SITREP 12/26/23: Crimean Strikes & Ukraine's Mass Mobilization Arrives

Welcome back all. Hope you had a merry Christmas and happy holidays of some kind, even if just a bit of temporary internal reprieve.

But for now, I’ll need you to strap in because there’s a lot of big updates and important ground to cover.

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We’ll dispense with the first big peacock in the room, which is Ukraine’s strike on the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk last night in its port of Feodosia on the eastern corner of Crimea.

It now appears by all accounts that the ship was entirely destroyed in a massive catastrophic explosion which can only be explained by the ship being loaded to the gills with ammunition of some kind:

In fact some UA accounts are claiming to report the exact ammo stored, which was over 4400 152mm shells and several hundred 122mm grad rockets—according to them, but this is speculative at best.

There’s no real two ways about it, this particular attack—in contrast to the last one—in my view is a pretty bad one for Russia’s sake in the sense of how it was achieved. You see, in last month’s strikes on the Askold ship there was video evidence showing a mass saturation attack: several angles showed many missiles flying toward the shipyard in Zaliv near Kerch, and other videos showing Russian air defense active. Russian MOD thereafter reported 10/12 missiles destroyed with 2 getting through, which fairly matched the evidence we saw.

Thus, the failure was at least rational to explain or understand—Russian AD in a sparse part of Crimea was overwhelmed with a saturation strike.

But in last night’s case, there appears no indication whatsoever of a saturation attack but rather a surgical strike of very few missiles that somehow got through and cleanly took the ship out. The Russian MOD itself claims that 2 Su-24Ms were responsible, and that they were both shot down in the act of launching the missiles. Regardless whether that’s true or just damage control, the fact is they themselves admitted it was only 2 planes, which means at most it could’ve been something like 2-4 fired missiles.

The fact that the AD could not somehow cope with that number of missiles is a pretty damning indication of something going critically wrong with Russian planning in this sector. There were some rumors of a simultaneous “drone attack” on the Kerch bridge which some claimed had distracted the AD while missiles came in through the ‘backdoor,’ but I haven’t seen any other credible indication of this. Also, from several of the videos of the attack/explosion, we don’t even see indication that Russian AD was active in any way.

First let me post another indepth analysis of how it likely went down, then my own closing thoughts:

During the strike on the large amphibious assault ship pr. 775 "Novocherkassk" in Feodosia the SCALP-EG was probably used, it has inertial navigation modules that were loaded with low-altitude flight profiles enveloping the southern slopes and ridges of the Crimean Mountains (see on the map above).

This trajectory ensured maximum effective concealment of the missiles behind the "screen" of the terrain from the radar patterns of S-400 Triumf, S-300V4 and Buk-M3 SAMs, located mainly in the lowlands to the north of the mountains, from where it is difficult to scan the airspace in low-altitude areas above the mountains.

And even in the event that the surveillance radars of individual SAMs near Ordzhonikidze and Koktebel were able to detect SCALP-EG SAMs flying towards Feodosia, there was very little time left for tying up their path, capturing and intercepting them before they were hidden behind the ridges of the mountains again.

All these anti-aircraft missiles had been detected and identified in advance by American and British RQ-4B "Global Hawk" strategic radar reconnaissance UAVs barreling over the Black Sea 24 hours earlier. Consequently, the sectors of their radars were taken into account when plotting the missiles' flight paths.

Nevertheless, the fact that the modernised Su-24MR front-line reconnaissance aircraft, which are SCALP-EG carriers, were not detected at a distance of 430-500 km even before reaching the SCALP-EG launch range raises more questions. After all, the Russian Armed Forces have A-50U AWACS and Su-35S multifunctional fighters for this purpose, and their regular patrolling of the Nikolaev missile-prone area can completely offset this threat.

They could have been hit by 40N6 anti-aircraft missiles of the S-400 complexes in the Crimean Mountains ridge by targeting from the Shmel-M radars of A-50U. But this did not happen; probably due to the occasional combat duty of the above-mentioned air defence systems.

Rybar on the other hand had this map, with their own explanation of a roughly similar attack:

The problem with both explanations though, is the fact that it doesn’t matter what precise vector the missiles took, whether by a northwest-southeast path straight from Kherson toward east Crimea, or whether as in the first example, from south Crimea into central Crimea by way of mountains, the issue is that the missiles had to have first overflown a lot of other Russian territory, where there should be many other air defense nets active.

That’s not to mention the jets themselves, which Russia did claim they shot down—but without evidence it’s hard to say. Plus the claim is a little odd given the fact that if the jets which launched the missiles were caught on Russian radars and “shot down,” then why weren’t the missiles themselves likewise caught on the same radars and also taken out?

