukraine has pivoted to using heavy bomber drones to destroy vehicles, and posts tremendous numbers of losses per day using this method.
Due to thermals and top down view these losses are only very rarely counted. And when they are counted, it can be many months later when alternate footage appears.
In short, there is not a drop in documented losses, but the methodology used by the loss aggregators is highly conservative and struggles to deal with the types of footage available at the moment. And as a result will lag behind reality.
Kurt Company says they have killed 51 and wounded 57 Russians this month. These guys are situated near Kurdyumivka, and are repelling Russian assaults across the Severskyi Donets canal. I have personally seen about 25 of those 51 killed on video, and I've geolocated around 15.
Ukrainian positions in this area are very well designed, which contribute substantially to their ability to defend. We've seen Ukrainian defenses in other areas, often superior positions, with vastly inferior design and construction fall within minutes or hours.
The main difference you see here is that their firing positions are *above ground* with *interlocking fields of fire* and *trench systems that allow defenders to rapidly displace*.
btw, a huge fraction of the damage we see done every day is not done by fpv drones, it is done by drone dropped bombs. In particular, the heavy bombers like vampire, kazhan, and nemesis. The r18 is getting increasingly popular. And we see more avengers but those are very rare.
avenger is a fixed wing bomber that carriers, i think, 5.5kg payload. most commonly the loadout is either 2-4 medium sized bombs or like 5-8 smaller bombs that it drops as a carpet bombing type thing. It is hard to aim because it is a level bomber. A dive bomber would be better
A dive bomber dropping 5kg bombs would be pretty awesome, to be honest.
Ukraine has two extremely toxic problems that should have been addressed a long time ago, but never were.
First, there is this pervasive idea that being mobilized into the military is basically a death sentence. Which is entirely untrue.
Second, there is this idea that once mobilized, you can no longer contribute to the economy. This is asinine. Of course they can. There are many models of mobilization that allow people to keep their jobs and continue working while also being trained.
For example, taking people, putting them, through a 30 day boot camp, then training them 1-2 weekend per month thereafter. They would continue to work normally. It would create a reserve force. The territorial defense force that Ukraine wanted to have but never made.