SITREP 10/18/23: Israel + Ukraine War Mega-Update

It seems like the third time I’m starting a column with the report that Israel has cold feet. But this time there’s far more substantiation for it. Credible reports state that Israel’s true reason for getting cold feet is that it fears Hezbollah’s threat of activating the northern front if Israel were to commit into the bog of Gaza.

Many people point to Israel’s comparatively massive army, with over 300,000+ reserves reportedly called up. But one must recall that Israel has a unique system: one of the only countries in the world where men and women are both drafted equally for mandatory conscription—this is why you see such a prevalence of female Israeli TikTok soldiers.

Thus the official statistic is that 40% of Israel’s conscript force are female soldiers—so how much of their large army is actually combat capable, it’s hard to know, but probably not commensurate with Hezbollah fighters on a one to one basis.

The other announcement is that the White House is very “concerned” about Israel’s lack of strategy related to a Gaza assault, and wants the settlement to be more “political.” The amount of aid is said to be held up partly due to this. There are several factors to this:

1. U.S. military planners likely know an IDF incursion into Gaza could be a trap that will turn into a massive mire for Israel, forcing U.S. to expend inordinate amounts of money and materiel to assist

2. U.S. further knows that once this mire activates and the civilian casualties start going up week over week, the chance of a wider war greatly increases as Hezbollah/Iran may be forced to enter and U.S. will be forced to act in order to save face. But not everyone in the U.S. may be eager for this because they know that this could be part of a much wider trap which includes China and Russia and could lead to a large scale humiliation and prestige loss for the U.S.

3. The U.S. knows that global sentiment is drastically turning against it and the West in general. To create another ongoing bloodbath in Gaza would mean the U.S. may lose critical support and geopolitical influence.

To touch on this last point: one must be aware of how major the global tectonic shifts are, which are in motion at the moment. The entire Arab world is consolidating in solidarity over the Gaza situation. The Iranian and Saudi ministers met in Jeddah again yesterday, which is very significant in its own right:

Qatar, Jordan, Turkey and many others have come out with big statements in support of Palestine. Particularly vis a vis Saudi Arabia, the motions are huge because KSA has always been one of the key linchpins holding the global Atlanticist Empire afloat.

Few people know but back in the early 70s—which the current period is beginning to mimic very closely—Saudi Arabia not only agreed to create the Petrodollar, which brought the U.S. dollar into global dominance, but also secretly bankrolled all the U.S. debt by being the largest purchaser of U.S. treasuries under a secret deal which remained classified for 40 years until recently. The scale of how much U.S. debt Saudi Arabia secretly holds is said to be off the charts and if it were to dump it all, it could potentially collapse the entire global financial system in one swoop.

So the fact that KSA is now being led increasingly into the arms of Russia and China (recall KSA is now an official member of BRICS, starting on January 1, 2024), is a big deal. Inroads were made toward Israeli normalization but now KSA has cut them off and is increasing its entrenchment with the Eastern bloc.

The other reason this is very significant is because if a larger war were to kick off, oil would become the primary geostrategic global lightning rod. That’s because Iran can wreak havoc on global markets, transits via the known chokepoints of the Persian Gulf, etc. This is underscored by the fact that the Iranian minister called for a total oil embargo on Israel during this meeting:

Iranian Foreign Minister: We call on a total oil and gas embargo by the Islamic countries against nations that support Israel

This is why Saudi’s role is particularly relevant because it would have an even larger outsize say if things really hit the fan, because of KSA’s global oil dominance.

Thus, these are some of the reasons U.S. is frightened of the risks, and is likely transferring that fear onto Israel, which is now unsure of what to do.

In fact, Putin just announced a new full-time Mig-31K patrol of the Black Sea, armed with Kinzhals, and appeared to imply that this was to put the U.S. carrier groups in the crosshairs:

It’s a tad strange given that Russia has had Bastion/Bal ship-killer coastal defense missiles in Tartus and has no need for Kinzhals but who knows.

The reach of Russian assets:

And for those wondering, this is said to be the current U.S. carrier position with the range of Hezbollah anti-ship missiles shown:

The carrier group is clearly anchoring itself right outside the range. Russian Yakhonts can go up to 800-1000km but those are domestic versions only, export versions cap out at 150-300km.

But getting back briefly to the U.S. position. The issue is that Blinken’s and Biden’s recent MidEast tour has, by all accounts, backfired as a disaster.

Source

Blinken and Biden both experienced major humiliating snubs:

Meanwhile Jordan cancelled a Biden summit that was meant to take place along with Palestinian and Egyptian leaders.

With Jordanian foreign minister instead vehemently condemning the new ‘Nakba’ attempt as an ‘act of war’:

At the UN Human Rights Council, members even turned away from the U.S. ambassador:

At the UN Human Rights Council, participants turn away from US Ambassador Michelle Taylor during her speech to protest Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Observers have been appalled at the unprecedented drop in U.S. influence and prestige in the Middle East.

