I am going to do a very brief update for October 13th. You could call this an update for October 11,12,13, and whatever other days I missed because not much has happened. #ukrdailyupdate
Near Kupyansk, Ukraine moved forward and appear to have liberated Pischane. I have no actual confirmation of this liberation, but Ukrainian troops are east of it and multiple Russian sources claims it is under Ukrainian control so whatever let's roll with it.
Russia has made a lot of blatantly false claims about retaking towns near Kreminna, but their claim today to have retaken Pischane (lol) and Chervonopopivka actually seem to be both reasonable and likely true. They claim to be attacking Terny, it's probably in the *direction of*.
Russians are moving around concrete blocks to build tan traps in Severodonetsk.
Russians are building a defensive line near Hirske. If you remember, Hirske was a town Russia could not break through and only fell when the entire rest of the line collapsed. So I guess Russia really, really does not want to have to fight for it a second time.
Some action in Kadiivka today. Ukrainian civilians spotted Russian artillery firing from this position to the northeast of the city. Ukraine destroyed hangars Russia used to repair broken vehicles on the missile marker.
In the Bakhmut area, Ukraine controls Ivanhrad and Opytne. I wrote about it here. People are saying Ukraine counter attacked in Opytne, this is not true. Russia never took or contested Opytne. Ukraine counter attacked Ivanhrad.
Otherwise you have your standard attacks in the Bakhmut area without notable change.
In the Donetsk area there is ongoing fighting in all the same areas as usual.
Ukraine is attacking south from both Orikhiv and Hulyaipole. Don't get excited and think this is some major offensive, it isn't.
Ukraine inflicted significant damage on Russian positions in Burchak, Tokmak, Kopani, Kinski Rozdory, and Berdyansk areas. (markers aren't exact). The Berdyansk hit reportedly destroyed four S-300 systems.
Ukraine had significant artillery strikes on the Antonovskyi Bridge, Nova Kakhovka, Kozatske, and Beryslav areas.
Russia had significant artillery strikes in the Pravdyne, Soldatske, Blahodatne, and more general M14 highway areas.
Ukraine attacked Ishchenka and Bruskynske, and Russia sent recon to Sukhyi Stavok.
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The news coming from the Velyka Novosilka area is very bad. There is no way to sugar coat it, the area has reached crisis and needs immediate intervention.
In short, Velyka Novosilka is the anchor of the southern defensive line. The line that runs from the Dnipro river to the east towards Donetsk. The Zaporizhzhia line. This west to east defensive line effectively ends in Velyka Novosilka. (note my map hasn't updated for the changes today)
Velyka Novosilka itself should have very good defenses, but the defenses are meant to stop attacks from the south, not the north and east.
Russia paying soldiers lump sums is not a method to get people to join the military, paying them is a way to make people not care about how many soldiers die.
Everyone knows soldiers are dying in huge numbers. But the money makes people think it is a gamble, not a tragedy. Nobody cares about a guy who signed up for quick money and died. They see it as quick easy money coming with huge risks and shrug. It is their own fault for joining.
It is simultaneously a lot of money and very little money. It is so much money that if you spent it wisely, you'd be set for life. But it is so little money most people will spend it all in a few weeks.
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.