On September 15th, Ukrainians released a video from the east side of Kupyansk (1), which Russia had previously controlled. On the map, I marked this area “contested,” and I will change it to “captured” with more information.
Ukrainian soldiers also published videos of a pontoon crossing south of Izyum (2). Ukrainian light infantry is pushing through the old pine forest toward Luhansk oblast. It is unclear where Russia will choosedefend, perhaps near the Zherebets River (the thick light blue line).
Ukrainian forces are attacking Yarova (3), Lyman (4), and Yampil (5). The attack on Lyman is progressing. From what I gather, the fighting is now within the town rather than the surrounding forest. I have no information about Yampil, but I believe Russia holds it firmly.
Yarova is likely less defended, and it is possible Ukraine captured it, although I do not have any information on the result of their attack today.
Ukraine is developing its bridgehead in the Oskil area, where I suspect they will push east until they reach the main Russian defensive line. Likely, Ukraine will attempt to break through Lyman and move east toward Kreminna, Rubizhne, and Severodonetsk.
If you remember, Russia captured Lyman only after breaking the surrounding defenses and threatening to encircle it.
Ukraine is attempting to do to take the town back in a similar manner. They could try to capture Drobysheve and then move toward Stavky and threaten Zarichne (A), for example. Or they could break through Yampil and push toward Zarichne that way (B). Or even go through Dibrova (C)
Ukraine is attacking east in the areas of Bilohorivka (6) and Spirne (7). I am still unclear on whether Ukraine controls Bilohorivka, but there is ongoing fighting in this area.
There is ongoing fighting in the Bakhmut area in Bakhmut (8), Vesela Dolyna (9), Zaitseve (10,11), and Odradivka (12) without any notable changes.
There is ongoing fighting in the Avdiivka area in Krasnohorivka (13) and Avdiivka (14). Russia fired a massive artillery barrage into Avdiivka today.
South of Donetsk, Russia attacked Novomykhailivka (15) without success.
South of Orikhiv, Ukraine tried to break through the Russian defenses near Nesterianka (16), but the attack appeared to have failed. They attempted a similar attack on September 14th.
In the Kherson area, Ukraine attacked near Pravdyne (17). I am unsure who controls Pravdyne at the moment, so I marked it contested. For this reason, I am unsure where exactly Ukraine attacked, whether they are pushing further south from Pravdyne or attacking the town itself.
Since I do not know who controls the area, I marked Ukraine as attacking the town itself. Russians claim to have repelled this attack.
Russia fired more missiles into the dam near Kryvyi Rih (D), further hindering Ukraine’s ability to repair the damaged area.
In addition to the general military news, Ukrainian special forces and/or partisans attacked Russian collaborators in three different cities.
In Luhansk city, the General Prosecutor, Sergei Gorenko, and deputy General Prosecutor, Kateryna Steglenko, were killed by a bomb in their office.
In Berdyansk, Oleg and Lyudmila Boyka died from a bomb in their garage.
In Kherson, a bomb exploded in the Court of Appeals during a meeting between collaborators.
In Melitopol, there was an explosion, but Russians claim it was a planned detonation of unexploded ordinance from prior missile attacks.
That is all I have for today.
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I just posted a map update, and many parts of the update have been written about by others already. But one interesting tidbit is the advance of Ukraine in Bilohorivka.
Here you see a Russian FPV Drone strike hitting a Ukrainian trench. You see that the trench crosses a road and has a hook shape. The trench is of relatively new construction, and cannot be seen on google map, nor other public high resolution images of the area. However, on google earth you can see the relative shape of the terrain (the Z axis is magnified 300% to exaggerate terrain features to make them easier to see. You can see that the trench runs along the crest of a hill. You can see the road it crosses, which is slightly lower than the ridge of the hill, on the reverse slope.
On sentinel, which is 10 meter resolution (a very low resolution image with few details), you can see the hook shape of this trench. This image is from October 24th, 2024, which is about 2 weeks ago.