The fact is, while the U.S. continues to stumble into zugzwang traps, isolating itself as the global villain, Russia and China continue to build a new world. Putin as we speak is in Beijing being hosted as the honored guest to the 3rd One Belt One Road Forum:
(Caption: The Adults Enter the Room)

But getting back to Israel, and to connect it to my last article—recall that I spoke of Israel’s inexorable march toward eventual extinction. The numbers are simply against them in the long run.

A few new statistics underline this. For instance, their official KIA have been updated, and are now higher than the last 30-40 years of conflicts:

The IDF updated its combat casualty figures: 303 military personnel and 56 police personnel killed.

For comparison, irrevocable IDF in past wars:

1) Second Lebanon War - 121;

2) First intifada - 179;

3) Second intifada (4.5 years) - from 215 to 315;

4) The first Lebanese war (the active phase lasted more than three months; according to the standard count, Beirut was taken by Israeli troops) - 350.

Furthermore, one analyst pointed out that after the Yom Kippur war of ‘73, Israel can be said to have pretty much suffered nothing but defeats—one way or another—or painful stalemates, which shows the slow decline of their capability over the erstwhile hapless Arabs:

After the October War of 1973 (Yom Kippur War), Israel suffered only defeats:

- October War 1973: At the end of the war, Israel is defeated by Egypt in Ismailia, as well as by Syria and its allies in Damascus and Quneitra.

— Lebanon War 1982-2000: Israel expelled by Hezbollah.

— First Intifada: Palestinian violence forces Israel to grant them autonomy.

— Second Intifada: Israel loses Gaza and part of the West Bank due to armed resistance by Palestinians

— Lebanon War 2006: Israel is driven back by Hezbollah.

— Gaza conflict 2006-2014: Hamas repeatedly pushed back Israel near the Gaza Strip.

— Gaza Strip Conflict 2021: Israel does not dare confront Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

- Gaza War 2023: Gaza temporarily liberates parts of southern Israel (occupied Palestine), connects with the West Bank and weakens Israel militarily and economically, so Israel is now on the defensive.‌‌

Now, of course most of these are arguable as pro-Israel supporters will claim Israel “won” most of them in decisive fashion, so it really depends on your outlook.

But it’s nonetheless clear to see that the trend is downward. Israel is no longer capable of the mass decisive victories of the 60s era and prior. And the fact that Hezbollah is said to have stockpiled massive amounts of modern missiles and gear of all kinds, as well as Iran’s now-ascendant position, particularly vis a vis penetration into the Syrian theater, right on Israel’s border—these things are very bearish for Israel in the long term.

Despite all this, there’s still good chance that Israel can “win” a bloody massacre in Gaza. But the question is: at what cost? Not only would it do grievous damage to Israel’s armed forces, economy, etc., but the reputational and geopolitical costs would be huge, given the Arab solidarity driven by the conflict thus far.

One thing’s for certain, the more Israel presses forward, the less relevant Ukraine becomes.

Current news is that Biden is once more in the process of presenting a $100B aid bill, but this time split between both Israel and Ukraine, though there’s no information to the actual split percentage.

As a last note on the Israeli situation, this Israeli woman claims that her sources confirmed that Netanyahu issued a deliberate 7 hour ‘stand down’ order to all IDF at the start of ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’. If true, this would confirm the entire thing being a Pearl Harbor and 9/11 style falseflag:

That’s not to mention the Israeli settler woman who, in a new interview, confirms that it was in fact the IDF/Israeli police who slaughtered most of the “hostages” in the Hamas raid on the music festival:

Not only does she state the IDF tank fired into the building killing all the hostages inside, but that police forces killed many of them in the cross fire. Interestingly, it was noted elsewhere the festival was to take place farther away, but was moved to a new location right next to the Gaza border only two days beforehand, which makes it smell of a setup.

In the original footage, you can even see IDF tanks already there, with festival goers hiding behind them, which obviously calls into question the narrative that Hamas raided the innocent festival for the sole purpose of massacring civilians:

Lastly, speaking of Israeli tanks, it’s been noted how an innovation Russia was once ridiculed for, has now become the de rigueur norm for all global militaries. The IDF has now been busily welding the infamous anti-drone “cope cages” onto all its tanks in preparation for the Gaza foray:

But interestingly, keen-eyed observers have even apparently seen the cages now appearing on tanks of the Indian armed forces:

Just another in a long line of proof that Russia continues to innovate while the world ridicules, then silently copies.

That being said, at the current time, Russian cages are far more advanced than all of these, as they have adopted all sorts of defensive measures and foresight into them, including special care paid to the ergonomic functions vis a vis the crew member egresses, as well as various functionalities to protect against all types of projectiles like top-attack ATGMs, not just drones, not to mention even ERA armor on some of them.

IDF prepares on Gaza border:

***

Moving on to the Ukraine theater, there’s a lot to talk about.