It’s true, as in the first explanation, that NATO ISR of course provided the precise locations of Russian radar units in order to program a clever flight path for the missiles; whether that was satellite ISR, RQ-4 Global Hawk, etc., doesn’t really make a difference. However, if Russia had adequate top down patrols in the form of A-50U AWACS, it would negate this because no amount of recon of static S-400 positions can prevent an AWACs from surveilling the entire region, which includes all low-flying craft, given that it’s impossible to hide beneath radar horizon from an AWACS look-down mode radar watching from 30-45k feet altitude.

Thus, the only possible conclusion one can reach is that this was a major failure and sign of incompetency in this situation on the Russian part. Though the ship is a landing ship not really used nor needed for the SMO itself, it still represents the third major surface ship loss of the Black Sea Fleet. Others were of course hit, but have either been or are currently being repaired; i.e. Olenegorsky Gornyak was fully repaired after naval drone strike, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don, and Askold are all currently undergoing repairs.

Also, the Novocherkassk may not have been used for the SMO, but it was actively used to supply Tartus in Syria, and given that the Black Sea Fleet has few such useful ships, this is a blow to Russia’s Syrian theater.

Will this have any effect on the SMO? No, but it does highlight some major deficiency in the Russian armed forces. If just two old Soviet jets of the Ukrainian airforce can surgically wipe out a major Russian surface ship, then what would happen in a war against NATO, where hundreds of the most advanced stealth F-35s, F-18s, F-22s, etc., are operating?

Of course then we get into a sort of endless circular argument because, in truth, Ukraine only has such chances because Russia is fighting with its gloves on. In a total war against NATO, Russia would have no limits and would not shy from strikes on transport infrastructure like it does in Ukraine, as well as many other things. Which means ships busing in those armaments into Europe would be hit, as well as bases, HQs, the satellites guiding the missiles, etc.

But this is not a cope or argument for either side: it’s not a binary. It’s a simple acknowledgment of reality—while this loss is painful and revealing about Russian capabilities, it’s also not exactly linearly transferable to a potential conflict against NATO, which would go much differently.

The other thing is, here’s a sample image of the Feodosia port from October of this year:

It shows the landing ship in the same berth above, but note the vast amount of far more valuable ships docked below—modern missile ships like the Buyan-M class which are actually critical to the SMO because they launch Kalibr missiles, conduct air defense, etc. (whereas the sunken landing ship has no armaments to speak of).

If Ukraine truly had an unstoppable ability to strike Russian targets at will, then why weren’t all those far more valuable ships taken out as well? Why were they only able to hit the somewhat useless old amphibious assault landing ship?

This presents quite a conundrum, because on one hand we have what appears to be clear failure on the Russian part, but on the other—inarguable evidence that Ukraine is not able to operate at will. In fact, it seems to suggest they require a month or two of very meticulous planning just to pick the weakest and least defended possible target for a big PR victory.

So it’s difficult to truly judge the incident as on one hand it does represent a PR win and a successfully plotted attack, but on the other hand it exposes Ukraine’s inability to really hit much of true off-setting value. In some ways that represents a kind of loss for both parties.

By the way, another rumor is that the previous 200-300km range Scalp/Storm Shadow missiles have already run out, and UK was forced to start digging into its own domestic stocks of the most advanced 500km+ range ones. If these were used, it could explain at least why they’re able to be launched very far from the rear, without Ukrainian jets fearing being shot down. However, it obviously still does nothing to explain why the missiles were able to overfly so much Russian terrain without being detected.

You see, this is one area where Ukraine is vastly ahead of Russia. NATO and Ukraine have Russian air missions and their corridors completely mapped out, with forward observers stationed at all known Russian strategic take-off areas, as well as satellite ISR, etc., which allow them to track every single potential strike group in real time. But in Russia’s case, they apparently have no such ability to know when Ukraine is gearing up for a launch. Because even if the missiles are terrain-hugging and go under the admittedly sparser radar coverage of the open Kherson plains, where there’s not much to “cover”, if you have advance warning of an impending attack, you at least could inform all critical areas—i.e. in Crimea—to be on high alert and potentially switch on dormant secondary systems, as well as raise jet-fighter interceptors into the air which could interdict the missiles long before they get to a critical target, or at least observe and report their trajectory, giving ground AD critical information that would allow timely shoot down.

But for some reason, nothing like this appears to be done, and Ukrainian jets are able to simply take off without any warning or tracking, fire stealth missiles that slither through Russian radar nets with advanced terrain-mapping capabilities, and hit fairly significant targets.

