On the #Pokrovsk front, #Russia 🇷🇺 can't keep up the pressure anymore and was forced to downscale its offensive efforts.
#Ukraine 🇺🇦 is exploiting this by counter-attacking in many places along this sector, while fortifications are being strongly reinforced with a novelty: the great use of barbed wire.
🧵Thread🧵1/⬇️
2/🧵
Dachne - Andriivka
This is the most difficult part of the whole Pokrovsk front for the Ukrainians.
Russian forces pressure Kostyantynopil constantly, but are always repelled. Without changes.
Zelenivka, south of Ulakly, reportedly changed hands twice today. In the morning, the Russians captured the village, but a Ukrainian counterattack was able to clear part of the village in the afternoon. The destruction of 2 Russian tanks and 3 MTLBs is reported. Russian forces are also attacking east of Zelenivka on the opposite bank of the Sukhyi Yali river; extremely harsh fighting is still ongoing.
In Dachne, the Ukrainians still control the south-westernmost corner of the town. Nonetheless, the Russians started accumulating infantry in the center for further assaults on the remaining Ukrainian positions in the village and around it. Fighting continues.
The most difficult situation is Andriivka, which some sources give as practically captured. Here the Russians consolidated and secured last week's gains and continue wedging themselves in the town. At the moment, they're trying to fully secure positions on the western buildings of the town. The northern part is still controlled by Ukraine, but north of that, the Russians entered a trench system located on the dominant hill overlooking Andriivka itself, which endangers every Ukrainian position south of it.
The Ukrainians will have to retreat in the very near future from Dachne and nearby positions to Ulakly to avoid encirclement, as Kostyantynopil is already being attacked from both sides. After, the Ukrainians will fall back to the line Kostyantynopil - Rozlyv, before falling back again to the more solid Oleksiivka - Bahatyr - Komar line, where they're expected to hold out for some time.
3/🧵
Sribne - Nadezhdynka (Nadiivka)
The Russians are clearing the last buildings in the northern part of Sribne and are constantly attacking Zaporizhzhia. After capturing the central part of the town, they moved fighting to the western part, where it is still ongoing.
Russian forces are trying to recapture lost ground after a localized Ukrainian counter-attack in the forests south of Nadezhdynka, while also trying to capture a treeline that approaches Preobrazhenka from the north, threatening Ukrainian positions in Zaporizhzhia.
In picture #2, the next suitable lines of defense.
4/🧵
Uspenivka - Udachne
After weeks of extremely harsh fighting, Uspenivka now currently acts as a gray zone, even though it is possible to define a frontline (picture 3): the Russians were recorded north-west of Uspenivka and in the basements of the south-westernmost buildings. They are also trying to clear Tsentralnaya Street and enter Gagarina Street, but 3 Ukrainian-controlled strongholds block their way. In the video below you can see just how ruined the town is after such fighting.
After a Ukrainian counterattack in Udachne's Mine "Pokrovs'ke VPS-1", the Russians were able to recapture it and gain a foothold in the easternmost residential buildings, where they were hit by Ukrainian drones. The Russians constantly try to break in the town center but are always repulsed and forced to fall back. Udachne is extremely important, because it's the last big town before the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and it also acts as a logistical hub. After is the railway, which the Russians can use as what I call "an infantry highway", which would be extremely inconvenient for the Ukrainians at the Dnipro border.
Again, in picture #3 you can see the most solid Ukrainian fallback lines in the region. These are mostly concentrated behind the pond and in the treelines and fields covered by barbed wire, especially south of Uspenivka and south-west of Udachne. North of the latter is a big industrial zone, which also works as a very solid defense node.
5/🧵
Kotlyne - Pishchane
This is one of the most interesting regions.
Here, the Ukrainian Skala battalion and other units were involved in a series of successful counter-attacks. The southern hamlet of Kotlyne was almost completely recaptured, and reports of Ukrainian advancements north of Kotlyne are present, claiming the Russians retreated to the mine north-east of the town. Pishchane was also likely completely liberated, according to DS and various Russian and Ukrainian reports, while the Russians are also slowly retreating in mine N°3 just east of Pishchane. In general, the Russian spearhead was blunted here, and Russia is discouraged from further attacks because of threat of encirclement and deterioration of logistics. Fierce fighting is still ongoing, updates are to come in the next few days.