First we’ve finally had the long-awaited introduction of the ATACMS missiles which were used for exactly the purpose I outlined they would be, which is pretty much the only thing they can be used for.

For diligent readers of my work, you’ll recall I specifically said that hitting the Berdiansk airport is the only thing they’ll be useful for because the cluster-head variant can’t do much else, and other more significant strategic airfields are too distant to hit. Right on cue, they went for the Berdiansk airport where Russian rotor-wing aviation is stationed.

Let’s cover that first and then lead into a much broader picture most analysts have missed, which explains why exactly the ATACMS was used now.

So what do we know so far?

The ATACMS shells were found, with the interesting manufactured date of 10/1996, proving U.S. fed some pretty expired missiles to Ukraine, as always:

This variant has been identified as one with only a range of 165km, which is also very telling.

#Ukraine: Well, something extraordinary happened- the remains of M39 missiles (Made in 1996 and 1997) of the MGM-140A ATACMS Block I system used by Ukrainian forces against Berdyansk AB. This variant has a range of ~165km, inertial guidance, and carries 950 M74 submunitions.

Coupled with the fact that it was revealed only a small test batch of about ~12 missiles was sent to Ukraine, this is very telling. It means Biden sent a limited batch to satisfy Zelensky’s desperation. But it was not only limited in number, but also in the fact that the short range continues to indicate Biden is afraid to cross Russia’s “red lines” in sending the full 300km+ range version. The 165km range is still a lot more than the 80-90km of HIMARS but is not really game changing (the Storm Shadow already goes much farther).

The AFU published footage of what is alleged to be the ATACMS launch, showing 6 being launched at once:

However another piece of footage likewise claimed to be ATACMS showed only 3:

Russia itself claimed that 6 were launched and that they intercepted 3 of them. It’s impossible to tell who is right. However, some sources further claimed that GLSDBs were used in conjunction in order to saturate the air defense. GLSDBs (ground launched small diameter bombs) are also launched from HIMARS in the same way, so for all we know there could have been 6 launches but 3 were ATACMS and 3 GLSDBs.

Also it’s impossible to know whether Russia actually did intercept any of them, and it’s likely that other objects would be launched to further saturate the air defenses, whether drones, MALD decoys, regular HIMARS, Storm Shadows, etc.

Given the fact that the damage turned out to be disproportionately small to that amount of ballistic missile fire, I personally assume that half the payload was likely intercepted. As is always the case, the first time Russia deals with a new system will be difficult, as their AD systems are not yet acquainted with the signatures and haven’t stored detailed profiles on them in their internal databases yet.

As we’ve now seen with the Storm Shadow which has faded into obscurity, the ATACMS will eventually be profiled and counter-acted as well—if it even continues to be used, which is questionable given that it’s very limited in number even in U.S. inventories, so Ukraine is unlikely to ever get many of them.

I’ve previously stated that Russia theoretically should have no problems intercepting the ATACMS in general given the fact that it has verifiably intercepted dozens of Tochka-U missiles from Ukraine, and these travel at faster speeds than ATACMS. However, one must recall that while ATACMS is slow by ballistic missile standards, compared to Iskander, etc., it’s still extremely fast in general at Mach 3.5. For instance, the Storm Shadow is considered a very fast cruise missile and has given Russia some problems and it flies just under Mach 1.

Furthermore, since the ATACMS cluster variant basically explodes open and releases clusters, it may be even harder to hit as once that happens, there is no “missile” to target anymore:

Shot of real ATACMS missile cluster submunition release.

It’s just not really known at what altitude it does the final release. One would think it would happen fairly late stage to minimize the cluster’s spread but it’s unknown exactly. It’s not possible to intercept a “cloud” of over 300 tiny cluster submunitions once they’re already unleashed.

As I said before, these missiles are literally worthless against anything hardened, trenches, and likely even armor like tanks. But against soft-skinned airframes sitting on a field, they can create a lot of damage, even if it’s not total destruction of the craft. Ultimately, if I had to guess the likely issue was simply down to Russia having the bare minimum of S-300/400 coverage there, primarily relying on SHORAD systems like Pantsir, etc., because they hadn’t needed the anti-ballistic missile systems before. One S-300/400 unit for the general region was likely not enough to deal with a saturation attack so to solve the issue could be as simple as moving in another S-300/400 battery closer.

So what damage did they cause, exactly?

Current estimates go from a low of 2-3 destroyed helicopters with a few more damaged, to a high of about 9 total destroyed/damaged.

The latest detailed satellite footage of the airfield:

According to one pro-Ukrainian source, he thinks the red circles could be destroyed choppers while yellow are “damaged”.

However, from Russian sources it was said that some of the fires were not choppers but auxiliary/fuel trucks, so the losses are likely over-estimated.