But again—it was a one off which last occurred nearly 2 months ago. Even earlier in the day, there was footage of another missile attack on Mariupol which was completely intercepted, with explosions seen in the sky. Reportedly they were repurposed Ukrainian S-200s, which travel in more of a ballistic arc and thus are easy to intercept. Once again we have to temper everything with a proportional, balanced view. Perhaps in the end it was just one of those rare confluences of a lot of small mistakes that don’t happen often.

Or, perhaps it wasn’t even missiles to begin with. Truth be told, if I had to guess, I would have unequivocally said it was a localized drone strike from a saboteur, because not a single piece of footage had the sounds or sights of any missile activity. It was only the MOD’s own admission that ‘confirmed’ this, but there are possible reasons for why the MOD would fib, as missile strikes are more palatable than the dangerous admission that local saboteurs are taking out ships. Particularly if the ship was loaded to the gills with ordnance, and NATO ISR was aware of this, it would take a local FPV drone op a few short moments to deliver the drone to the right place to blow the whole thing sky high.

There was no report whatsoever from residents of missiles flying around, nor air defense active—why is that? So everything I said here could potentially be moot as I give it a strong chance it was saboteur action with a fake missile story concocted afterwards, based on what we know.

Would the Russian MOD lie like that? Perhaps if necessary. By the way, Ukrainians claimed they already lied because they reported the ship was ‘heavily damaged’ rather than destroyed. However, this report was literally right after the attack happened, and we know for a fact the ship didn’t immediately sink because there’s literally photos where you can still see its bow on the dock. That means at the time of the report, the MOD correctly and honestly listed it as heavily damaged, but the ship subsequently sank afterwards.

Ukrainians on the other hand are a broken clock that’s right twice a day. In all the previous attacks, they listed all vessels immediately as ‘destroyed’ with no scruples or integrity whatsoever. The ships proved salvageable and are currently under repair, yet the pro-UA side claims it’s the MOD that’s lying when they themselves lie after every single strike. After being wrong many times in a row, their lie finally found some luck. I on the other hand reported the ship salvageable but immediately updated as new information came in—that’s what people with integrity do, but it’s a concept wholly alien to the vast majority of pro-UA supporters, I’ve sadly come to find.

But let’s move on to the final thoughts on the true significance behind this. TG’s Romanov correctly analyzes the situation:

The only thing I disagree with is the suggestion that destroying these ships can actually create a real threat to Crimea—only the perceived threat, which would be used, as he correctly notes, to push a narrative that Crimea is close to falling, which would then be used to animate more support from the West.

There is a huge information psyop campaign ongoing for Crimea as we speak, as it’s the last ditch hope for Ukraine to win some semblance of semi-believable propaganda victory. This is why they continue to sacrifice thousands of men in Khrynki, as it’s an important base to build out this campaign from, as it gives the appearance of the AFU being just a short hop-skip away from reaching Crimea’s borders with their ‘ever-expanding lodgement’.

Now we’ve seen a concerted effort to sell some kind of phantom Patriot shootdowns of Russian jets. I believe they’re up to something like 6 Su-30/34s shot down so far in the past week. In truth, only a single one was confirmed downed a week ago, and most likely by friendly fire, as there is no evidence whatsoever of an enemy shootdown, particularly given where it fell, near Crimea and too far for any realistic Ukrainian AD shootdowns. Yes, Patriot could theoretically reach at its absolute limit, but it would have to be sitting right on the Russian border near the Dnieper and, probability-wise, is not particularly plausible.

The rest of the Su-30/34 shootdowns were just total hoaxes, as was confirmed by a source close to the Russian military, who relayed that all aircraft returned to their bases. That’s not to mention only a single photo of a crashed plane surfaced—the Su-34 from earlier—which proves the point.

And the final piece of the puzzle are the F-16s. Yesterday headlines have pumped the announcement that the first batch of Ukrainian F-16 pilots have ‘finished training’ in the UK, while other quiet ‘leaks’ claimed that F-16s have already been smuggled into Ukraine in pieces and are slowly being reconstituted in random sites around the country.

All timed with this propaganda release:

This is all to say that this landing ship strike will be used as part of an information campaign to try and sell some type of Crimean “blockade.” Recall how weeks ago there were stories that Russians were already “fleeing” Crimea, businesses closing up shop in preparation for Ukrainian “liberation.”

This is all fantasy—Russia has just finished modernizing much of the main supply artery between Crimea, Melitopol, Mariupol, etc. And they are now widening the highway to 4 lanes as recent photos have shown. Add the fact that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been entirely stopped and poses no threat whatsoever of any further incursion to the south, this means that the landbridge from Russia proper in Rostov to Crimea is now inviolate and cannot be interdicted in any meaningful way.

This means that no matter what happens to the Kerch bridge or any landing ships, Russia will have full newly modernized passage via the landbridge to resupply Crimea. The only threat the AFU posed previously was the ‘potential’ for cutting this highway via direct mechanized advance through Tokmak, Melitopol, etc., as well as the potential Khrynki bridgehead breaking out. But now, none of these have any chance to happen, so Crimea is safe.

