The operational situation is worsening for Ukraine🇺🇦 Armed Forces in the South Donetsk direction.
In the following days, Russia 🇷🇺 will reach Kourakhove and Ukraine will be forced to leave Vuhledar, its main stronghold on this front.
🧵THREAD🧵1/20 ⬇️
First, the general map for more context :
I'm french and most of my threads will be in french, so i'm sorry but you will have to translate most of them... (next ones will be in french).
I'm also writing for @atummundi, you can follow this account.
I still see many people saying the situation is under controll for Ukraine armed forces near Pokrovsk.
That's not totally true for Pokrovsk front itself. In the past week, Russia advanced to the edge of the third defensive line, taking the whole of Hrodivka city.
But if the situation on the Pokrovsk 'city' front is more or less under controll, it is not the case on the Pokrovsk/Kourakhove axis.
This video geolocated by shows a russian assault east of Ukrainsk, on a field where there are barely no scars of shelling t.me/creamy_caprice
This happened west of the town of Ukrainsk Russia captured a few days ago. This progress put the Selydove stronghold in danger.
Moreover, there are no more defensive lines west of the railway.
The Russian objective is not difficult to understand. They are now having a foothold on the railway. This will allow them to cross and try to reach the lake in Kourakhove.
Ukrainian positions in Hrynk and Kurakhivka may be forced to be abandonned.
A few days ago, I showed a map of fortified lines around Kourakhove. You can see the Andriivka and Kourakhove line are looking south.
And you can see the same thing near Pokrovsk : Russian progress south of Selydove near the railway is exactly at the east of the line south of Pokrovsk.
Based on geolocated footages from @UAControlMap by (@EjShahid and @klinger66) + @Deepstate_UA map, russian forces are present west of Hostre after multiple assaults.
They will soon cut the Kurakhivka-Kourakhove road.
Worst case scenario would be 🇷🇺 presence west of Kourakhove.
Now, some videos from Vuhledar front. This is a very well defended frontline, maybe because units there are well trained and organized.
The first 2 videos show russian progress west of Vuhledar, and the third shows russian losses that are still high there.
Based on @naalsio26 analysis, Russia lost 1 715 (1352 destroyed) vehicles on its Avdiivka-Pokrovsk-Kourakhove offensive. This data is from @WarSpotting, a very good source.
Ukraine lost 336 vehicles.
Among them, 780 AFV, 358 tanks and 73 trucks.
I use @WarSpotting and @lost_warinua maps to see where the geolocated losses are.
This a very good indicator of the situation at the front. For example, there are only few of them near Novohrodivka but many near Kourakhove.
Vuhledar was a frontline city for more than 2 years. It held because it has dominant high rise buildings.
Since Russia took two of the 3 heights of the region (mine and factory), Ukraine will have to leave Vuhledar in the coming days/weeks.
Here is a distrurbing map looking west to understand the overall russian offensive.
In a few days, we will reach the anniversary of the Avdiivka offensive, which soon become Pokrovsk offensive.
During the time, the objective changed a lot.
Russia first aimed at taking the whole Donetsk suburbs. They succeeded with high losses in Marinka, Krasnohorivka and Avdiivka.
But Ukraine did not have any plan after the fall of Donetsk suburbs.
In 2014-2015, Ukraine failed to enter Donetsk and even lost Donetsk airport to russian forces.
They established themselves on the western suburbs and built formidable fortifications. However, nobody from 2014 to 2023 prepared solid fall back lines west of this line.
Now, we just have to compare this to the north Donetsk : in 2022, formidable fortifications were erected all around Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Bakhmout was fortified, Siversk was fortified, Tchasiv Yar was fortified :
They are holding in the north but not in the south.
The collapse of Donetsk city front began in june-august 2022.
Donetsk was a secondary frontline. Russia took Krasnohorivka north of Avdiivka, bypassing the defenses east of the town.
They entered Pisky, Opytne and Vodyane because there were not enough men there.
I've been monitoring a few indicators to understand both russian objective and ukrainian defensive war :
-Fortifications
-Armoured/tank losses
-direction of progress
-bombing
For example, here is a Planet image from the 21st, showing a lot of russian bombing north of Novohrodivka. This suggest they are currently stopped and they are trying to destroy ukrainian positions along the railway before resuming their progress.