Furthermore, it’s likely only 1 or 2 of the choppers were Ka-52s, as there were many Mi-8s and such there. The only known video of the attack aftermath in fact shows only an Mi-8M clearly in the frame, and the spectators speak repeatedly of BK (ammo) and fuel tanks. You can also see only fuel tanks burning:

Thus I believe most of the scorch marks are likely ammo, fuel, and various auxiliary appurtenances.

From an official Russian military source MilitaryHeliPilot:

Soft landings to the overnighters!

To all those who are worried sick: AA burned the enemy, and will continue to do so.

The equipment will be restored and new ones will be produced in parallel, as I wrote.

There are no losses among the flying staff, but unfortunately there are losses among the ground staff. God rest the dead. And to the wounded speedy recovery!

All of us stand down!

S.Y. The situation on the equipment is offensive, but not critical. Judging by the news from the guys on the ground and other airfields, we made conclusions and took certain measures. How it will be further we will see.

@milhelipilot

He states air defense burned something, that no pilots were killed, and that “certain conclusions” regarding air defense were made by upper staff, and will be implemented. Recall how after Sevastopol was hit a month ago, there were no new successful strikes. Russia continues to improve and update its air defense tactics.

Another connected Russian source states the following. Specifically that 2 helicopters are destroyed and 7 damaged, “most likely” to be restored.

You know that we are not our favorite fried news, but the panic and hysteria in the morning on the AA site in Berdyansk, so we had to bother people who are running and flying there. Honestly, I don't know what and how much was flown - honestly, I don't know, there are some photos with M74 elements from ATACMS, but we won't vouch for their reliability, based on the source.

Preliminary from what is known: no killed, wounded from the technical staff. On boards - 2 to scrap and 7 damaged, most likely, under restoration, but it will be clear later. For such a massive strike, the funds that were saved for something, but were given as retaliation for the strike on the Odessa airfield - in essence, a pittance.

Health to the wounded, and the iron factories of our world-conspirators have plenty of iron.

A special salute to "our" military bloggers who virtually killed a whole regiment.

Observe information hygiene and wash your hands after the Internet.

This seems to mostly accord with Ukraine’s own side which claims about 9 total hit in one way or another. We can say this represents a big hit to the extent that the field reportedly hosted something like 48+ choppers off the top of my head. So this would represent nearly 20% of the field wiped out—or at least taken out of service, temporarily or not. Not a bad strike in that regard, if that’s the case. But as with previous such strikes, it’s most likely a one-off. Ask yourself why that is.

For those worried about losses recall the following. Just taking the Ka-52 as an example because it has the highest losses thus far of Russia’s critical rotorcraft aviation. Oryx’s official numbers have it at 44 Ka-52s lost during the entire SMO.

The official figures for 2022 were 16 Ka-52 deliveries from the manufacturer. However, it was stated that those figures were “doubled” for 2023. That means we can expect 32 Ka-52s built in 2023. Add them together you get a total of 48 Ka-52s built between 2022 and 2023. That’s 4 more than were lost in the SMO as per Oryx’s likely inflated figures.

That means not only is Russia fully keeping up with losses and in fact has a net gain of choppers, but the 2024 figures are set to increase even more.

And ultimately, even if every single Ka-52 and Mi-28 was lost, Russia has nearly 800 Mi-8/Mi-17s which can do just about everything the Ka-52s can do as they too have various armed variants like Mi-8AMTV and Mi-171SH which can carry almost everything the Kamovs can, from guided Ataka missiles, unguided rockets, Vitebsk EW modules, etc.

But like I said, Ka-52 production is keeping up with all losses, and Mi-28 even more so considering very few of those have been lost (13 as per Oryx) and their production was said have tripled rather than doubled, over the 12 deliveries in 2022. That means 2023 is said to have 36 Mi-28s built.

And the latest Ka-52s are now seen regularly sporting the peerless Izdeliye 305e LMUR missile. Here you can see it being shot at over 15km, which is nearly unheard of for rotary-wing craft as U.S. Apache’s Hellfires max out at 10-11km. Watch the full video to see how the enemy position was identified then relayed to aircrews, the strike seen for the first time in a rare onboard visual of the Ka-52 copilot/gunner operating the missile to target from over 15km:

Now moving onto why this attack was important, which I had hinted at before. It wasn’t simply done out of the blue but for a very clever strategic reason.

You see, I’ve covered over the past month how Ukraine has been building up forces on the Dnieper west bank for a potential new cross-river assault to make up for their Zaporozhye offensive disaster. And since Berdiansk is the largest rotary-craft base in the region, they wanted to totally disable it right on the eve of a potential assault, given the fact that rotary-craft have proved to be the most dangerous to Ukrainian advances.

That’s what they went for because right around the time of the Berdiansk strike, Ukraine launched a major Kherson region offensive, landing troops north of the Antonovsky bridge. Rybar set the internet on fire with a now debunked map that showed Ukraine capturing an entire town on Russia’s left bank, to wild cheers of the pro-Ukrainian blogosphere.