On that note, we have a very interesting video of an interviewed Ukrainian soldier admitting that the plan of the summer counteroffensive was to bypass Tokmak on both sides, and in essence, do a galloping thunder-run down to Melitopol. The interview is a must watch, as the soldier makes some wild admissions about how poorly planned it was, even lauding Russia with praise on their defensive abilities:

Interestingly, just days ago during his presentation, Gerasimov showed a powerpoint with Russian MOD’s assessment of the AFU’s grand counteroffensive plans:

Lastly, in regard to this plan for an information campaign of a ‘blockaded Crimea,’ some will wonder whether Ukraine can’t hit the bridges that connect Crimea to the northern mainland, i.e. Chongar bridge which they’ve hit before.

The problem is, as you can see above, the waterway there is not wide and is quite suitable for pontooning. In fact in the above photo you can see the beginnings of the pontoon being formed in the middle of the two bridges after the strike.

And below you can see the pontoon from satellite, indicated with red arrows:

This narrow waterway is easy to pontoon several times over if necessary, so it’s not really feasible to entirely shut down Crimea just from strikes here. Not to mention that there’s other sets of bridges further west, as well.

So you’d have to take out a lot of bridges continuously, which all happen to be over very favorable pontooning waters. This is simply not plausible by way of long range strategic strikes, like that of missiles. What would be plausible is if you got those within artillery range, allowing fire control of the chokepoints with cheap artillery shots, 24/7. But to do that, Ukraine’s counteroffensives would had to have worked, and now there’s zero chance of that ever happening again.

But the information campaign will go on, and at a critical point will invoke the combined psyops of:

• Destroyed landing ships

• F-16 wunderwaffen ready to establish air superiority over Kherson, to facilitate the valiant AFU Marines in their last blitzkrieg jaunt toward Crimea

• The above ideally partnered with a new disabling strike on the Kerch Bridge itself to really evoke the specter of a Crimean siege

This will create a psyop of Crimea’s “complete blockade”, suggesting Russia’s ensuing “total defeat”, which means just one last easy payment of $3.99 trillion from American/European taxpayers should get the job done—or so the Zelensky infomercial will go.

As a last note, almost as if by design, the strikes on the ship happened virtually on the same day Putin inducted a batch of new surface ships into the navy:

Vladimir Putin today took part in the solemn ceremony of raising the naval flag on new warships of the Russian Navy. The fleet was replenished with:

Project 22350 frigate “Admiral Golovko” (Northern Fleet). It was laid down on February 1, 2012. This is already the 3rd ship of Project 22350, 5 more are under construction. Length 135 meters, total displacement 5400 tons. The main armament consists of a 16-cell UVP for cruise missiles of the "Caliber" family and supersonic anti-ship missiles P-800 "Oniks", as well as the "Redut" air defense system with a range of up to 150 km. To date, these are the only 1st rank surface combatants entirely designed and built in post-Soviet Russia.

Small missile ship “Naro-Fominsk” of project 21631 “Buyan-M” (Baltic Fleet). It was laid down on February 23, 2018. This is already the 11th ship of project 21631 Buyan-M. Length 74.1 meters, total displacement 950 tons. The main armament consists of an 8-cell UVP for cruise missiles of the Caliber family and supersonic anti-ship missiles P-800 Oniks.

Sea minesweeper “Lev Chernavin” project 12700 (Baltic Fleet). It was laid down on July 24, 2020. This is already the 8th ship of Project 12700, 3 more are under construction. Length 61.6 meters, total displacement 890 tons. This is the first series of sea minesweepers entirely designed and built in post-Soviet Russia.

The takeaway is that Russia continues to build ships, planes, armaments, and everything in between. No matter the losses, Russia continues to increase its depth while Ukraine is conversely whittled down in every measurable way. For example, this year alone Russia is said to have taken in upwards of 16-20 new Su-34s, while only one or two were lost.

Another example: one Ukrainian tracking account listed ~50 destroyed Russian tanks for the month of November and a similar batch in October. Averaging 50-60 per month is something just above 1.5 per day, or 600 per year. And we know Russia is now producing minimum 1200-1500 annually.