6/🧵
Dachenske - Lysivka
Here too the Ukrainians successfully counter-attacked and secured the town's eastern part. Here less information was revealed, and no geolocations proving this advancement has been released as of now. In Lysivka too the Ukrainians claim advancements, but there too no geolocations to prove these claims are present for now. More updates to come.
7/🧵
Vozdvyzhenka - Myrnohrad
A bit like Andriivka, the edges of the Pokrovsk sector are the hottest. The Russians were able to secure positions on the Pokrovsk - Kostyantynivka highway exchange crossing the blown-up bridge and continue trying to advance further north of it. The Ukrainians were able to conduct a successful counter-attack in Vodyane Druhe too and briefly recaptured the meat processing plant "Ukrainian Bacon", before the Russians started fighting for it again today. Here, opportunities to stop the Russians are present, as clearly visible from the picture below. Unfortunately, though, Ukraine has a serious lack of manpower here, and the situation is still looking quite bad for the defendors.
8/🧵
Thanks for reading this analysis on the Pokrovsk front!
If you liked it, consider reposting to help my channel grow and following me. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments or DM me personally. Next will be a comprehensive thread about Ukrainian fortification works all over the front. Stay tuned!
After weeks of tedious mapping of every single trench, foxhole, emplacement, ditch, blockpost, dragon's teeth, and barbed wire line, I've finally finished the Berdyansk sector, one of the most heavily fortified pieces of territory in the whole of Ukraine.
The total count is as follows:
- 40,000 trenches, foxholes, emplacements, firing positions
- 450 separate anti-tank ditches
- 600 separate dragon's teeth lines
- 220 separate barbed wire lines
Let's look at the most interesting things I found along the way.
3/🧵
The area of the Ukrainian 2023 Velyka Novosilka counteroffensive.
De-facto, Russia's line "0.5". It was designed to absorb the first blow of Ukraine's counteroffensive and soften the Ukrainians for the first line of defense.
1/🧵 The situation in and around fortress Kostyantynivka: is it in danger, what are the main problems, and what's next.
2/🧵
Kostyantynivka is a quite sizeable city in northern Donetsk Oblast, with a population of 67,000 as of 2022, and is part of Ukraine's formidable Kostyantynivka - Druzhkivka - Kramatorsk - Slovyansk defensive node, where Kostyantynivka is the southernmost city of the four.
These four cities are factually the last of their size still in Ukrainian-controlled Donbas.
3/🧵
Ever since 2023, up to this day, Kostyantynivka has served, and continues to serve, critically important purposes for Ukrainian forces in some of the hottest areas of eastern Ukraine, like the Bakhmut, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar, and Rusyn Yar sectors, being used, for example, as an accumulation hub, logistical base, and (probably) command point.
Pokrovsk - Dobropillia general update (26/12 - 01/01)
2/🧵
Pokrovsk industrial area. Russian soldiers move in waves of groups of 1-3 soldiers along the highway.
In the orange square, very frequent and large traffic of infantry is recorded.
From there, they cross the railway into the industrial zone along the indicated routes. Russian forces seem to still be unable to consolidate their positions there.
3/🧵
Just east of this area, Russian forces tend to move as shown in the picture, mostly following the urbanized area but also attempting infiltrations in the treelines just north of Pokrovsk.
1/🧵
About the recent severe worsening of the situation in #Siversk: events that led to this and information from the field.
Unfortunately, in the last 2 weeks, after more than 3 years of effective defense of the sector by Ukrainian units, Russian forces made significant progress in the Siversk direction and in the city itself.
2/🧵
The main unit commanding the city's defense is the very experienced 54th Mechanized Brigade (with battalion "K-2" drones "Sky Fury").
Because of the gradual prioritization of other directions and the de-prioritization of more dormant and/or stable ones like Siversk, the Ukrainian command has not allocated any big amount of resources to the Brigade in the last months, or even years, choosing to distribute them in more critical sectors instead. As such, because of slow attrition, manpower and other needs of the brigade were not replenished at a sufficient rate, making it slowly become severely understaffed in manpower up to today.