It’s true that a major assault was launched—even Putin was forced to comment on it from Beijing:

The basic information is as follows. As you can see, in the area just to the east of the Antonovsky bridge, there are a series of marshy, uninhabited islets between the first settlements on the Russian side. These were once well-fortified by Russian positions but were swept away during the Kakhovka dam destruction, leaving the area problematic to defend:

Like I said, they’ve had the Ukrainian 35th and 36th Marines and many other groups transferring there for a while, with German river crossing equipment and moving heavy armor, tanks, etc., there as well. What they do is slowly build up forward supply dumps on those marshy islands and use them as springboards to launch assaults into Russia’s side.

But Russia counter-attacked and reportedly dealt heavy losses to the AFU, who retreated. None of Rybar’s claims of captured Russian towns held true at all. They even destroyed UA barges used to try to transport troops across:

As well as American Willard Sea Force 11M boats:

🇷🇺🇺🇦 A heavy UAF boat, Willard Sea Force 11M, of American production, was hit, then began to move chaotically in circles, apparently the crew suffered severe shrapnel wounds and a concussion.

And their landings hit by drone-bombs.

Here is a compilation showing Russian strikes on the destroyed smaller Antonovsky railway bridge that’s around this geolocation area: 46.673685170490785, 32.79780106117989.

You can see small Ukrainian DRGs skulking around as Russia waylays them from above. The smaller bridge you see connecting the two islets around the 1:43 mark of the video is at this geolocation: 46.66270107665683, 32.804681250518605

As you can see by where they’re being turned back, they’re not even really making it over to the Russian side. Rybar may have mistook reports of some forward scouts or DRGs that crept close to the Russian settlement. Either way, their losses are said to be over 70 men here just yesterday alone. They accomplished nothing, as Putin said. However, because of the long build up and serious focus on this area, it’s expected that they will continue making very bold moves, sacrificing endless lives to meat assaults here to try for some backdoor breakthrough to divert attention.

***

Moving on to the most important theater of Avdeevka.

Here the news is mixed but hopeful. It starts off once more with an ostensibly bad slant. The Ukrainian side is rejoicing with claims that the Avdeevka offensive has completely stalled, collapsed, and failed. This was seemingly supported by a couple downer posts from the Russian frontline, the most notable of which that made waves in Ukrainian circles was the following from Russian Vozhak Z channel (note: “cassettes” refers to cluster-bombs):

That sounds hopeless at first glance. But allow me to translate. Firstly, he’s not saying the offensive is over like some have interpreted. In the end he clearly says the conditional “IF” we don’t get higher usage of artillery, “we will get stuck here.” So the end sort of contradicts the opening, that they’re not quite stuck yet but it’s simply very difficult going. Also quick note, the above translation is off and Hurricanes and Sunny Days is meant to refer to Uragans and Sunburn MLRS systems, for which he’s asking support.

His next day’s update goes as follows:

The storming of Avdeevka continues. Everything is unchanged. We are holding the fortifications. Struggling and dying. Counter-battery fire is still bad. And this, as far as I know, is the number one problem on the whole front. We got hit by a tank today, hiding in a hole. I'm still alive and well. I have nothing more to say right now.

Then the next:

The fighting for Avdeevka continues. We are holding our positions. At a huge cost, but we are holding them. The intensity of enemy shelling has decreased dramatically. This means that they do not have an endless supply of ammunition. On the contrary, our side is much better today with counter-battery warfare. Today we identified firing points and destroyed an enemy dugout in the Tsarskaya Okhota area, with an LNG crew inside. Minus 4 Germans. That's for Danka, you bastards! I'm still alive and well. The assault continues.

So, it’s very difficult going but as you can see, the assault isn’t “over” as the first post seemed to suggest to the wild rejoices of Ukrainians.

Also to clarify something. The reason Russia’s assault “stopped” is to consolidate newly gained positions, as well as the bad weather he mentioned which also blinds the drones/air power on Russia’s side. When they captured new UA positions, they now have to dig into them, reinforce the trenchworks which are often damaged or destroyed by the fighting, then spend a few days restocking them with supplies, etc. This takes a while because movement has to be minimal and typically at night.

We’ll get into where they captured positions in a moment. But first, recall that this is just one perspective from one narrow vector of the Avdeevka fight. I said last time there are up to 10 different axes of attacks that were launched. Other troops writing from those fronts share far more upbeat updates. Here’s one:

There is a report form a soldier (RF) from the Avdeevka Battle: (Make out of it what ever you want) --

"I’m reading the news now and I don’t understand where the ideas come from that the offensive turned out to be a “failure”?- The forces of the 114th brigade took control of the waste heap in the KHZ area, which gives a huge plus for reconnaissance and more. No one will put artillery on it, as armchair experts think, because this is a lost cause that will entail heavy losses.