This is the end of the thread. The overall situation is more or less stable on other frontlines. A video emerged of a russian progress north of Niu York, I'm waiting for further proofs.
Russia is also closing in on Senkove in Kupiansk front (north-east).
20/20
I'm also writing on other topics than Ukraine. Here is a french thread on the Sudan civil war, which is very difficult but very interesting to understand :
*123 000 russian 🇷🇺 soldiers got killed in 2025 in Ukraine 🇺🇦, more than the french 🇫🇷 ground forces.
In total, 281 550 russian soldiers were lost in 2025 as per leaked report. It includes 123 000 killed and missing and 158 529 wounded.
🧵THREAD🧵1/25 ⬇️
These leaked documents were initially shared by this account @hochuzhit_com which provided these two pictures.
*I don't know about the source which seems controversial but the data seems veracious since it is close to other data collected by Mediazona, the Ukrainian General Staff and independent analysts.
There is high possibility this can be a propaganda operation, but the data can still be used.
The document is giving few interesting insights on the state of russian forces. With 83 000 killed, it's close to the Mediazona count (54 000 in August with verified data).
It is also giving data on particular units and different sectors.
Depuis que je cartographie les frappes aériennes russes, j'ai pu en localiser environ 65% (principalement à Pokrovsk, Soumy et Pokrovsk'e).
Le reste non cartographié est probablement à Kherson, Zaporizhia, Kramatorsk, Koupiansk ou Kharkiv.
Hier, j'ai publié cette carte des plus de 6 000 frappes aériennes russes entre Pokrovsk et Kostiantynivka sur les 5 derniers mois, avec différents codes couleurs.
Since few weeks, russian forces started again to push for Drujkivka, while hundreds of russians are still isolated.
I mapped all airstrikes there and at the same time, Ukraine 🇺🇦 is preparing the 3rd Donbass line🧑🔧.
🧵THREAD🧵1/25 ⬇️
Since two months, there have been a massive split between analysts. Pro-ukrainian or pro-russian sources are divided to understand how much km2 fell this month to Russia.
Many fail to understand the new logics of war.
For example :
-Some will map an area as russian because a ukrainian drone striked russian soldiers there or a russian was seen with a flag.
-Some will map a large grey zone
I would myself map the grey zone for one main reason :
C'était le titre d'une conférence à laquelle j'avais assisté en 2022 auprès de la communauté arménienne en France. A l'époque, l'Azerbaïdjan🇦🇿 avait envahit 300km2 d'Arménie.
Pourtant, le contexte a changé et les enjeux aussi
🧵THREAD🧵1/19⬇️
J'ai terminé de cartographier l'ensemble des positions militaires arméniennes et azerbaïdjanaises le long de leur frontière bilatérale.
En tout, ce sont plus de 1 400 positions arméniennes et 1 000 positions azerbaïdjanaises recensées.
Ces positions nous permettent de voir la vulnérabilité arménienne, encerclée de deux côté, notamment au sud, par l'Azerbaïdjan.
On remarque également les quelques 300 km2 de terres arméniennes (frontière de 1991) occupés par l'Azerbaïdjan, ici à Vardenis.
'South Donetsk' the main battle in Ukraine 🇺🇦 for now 2 years
After two months of forced "pause" in Pokrovsk, it seems Russia🇷🇺 is pushing again. At the same time, the push for Pokrovsk'e has not observed any pause.
Let's talk about the main battle in Ukraine
🧵THREAD🧵1/22⬇️
You all know my classification of the ukrainian war into different battle : Kyiv, Kherson I, Kharkiv I, Donbass I, Kharkiv II, Kherson II, Donbass II, Zaporizhia, Kursk and Donbass III ongoing.
This third Donbass battle since 2022 is for Donetsk and now Pokrovsk.
To remember, the first one occured with the first reorganisation of russian forces after their failure to take Kyiv, taking Marioupol and Sievierodonetsk.
They moved then to Kherson and started after the withdrawal the second one for Bakhmut. The third one started in nov. 2023.