The war in Ukraine took a turn in June of 2023 when Ukraine launched a counter-offensive south in an attempt to break through toward Tokmak. This decision has influenced every event that has followed, leading to disastrous consequences for Ukraine. I will not go into depth about the offensive south, but in short, Ukraine burned through its ammo stockpile and 12 of its best brigades. The offensive badly weakened these brigades and eliminated Ukraine's already limited flexibility regarding rotating troops and responding to threats.
Immediately upon the conclusion of this offensive, Russia launched a large offensive on Avdiivka and Novomykhailivka. Avdiivka is a small suburb northwest of Donetsk city, and Novomykhailivka is a small village south of Donetsk. Russia's ultimate goal was to break through to the city of Kurakhove, which is a small city west of Donetsk and is the westernmost significant defensive position constructed by Ukraine on the Donetsk front. In essence, Russia's goal was to break through the Donetsk defensive line and force Ukraine to defend weakly defended territory.
Ukraine's Donetsk defensive line was well-constructed and relatively strong. As such, it required fewer soldiers to successfully defend and more soldiers to successfully assault. This created a defensive advantage for Ukraine, which helped ease its relative manpower limitations compared to Russia. Once Ukraine is removed from these strong defensive lines, it requires more men to defend the same amount of area and also fewer men to successfully assault, which gives Russia the advantage due to its superior manpower.
To succeed, Russia would have to create a large manpower advantage in a localized area to break through the hardened defensive lines. Once broken, Russia could then splinter its manpower into many smaller attacks and attack many places simultaneously.
I could review the timeline and list the settlements attacked, and my initial draft of this post included this information. But instead, I will cut to the chase. After capturing Aviivka, Russia simultaneously attacked many locations along the entire eastern front. At first, Ukraine could withstand the attacks, but with each lost position, Ukraine became increasingly weaker. Finally, the fall of Ocheretyne, the next railway stop northwest of Avdiivka, fell. This loss opened the floodgates that allowed Russia to flow across the Donbas and capture many settlements in a short time.
Ukraine has now reached a point where it has insufficient manpower to mount a proper defense. Even after shortening the length of its defensive line to increase the density of its troops, it still lacks the strength to stop the Russian advance.
Russians have effectively broken through the line of defense that was behind Vuhledar by getting into the middle of Bohoyavlenka. This defense line I was hoping could last at least 2-3 months, but was lost in 1. Largely due to extremely heavy bombing and horribly insufficient preparation by ukriane.
In essence, Ukraine spent 2 years defending their forward positions to buy time, and used that time doing nothing to prepare the next line of defense.
There really is no excuse Ukraine has for this failure. You have to point the finger at Zelensky. He is personally responsible for this. It was his job to defend Ukraine. You cannot blame "western partners" for failing to make the most basic defenses in your most critical areas.
Yesterday a bunch of Russian trolls were trying to tell me Russia doesn’t strike schools, so here is an example of such a thing. It is the most memorable strike to me, the videos of wounded educators being pulled out of the destroyed school is etched into my memory.
"According to the investigation, on October 5, 2024, at around 3:30 p.m., using methods of warfare prohibited by international law, the enemy drone attacked a bus traveling through the territory of the Rychkiv community of the Sumy district.
As a result of the attack of the occupiers, three passengers were injured - a 65-year-old man and 54-year-old and 63-year-old women."
I am not convinced Russians actually control the area west of the canal in Chasiv Yar. We’ve been geolocating Russians there for a while, if you scroll back through our map you can see the geolocations and you can see the videos. You can see what the area looks like.
That area is not conducive to being controlled by anyone, Ukraine has thick drone coverage, and anyone who passes through the area has a very high chance of dying. Furthermore, the structures are completely destroyed and there arent many suitable places for defense.
I doubt anyone controls this area. I doubt anyone could control the area no matter how much they wanted to or how many resources they put into it.