How could we lose so many tanks? Almost all the structures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the directions of Donetsk are underground + this is a plain that is perfectly covered by our tanks from a distance; the fortifications are stormed only by infantry with the support of artillery, so that ours can come much closer to the position.

This is why difficulties arise, because it is absolutely not profitable for us to break through all these fortifications, and it sounds like science fiction. The success of the offensive is shown from the village's perspective. Krasnohorivka towards Berdychi, where there are no fortified structures 12 meters underground, where every centimeter is filled with concrete, and on top there is a small hill of earth, like in the Donetsk direction.

Every 100 meters covered in the Experienced/Vodyany direction is a huge victory. And most importantly - the waste heap. Now our guys need to gain a foothold in positions, and reconnaissance needs to identify the remaining ammunition depots and track the delivery of new units of equipment/ammunition/provisions and destroy them.

Monitor every rotation and exit of the enemy from positions and prevent any withdrawal of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel. The goals are clear, the goals are adequate, it’s only a matter of time. And you should forget about the cauldron for the near future if you don’t want to see a bloody meat grinder of our guys." - (For me it sounds that bloody hill was taken (again) - but it is not sure to me if it will be held)

And then another one:

TG channels continue to disseminate information about the advance of our forces on the northern and southern flanks of Avdiivka, this is not true, our forces are in occupied positions, a number of measures are being taken to expand the bridgehead.

To understand the scale of the task: In order to hold Avdievka, the enemy command deployed significant reinforcements, in addition to the forces already available in the direction.

So, units from the 1st brigade arrive to the west of the Karlovskoye Reservoir.

45 special forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were sent to the direction of the village of Berdychi-Stepovoe, and personnel of the 63 special forces of the Armed Forces were transferred from the rear areas of the Chernigov region to Avdeevka.

The enemy has concentrated a significant number of guns in the Avdeevsky direction; 155 mm howitzers are actively used, the firing range of which does not allow them to be suppressed in a timely manner from cannon artillery.

Our aviation and artillery have again increased the density of fire, however, we ask you not to rush things.

So what has Russia actually captured?

It’s true that in the Slag Heap direction they’ve mostly stopped. I think the reason is because the Slag Heap is directly adjacent to the most fortified area of all, which is the Coke Plant (metallurgical not soft drink).

Here you can see the giant industrial plant just south of the big Slag Heap. The red arrows represent where AFU is firing from their very hardened positions in the industrial complex, the yellow arrow where Russian forces are trying to break out of:

The industrial complex is said to be even much more fortified than Azovstal due to the fact they still have a supply line open while Azovstal was entirely besieged and cut off. Given those peculiarities, you can see why the Slag Heap is difficult to advance past.

Here’s Russia’s view of the mountainous Slag Heap. Behind it lies the giant industrial complex which has been turned into a fortress teeming with ATGM positions of every kind:

Here’s a somewhat reverse view from the industrial complex looking toward Russia’s positions near the yellow line:

However, just north of there, Russian forces were said to have made inroads toward Stepove, slowly expanding their bridgehead. One source claims they captured the small Stepove train station, though it’s unconfirmed for now.

You can see the station by the red flag icon below:

Some sources claim Russia has captured some positions across the tracks in the forest landings and fields there.

Also, they have expanded slightly northward from that area:

The biggest gains however continue to be in the south zone, where Russia has gained in multiple axes. Even Ukrainian accounts are crying about Russia’s dangerous gains directly to the south of the city of Avdeevka itself:

The reason I say this is particularly dangerous is because these inroads threaten to allow Russia to breach into the actual city proper, beginning street to street fighting where Russia’s firepower advantage typically is even more obvious as Ukraine’s NATO ISR advantages are nullified.

If you recall, both Bakhmut and Lisichansk-Severodonetsk fell after being surrounded but also when forces began to breach into the actual city, putting immense pressure on Ukrainian defenders in urban combat.

Pro Ukrainian TG Channel admits RF advances south of Avdeevka:

"South of Avdeevka, the enemy managed to capture part of a strong point in the gray zone. The fighting continues."

➤ 48.10697, 37.77596

At 48.10697, 37.77596 you can see Russian forces are pushing into the final intersection overpass before the city limits. And a video from today confirms this.

It shows a lone Russian BMP-2M “Berezhok module” variant speeding down the highway at precisely the coordinates above before the destroyed overpass, to unload its dismounts who go on to capture the forest landing positions:

In truth they’re heading toward already captured positions, so they’re really reinforcements which shows that the new forward line is being fortified.

Here’s another view:

Offensive at Avdeevka: ours storm and capture enemy positions, moving forward

▪️Regiment 1487 attacks, the enemy abandons positions, and those who did not have time to escape are destroyed. The second video shows the destruction of a machine gun point of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

▪️During the attack, the mobilized fighters occupied the enemy stronghold and entrenched themselves under the bridge.

▪️The offensive operation near Avdeevka continues. At different sections the advance is around 2 km. The enemy is trying to stop and push back our fighters using artillery and kamikaze drones.