Taking advantage of this, recently the Russian command finally reinforced the sector with new brigades, adding them to the ones made up of terrible-quality DPR and LPR forces, which severely impeded any progress on their part in the last years, among other reasons.
1/🧵Uspenivka sector, Pokrovske front, according to information from the field. Short update thread.
In the last few days, the situation, finally, significantly improved for Ukrainian forces after the transfer of the reinforcements I talked about here ().
After a period of generally large successes in this sector, in the last days Russian forces have been suffering a lot in wounded and dead servicemen, and, while further north near Vyshneve fast advancements are still recorded, they factually didn't advance by a meter near Uspenivka in recent days (the orange polygon you see is a correction, and DeepState updates are being published with a delay and generally diminish Russian gains here).
3/🧵
Until now, the Russians advanced well to Uspenivka, effectively exploiting the very well-built Ukrainian trenches (that were simply abandoned by Ukraine) to accumulate their own manpower and transfer it without Ukrainian FPV threat. Once they reached the Yanchur river, it was imperative for them to force it immediately to exploit an almost complete lack of any Ukrainian organized defense effort, but to do this it was essential to secure the farm at 47.770945, 36.454224 (east of Novomykolaivka), and the small part of Novomykolaivka located east of the Yanchur river (1 single line of houses) at 47.771161, 36.447422.
🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺 Day 1300, comprehensive frontline and rear situation report: territorial changes, trends, strategies and objectives of both sides, fortifications.
🧵Thread🧵1/⬇️
2/🧵
Zaporizhzhia Oblast', Stepnohirsk sector.
Russian forces continue offensive operations in the sector, despite generally low media coverage.
The Russians gather up in Plavni's center to move through the gray zone to northern Plavni, and accumulate there. After this, they try to move into southern Prymorske, but are eliminated in the accumulation phase or cleared out by frequent Ukrainian infantry raids.
The Russians also often try to move through the kill zone in the fields north of Kamyanske, but the area is open enough for Ukrainian drone operators to control well and eliminate any movement, causing high casualties to the Russians.
Further northeast, the Russians constantly attempt to move into the 3rd microdistrict. This is because the district is composed of still mostly intact high rise buildings, that can be used for a safer accumulation for further assault operations.
From the 3rd microdistrict, the Russians seem to prefer attacking Ahrarna St. in southern Stepnohirsk.
Because of this predictability, the Ukrainians are zeroed in and constantly counterattack with all fire methods available.
Because of little successes evidenced after trying to take Stepnohirsk head-on, the Russians are slowly shifting their attention eastwards. An accumulation is recorded northeast of Kamyanske in the indicated area.
In general, the Ukrainians seem to be effectively holding the borders, combining fire damage with active defense, and achieving a favorable ratio of casualties with the Russian side. Russian successes here, at the moment, are not significant in any way.
White = trenches
Yellow = ditches
Blue = dragon's teeth
Gray = barbed wire
In the Uspenivka sector, Russian forces are advancing through vast rural areas. The Ukrainians can do little to nothing to counter this because of the almost total lack of manpower in this particular direction, that has not seen activity since 2022, and from which many units were transferred to other areas deemed more critical.
The trenches you see in this direction are either empty, because of the critical lack of men to man them, or unused, because they are outdated relative to drone warfare, as they are situated in the middle of fields and uncovered.
At the moment, fighting is ongoing for Olhivske, and Russian forces came close to Novoivanivka, for which fighting will likely soon start.
A bit north, after the capture of Zaporizke without much resistance, the village of Novomykolaivka was captured soon after. Russian forces are expected to continue along this small valley to Kalynivske, which suffered heavy FAB bombardments last week.
Near fortified Berezove, Russian forces decided to bypass both this village and Ternove, seemingly after encountering resistance, and advanced significantly between the 2 villages in the treelines.
This forced the Ukrainians to retreat from Ternove, for which fighting is ongoing, in favor of some outdated fortifications just north of it, which, as said multiple times, provide only an extremely small advantage.