While Ukraine was carrying out these 90% phony psyops with some modest success, Russia has been goring the AFU on the actual battlefield. Not only were there several reports of operational strikes on manpower consolidations like the following:

Yesterday, on 12/21/2023, Russian troops inflicted fire damage at the place where, according to confirmed information, a meeting of high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and NATO was held. The AFU used an absolutely civilian facility to conduct their meeting. The coordinates of the building located in the village of Rovnoye, Krasnoarmeysky municipal District (48.296198, 37.221220) indicate the Europa Hotel. At 20:20 and 20:25 on 12/21/2023, Russian artillery inflicted fire damage at these coordinates, after which repeated detonation was observed in the building, which is confirmed by messages from local chat rooms. A few minutes after the defeat, local chat rooms were either disabled or severely censored. The law enforcement agencies of Ukraine are working on the spot, and any attempt at video recording is accompanied by force from the authorities.

But even the AFU themselves wrote of grievously painful losses. For instance, 108 Avdeevka ‘defenders’ were sent home for the holidays and their transport was struck by Russian precision weaponry, killing the entire group, as recounted by Ukrainian political scientists Vitaly Bala:

Imagine that, 108 men wiped out in a single blow. It almost inclines one to quickly forget about an empty ‘landing ship’.

In a new article from UK’s The Times, a Ukrainian commander even says he no longer gives new conscripts callsigns, because they don’t last long enough for it to matter:

Meanwhile, more information about Ukraine’s losses begins to flow like a broken floodgate. An AFU sniper discussed their losses in the Bakhmut direction, specifically regarding the fighting for Klescheyevka and the railroad areas over the past few months. Recall how loud the information campaign was about this direction of the ‘offensive’? How Russians were ‘pushed behind the railroad’ and were ‘retreating’. Not only has Russia retaken much of the captured areas, but we now learn at what cost this PR campaign came:

He plainly states that they suffered more losses per day than they had previously suffered for entire months. That means to push Russian forces back those measly 1-2km behind the railroad tracks was costing them likely hundreds of lives per day, if not more—another example of Russian echeloned defense designed to systematically fall back while ‘leading’ the enemy through pre-set killboxes.

The same soldier even makes an astonishing claim about NATO’s top gear, particularly the Abrams. He says the Abrams is useless because its low-positioned filters clog up every few minutes in Ukrainian terrain, requiring constant cleaning in the middle of battle, lest the tank entirely shut down:

He also mentions the M777s and how fast they deplete their barrels, which Ukraine has no replacements for.

The most notable development has been in the sphere of Ukrainian mobilization. Since Zelensky’s last announcement in my last report, they’ve continued to dither on the matter, as apparently this quite painful issue was not easily agreed upon in the inner circle. In fact Zaluzhny himself directly contravene his boss in an interview where he basically calls Zelensky a liar:

You see, in his own statement last week, Zelensky said that it was the general staff that told him 500k was necessary, pinning the blame on them to take societal heat off himself. Here Zaluzhny contradicts him and says that it wasn’t the general staff that gave Zelensky this specific number to mobilize.

In fact, a comical back and forth ensued wherein Zelensky released his own video heavily emphasizing the fact that it was the ministry of defense—not him!—that is making these mobilization decisions. It’s clear that this has become a game to pass blame to the other, in view of the public:

It’s seriously humorous how overt and obvious it is. Both are terrified of ‘taking the fall’ for the mass conscription of new victims, likely because both sides are positioning themselves for what they know is the eventual culminating encounter where one or the other will have to be thrown under the bus and possibly ‘eliminated’.

As if that wasn’t enough drama, Tymoshenko’s party—in an obvious attempt to ingratiate themselves to the public and appear the ‘saints’—announces the mobilization proposal is unconstitutional:

Zaluzhny makes another subtle point: he states he won’t say how much of the required 500k represents replacement of losses versus creation of new units. This was echoed by Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Rada Defense Committee:

The mobilization of 500 000 people is necessary to make up for sanitary losses and form new units, said Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Rada Defense Committee.

"How many people are needed to replenish sanitary losses in a year? How many are needed to form new units? Approximately this number. We must plan not for two months, not for six months, but for years, because the war can last for a long time, but in terms of influence political processes could end tomorrow, but no one knows. We must prepare for the worst case scenario," Kostenko said. He said that “everyone should fight” and not “talk about the economic or some other front.”

In his opinion, the Ukrainians thought that victory would soon come and decided not to prepare for mobilization, and plans for a new large-scale conscription became a “cold shower.” Kostenko called on the authorities to change their information policy and talk less about the imminent liberation of Crimea.

How many “new units” could they possibly have in mind? They took half a year to form merely 9-12 brigades amounting to 40-50k troops for the grand summer counteroffensive. They are already signaling in some ways that next year will be focused on defense. One can therefore only rationally assume they may be forming a similar 30-50k worth of new units, leaving the remaining 450k+ for “replacement of sanitary losses,” which just happens to perfectly align with the 450k casualties many tallies currently peg the AFU at.