But about 7km west of there in the Vodiane direction Russia has also made important gains toward Severne.

As to the losses being experienced, one Ukrainian account claims to have counted over 60-70 armored vehicles thus far just in the northern zone:

However:

1. This again takes every single visible “stationary” vehicle into account since the start. Many of them are slightly damaged or not even hit at all and merely stationary.

2. It’s from the start of the offensive, and most of the vehicles are light armor like BMPs and Tigr cars (Russian Humvee).

3. One of Ukraine’s own most authoritative sources, the reserve Ukrainian officer Tatarigami even admitted that many (most?) of the vehicles are actually old, destroyed long ago and probably Ukrainian at that:

Woops…

What underscores his point is that I’ve now caught big Ukrainian accounts on three separate occasions posting misattributed losses. The first was a video posted by one of the top UA accounts of a DPR soldier showing losses, but the video was confirmed to be from Spring 2023 and no where near the Avdeevka frontline (5km to the north, where fighting is no longer taking place). Luckily a keen-eyed geolocator debunked this.

The second time, they posted losses from an offensive in Novomikhailovka and tried to pass them off as Avdeevka. Sure, they were still Russian losses but no where near the same theater, which just shows the desperate lengths they go to in order to gin up the perception of Russian failure in Avdeevka.

Funnily enough, despite the alleged losses, some sources claim the AFU’s losses are still even higher. This is unverified by me personally but is still interesting to note:

According to Western sources, who are not inclined to compliment the RF Armed Forces, we are leading by at least points. The pro-Ukrainian OSINT technical estimated Russian losses at 15 tanks, 33 infantry fighting vehicles and a number of artillery pieces in the first 48 hours of fighting. Ukrainian losses exceed 50 tanks and 100 armored vehicles.

It’s supported by the fact that, despite such outcries of “massive Russian losses”, the Ukrainian side continues to howl in agony in Avdeevka. For instance:

◾️ Ukrainian report from the meat grinder:

◾️ Ukrainian militant sent a message to the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Budanov:

- We are tired of your advertising on our blood. In Adeevka we are fucked, Russians are constantly fucking us up... thanks to you Mr Budanov everyone believes things are good here, I wish you to came here personally and show how tough you are.

◾️ Ukrainians in the front lines give a different report than Ukrainian authorities. Don't worry Ukraine will be "winning" until they run out of men.

This is even further supported by a wave of videos showing endless AFU corpses and destruction in Avdeevka, like here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here.

In conclusion: certainly there’s a lot of losses on both sides, but the offensive is no where near done, and some believe only just beginning. I said last time I’d give it a few weeks to judge its progress. Personally, I’m not seeing large manpower losses on the Russian side. Even all the armor that’s hit, in the vast majority of cases you can clearly see in the videos that the soldiers make it out unharmed. From the week or two of the offensive thus far, you can count maybe 10-20 actually undeniably dead troops on video, at most. Given the fact that Ukraine regularly loses 300-500 KIA per day during heightened periods, such losses are trifles.

Secondly, at least Russia’s moderate losses are confined only to the Avdeevka theater. Ukraine on the other hand is suffering losses there but even huger losses on every other front. I already outlined huge personnel losses they just suffered in Kherson.

But over the past two days, they launched another series of attacks in Orekhov and Verbove direction and again were massively slaughtered. You can see fields of dozens of armored vehicles once more destroyed—the only difference is there are very few tanks and mostly armored cars, for obvious reasons.

Here are the new Orekhov direction and Verbove attacks:

Personnel losses (18+ warning):

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6

There were also many captured UA troops in Verbove and Bakhmut theater where Russia continues to capture new positions on the northern flank. However, Ukraine is slightly expanding its own positions on the southern flank here, near Klescheyevka.

Furthermore, on several fronts, Ukrainian accounts continue to shriek and citizens launch major complaints about losses:

Here the families of missing troops have staged a protest:

Major losses in the Kupyansk region as well to the extent that Kharkov hospitals are desperately running out of blood, forcing their own doctors to donate blood:

☄️☄️☄️☝️Kharkov telegraph channels report a serious shortage of blood in hospitals for wounded militants - Ukraine director

According to local information, doctors in city hospitals (clinical hospital No. 4) are voluntarily and forcibly forced to donate blood and look for donors among friends.

In recent days, the 14th, 32nd and 115th mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have suffered huge medical and irrecoverable losses in the direction of Kupyansk☄️☄️☄️

To top it all off, Ukrainian commentators continue conditioning the public that this is the terminal Hitler Youth phase, and all children will be mobilized:

In fact Ukrainian Pravda reports there are now 40% more women in the AFU ranks than 2021—expect that number to keep climbing as they run out of men:

Lastly, here you can see a frontline report in Avdeevka to see how hectic things really are:

Recall, as I said, that ultimately the Avdeevka direction is predominantly DPR 1st Army Corps troops, though it’s convenient to call them all ‘Russian’ at this point.