Zaluzhny goes on to express that he badly needs bodies, notwithstanding what kind of disabled people get exempted or not:

Defense Minister Umerov even hilariously bolted from an interview just as he was asked about forced conscriptions on the streets of Kiev—a clear and stark sign that no one wants to take direct responsibility:

Ex-Aidar commander Yevgeny Dikiy emphasizes the urgency—we need these bodies not tomorrow, but now:

Arestovich even snarked via his X account:

- Shock, sudden, unilateral, within 24 hours, renegotiation of the social contract between the state and the people.

And look how disgustingly he communicates.

Only Valery Zaluzhny was thrown into the breach - despite the fact that mobilization is a matter of decision by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, and only then - the military.

The authorities throw responsibility around like a hot frying pan.

The entire social contract was based on:

- you take out loans and social benefits, and don’t think about anything.

And then History knocked down the doors.

New social contract:

- you will go to die for fairy tales that do not fight with reality.

We will continue to steal from you. And whoever doesn’t want to, we’ll turn off the gas.

———

Two questions to ask:

- Will such a new contract be successful?

- A state that is unable to communicate the global turn in the history of Ukraine, is it able to pull out this entire story and not fall out of the turn?

Head of Zelensky’s party David Arakhamia announces the finalizing of the new mobilization bill:

And a slew of new reports from every quarter of Ukraine began to immediately percolate with notices about new measures, like checkpoints to be established in every major city:

Does this mean the end for Ukraine? Certainly not, but it will be one of the first true tests of their society—to see how well it really copes with the prolongation of this conflict. In a couple months we may have a better pulse of the war’s outlook based on how they respond. If society takes to these harsh new measures with carefree detachment as usual, or with relatively minor and manageable disapproval, then it may be the groundhog seeing its own shadow moment, portending the war’s continuation.

The beltway sponsors may also be keenly watching this key point to see how much its prize horse has left in the tank. After all, there was a recent Newsweek revelation which stated that American curators are basically treating the war like a stock option. If Ukraine would have done well in the counteroffensive, they would have lavished more money on them, but a downturn means pulling the plug, or at least shorting the thing:

One other note which segues us into the final section of some frontline updates. In his presentation today Zaluzhny also hinted at a new conservationist posture when he candidly said that Avdeevka may last another 2-3 months at the most, and then may go the way of Bakhmut. However he qualified this by stating that Ukraine would fight for every inch of land as long as there are available forces, and if there aren’t, he’ll retreat and save the land for retaking later:

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny: - "The enemy has the opportunity to concentrate his forces in a certain direction. And in 2-3 months they can do what happened to Bakhmut. Every piece of land is dear to us, we will defend exactly as much as there are forces. If the forces are not enough, we save people, and then we will retake it,” Zaluzhny said.

This adds to the likelihood of the conflict continuing on for a while longer. Because if Zelensky has truly ‘compromised’ with Zaluzhny, allowing him to effect an unsightly and perhaps ego-deflating series of retreats, then it will see Ukraine, for once, husbanding its forces, prolonging them while trading space for time the same way Russia did when it withdrew from various regions last year.

That could mean 2024 will see some sudden rapid territorial progression on the Russian side, as AFU falls back while preserving their men. But despite giving the optics of sudden “collapse” it will contradictorily be extending the fighting into 2025. This could lead to, for instance, a 2025 where Russia has captured most of the Donbass but the AFU has built up semi-serious reserves in the rear, due to their preservation tactics, for a potential “comeback fight” and new offensive attempts. Recall that several high profile Ukrainian figures have either out right said or hinted that 2024 will be used to husband forces while building reserves in this way.

Of course it all depends on what Russia does—the ball is in its court. If Russia manages to put together a large enough offensive potential, they could still bleed the AFU into negative growth, even while advancing. It all depends how aggressively Russia chooses to prosecute the war in the coming months. I only err on caution for now due to Shoigu and Gerasimov’s own recent words.

Both of them have now officially stated that 2023’s only and chief task for the Russian armed forces was to defeat Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Such an official posture seems to convey a rather unambitious and slow-going approach. If they are now conceding that the entire year’s purpose was to simply rebuff an offensive, then one can only infer that 2024 too may only be deemed fit for one singular task, rather than the extreme absolutist goals some people imagine, like capturing Odessa, Kiev, and everything in between. Here’s Shoigu’s statement:

Do I agree with such a slow-roll approach? Mostly I do. Because I believe Russian MOD has identified that particularly the end of 2024 will be a critical turning point moment in the US where almost no possible outcome can be a net positive for Ukraine. Either Trump wins and stops all aid—if there’s any left at that point—hell, he might even withdraw from and completely destroy NATO; or an entire civil war breaks out. Even in the ‘best case’ scenario for Ukraine, if some Democrat candidate wins, it will likely be after such an exhausting and unrest-filled election season that the public will be too destabilized afterwards to sanction any further Ukraine involvement.