As a last frontline update, Russian forces are also slowly encircling Novomikhailovka, on southern side of Donetsk opposite of Avdeevka. There they’ve hit a key bridge in Konstantinovka nearby which cuts supplies to Novomikhailovka:

Bridge that was hit:

***

A few disparate, interesting items.

Recall how Ukraine tried to deny that Russia destroyed most of their landing force when it tried to do the stunt by planting a flag on Crimean shores. Well, to this day residents continue to find ‘floaters’ in the form of Ukrainian special forces washing up ashore in Crimea: Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3.

Next:

Russia going more and more USSR style war economy. Businesses are being converted into secondary weapons production facilities:

Russia is said to have produced 100,000 drones in September. Here’s one homegrown example:

Today, the first batch of FPV drones developed in Nizhny Novgorod left for the Northern Military District zone.

The drones were built by the Regional Industrial Company (RPK) based on volunteer projects with the support of the regional government.

They are capable of remote mining or hitting targets at a distance of up to 20 km.

I am sure that the development of Nizhny Novgorod will help our soldiers when performing combat missions!

Next:

Ukraine continues to slaughter their own surrendered fighters. This time a drone to the back of a Russian pickup truck which was carrying 4 tied up and surrendered Ukrainians:

An update states the Russian driver and passenger survived with concussions and minor wounds but all 4 of the surrenders in the back perished. The only question remains is whether it was a deliberate execution to prevent them from surrendering or the drone pilot simply didn’t identify them in time.

Next:

One interesting thing vis a vis Avdeevka is these strange waypoint markers have been found by Russian troops on the ground:

Experts believe these are sophisticated markers for drones utilizing artificial intelligence, in order to coordinate them under heavy Russian EW jamming:

Waypoint markers found by Russian soldiers in the Avdeevsky and Kherson directions.

These are uswed for Ukrainian UAVs with artificial intelligence; they allow them to navigate in space if Rus. electronic warfare is operating. From them you can determine the trajectory of the drone.

I hadn’t had the space to comment on this previously, but there was ample evidence since the start of the AFU counteroffensive in June that there is some really advanced NATO juju going on with their tank markers.

You may recall that Ukrainian tanks, particularly the Leopards, were marked with strange tac-symbols on the top of the turrets that almost approached QR codes of a sort. Some believed these were markings for tracking of the tanks and battle groups either from space or some sort of advanced AI blueforce tracking.

I’ve already established long ago that NATO is utilizing AI to sort through satellite imagery, identifying Russian positions and vehicles. But recently more and more drones on both sides with AI capabilities have been making their debuts, so this latest finding is interesting and shows that the war is slowly shifting into a very sophisticated and futuristic dimension, which I envisioned in this article:

Next:

Tying off what I said in the last report about Israel potentially being demographically doomed, and Zhirinovsky’s predictions about Israel needing to be recreated in Russia or Ukraine, here is Ukraine’s own Rada MP, Ilya Kiva who reinforces this theory by claiming that Israel will be recreated in western Ukraine:

Next:

Russian bombers annihilate a large Jabhat al-Nusra tank repair plant in Idlib. It shows the frightening firepower Russia is capable of unleashing when its airforce is free to operate over an enemy lacking AD:

Next:

A very juicy hit on a pair of Ukrainian fuel tankers by a Russian Lancet:

Next:

A Ukrainian barracks in Slavyansk was hit by Russian missile strikes:

Interestingly, the next day obituaries began to pour in, proving the hit wiped out a lot of troops:

Next:

A U.S. base was hit with drones last night and the U.S. admitted it could only shoot down 1, while another hit and injured troops:

Just goes to show that even the mighty “1st world army” can only get 50% on a 2-drone attack, yet Russia is criticized for not being able to fully stop massive swarm and saturation attacks from the most advanced ballistic missiles in the world.

By the way Kursk was hit with a huge drone swarm of over 20-30 drones attacking simultaneously, and by all accounts Russian AD shot down all of them. Likewise there have been several missile and drone attacks on Sevastopol and Crimea in general, all of which were shot down by AD. Russia continues to have a very high proficiency AD record, but there’s always a few that will get through.

Interestingly, during the new Sevastopol attack Russia fired off smokescreens to block sight of the ships as precaution:

Next:

Russian drones continue to catch Ukrainian shift changes snoozing:

Graphic warning:

Next:

One report claims that Biden will ake a big address to the nation tomorrow. I’m not sure if it’s true, but if so, prepare for some unprecedented appeal to emotions to beg for $100B aid for Israel/Ukraine:

The White House: Tomorrow President Biden will address the nation to discuss our response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia’s ongoing brutal war against Ukraine. This speech will be delivered from the Oval Office at 8:00pm ET - Axios

Lastly, I leave you with some political cartoons to capture the zeitgeist:

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