So in the Russian MOD’s eyes, they’re likely indifferent: “Well, either Ukraine naturally collapses this new year (2024), or in 2025 they will have no more opportunities left.”

This segues us to the final section of battlefield updates. Russian forces have been making a lot of progress, finally officially capturing Marinka after nearly a decade. Even Zaluzhny confirmed the “full withdrawal” of AFU from Marinka during the press conference:

Shoigu delivered the news officially to Putin:

Suriyak’s map:

Ukrainian-Russian war. Day 671:

Situation west of Donetsk city: Russian Army continue advancing at the western outskirts of Marinka reaching the first houses of Heorhiivka, where Ukrainian Army retreated towards the first defensive positions within the town.

Russian units have already been pushing outward and expanding the buffer zone well outside the town with even some reports of clashes already happening in the next settlement of Georgovka. Russian units specifically said in their channels that there will be no “victory respite” after Marinka, but they are steaming full ahead to the next settlement.

Simultaneously just to the south, Russian forces are dangerously enveloping Novomikhailovka such that AFU accounts are expressing grave concern:

As seen below, this means that Russia now stands to collapse the developing pocket between Novomikhailovka and Marinka and completely flatten the line there:

The reason these developments are significant are several.

Note in the above map that Ugledar lies just to the southwest and an important logistical artery runs from Ugledar toward Kostantinovka. The envelopment and capture of Novomikhailovka would now threaten Ugledar’s rear and logistics, and pressure plus the potential capture of Ugledar can collapse the entire front above into a huge cauldron.

The frontline in this area is ordered around key logistical points like railways and the big Kurakhove water reservoir, which feeds most of the interior basin toward Pokrovsk.

Yellow shows the rail line from Marinka toward Kurakhove.

This is why the town Kurakhove itself has served as the major brigade headquarters of the entire region for most of the ATO/JFO against Donbass. Kurakhove is a major juncture of both these important logistics. Some analysts have speculated the capture of this area would neuter AFU for much of the outlying region stretching west and north toward Pokrovsk, particularly as it controls their water supply.

In fact, there was one key foreboding signal which Ukrainian accounts took as a very bad omen. They wrote that the Ukrainian ‘Nova Poshta’ mail has braced always to the very last moment in each zone so far, only stopping operations if Russians were right at the town’s door. But now Nova Poshta has announced cessation of services in the city of Kurakhove:

That was taken as the canary in coalmine moment.

Meanwhile, DPR’s own post has presented a new stamp celebrating the liberation of Marinka:

In honor of the liberation of Marinka, Donbass Post presented a new stamp. The blue shade signifies the desire for victory and justice, white – purity, silver – nobility. “In the center of the shield there is an ear of corn, symbolizing the wealth of the earth, and a swallow soaring in the sky, personifying rebirth and renewal,” this is how the stamp was described in the Donbass Post.

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Meanwhile in the center sector Russian forces are advancing west from Bakhmut/Artemovsk, slowly inching toward Chasov Yar:

More granular: you can see in this already slightly outdated map used to emphasize the advance. Russian forces have reportedly pushed into where I have drawn a red and white square at the outskirts of the major key settlement of Chasov Yar:

In the red they reportedly took half of Bogdanovka, and in the white they captured a cemetery that’s difficult to see.

Zoomed in from Suriyak:

With Ukrainian accounts themselves reporting that Russian forces are now approaching Ivanovske:

They took many other smaller positions all over Zaporozhye, in the Rabotino, Verbove lines, further west near Kamyanske. And of course in the infamous Khrynki ‘beachhead’ near Kherson, they’ve vastly narrowed it down with new assaults to a tiny occupied box in the middle, which as I’ve pointed out before, they may not want to entirely wipe out, as it’s quite a lucrative AFU meatgrinder, like a flytrap that keeps them coming and attrited.

Much of the foregoing advancements may seem small on paper, but one must keep in mind the new testimony we continue to get from AFU in just how vast their losses are in most of these theaters. For instance the earlier one about the Bakhmut-Klescheyevka-Andreevka line, where they lost more per day than in previous months for a good stint.

Now that Ukraine is suffering a drastic shell hunger, each relatively “small” Russian advance is badly attriting the AFU. There were videos of dozens of AFU corpses strewn everywhere in Marinka, for instance, after the capture.

The only zone where it’s a bit more even is Avdeevka, as they’ve now sent their most elite units there, and Russian forces there are taking quite a beating as well presently, with likely the highest losses of any current front. AFU’s are still as high or higher, but it’s the only area where the disparity is at least somewhat close.

Some small advances have been made there but thus far the AFU continues to defend extremely bitterly, stymying every Russian attempt. However, strong footholds have been achieved so RF forces have increasingly advantageous positions from which to continue assaulting. Several top UA commentators including Zaluzhny and Arestovich themselves both stated yesterday that Avdeevka would likely fall “in 2-3 months.” At this rate that seems to be plausible.

The issue is, every single step of Avdeevka is now “pre-registered” with artillery and mortars. So as soon as storm units step onto a given coordinate, they are instantly hammered with cluster artillery, 82mm mortars, and FPV drones. However, AFU positions are hit 24/7 with huge glide bombs which likely create a lot of losses, not to mention the previous story of the entire company of 108 wiped out in a single hit, which was in Avdeevka.

The only last area I’ll mention is to the far north. There was one interesting video taken from the AFU side, so it’s a tad rigged in their favor via editing tricks. However, it gives a clear perspective on a powerful and organized Russian armor assault on the town of Sinkovka, just north of Kupyansk:

It was geolocated to here: 49.7707439283653, 37.705440919285955

It’s neat to see simply because it’s one of the larger armor assaults of recent times—a rare sight since we mostly see tiny units less than tank platoon in size operating on both sides these days. This seemed like at least a mechanized infantry company.

AFU claimed they ‘repelled’ the attack, however in the video it appears the armor transports do their job of escorting the dismounts to the first settlement outskirts, dropping them off, then retreating. So it would appear the infantry successfully captured this position.

Lastly a couple sundry items.

AFU continues to admit that if aid is stopped, there will be losses of an unprecedented scale:

He was echoed by another active AFU soldier who spoke with Western press. Listen at 0:40 as he says that they realize “sooner or later, [they] will be left alone against Russia, and that is a very scary thing.”

I haven’t been able to verify this statement myself via any found videos, but some Russian channels reported that Zelensky allegedly said the following:

“If such a moment comes, if we are forced to sign peace agreements with the enemy, then the day before that I will resign as president. With me, Ukraine will not lose”...

Next:

As part of the information campaign, it’s being spread this past week that Putin reportedly is now ‘open to negotiations’, a fact he allegedly signaled via some backdoor third parties:

This is what I wrote on X:

I think I now understand the angle behind this fake new narrative that Putin is signaling he wants to end the war via negotiations.

We were recently separately made aware that the new White House strategy is to shift perception of the war to sell it as a "victory" for Ukraine, then quickly wrap it up and force Zelensky into a ceasefire. The ceasefire will be sold as a victory by way of a bunch of cooked up numbers, like Russia's putative "350k casualties", the highlighting and emphasizing that Russia barely took any territory, that its armed forces are totally destroyed with tens of thousands of tanks gone, etc, etc.

Putin has to be made to look like the one desperate for ceasefire to begin the campaign to sell the conflict as a major Zelensky victory, and quietly escort Ze down the ceasefire path. But it's just another cheap ploy from the desperate, confounded West. There will be no ceasefire, Ukraine and the US's reputation will continue to get degraded as Russia rolls on to plow over the entire country.

Next:

Lately, more and more obituaries from deceased AFU show men born in the ‘50s and ‘60s, who even served in the USSR army:

At the same time a video of a new mobilized recruit’s mess hall in the AFU appeared, showing nary a youthful face:

Next:

Three more US troops were injured, one critically, after another failed interception at a US base:

This is something to note in light of Russia’s air defense issues—the US itself continues to be incapable of protecting its bases from any kind of strikes. The ships in the Red Sea, on the other hand, have reportedly shot down numerous drones and missiles so far. Likely because it’s much easier at sea with open vistas and no terrain obstructions nor stealth ground-hugging missiles to worry about.

Next:

Arestovich completes his redemption arc, totally flipping and now openly declaring that Russia and Ukraine should join forces:

Next:

Footage of an entire M2 Bradley cemetery in Ukraine has appeared, showing the dregs of the past few months of combat:

Next:

Drone footage showing an absolutely withering Russian artillery barrage on Ukraine’s Novomikhailovka, south of Marinka. True dystopian scorched-earth WW1 vibes:

Well, apparently that’s how an artillery-first force advances. That said, Russia has recently employed artillery smoke shells in several of their advances in various directions, including Avdeevka.

Next:

Another exasperated AFU soldier wonders why society continues to downplay Russians as second rate when the AFU is being so badly slaughtered by them each day:

Next:

A German report says that men in Ukraine are afraid to even go outside anymore and the mood is grim on the eve of the new mobilization drive:

Next:

Ukrainian women don’t appear eager to go to the front themselves, when queried on the streets:

Lastly, for those who haven’t seen it, I’ll leave you on an upbeat note with this holiday season inspired RT and Margarita Simonyan masterfully irreverent troll job of Biden and the US:

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