SITREP 2/18/24: Avdeevka Liberated
Well, it finally happened: Avdeevka has fallen, or should I say Avdeyevka, as it’s being styled by many outlets like Sputnik now that it has returned home.
Ukrainian forces retreated—or attempted to—from every part of Avdeevka, even in the Coke Plant, leaving the new front looking like this:
The yellow lines represent the rough direction of current battles as Russian forces reportedly attempt to storm Latochkino—with some early reports already claiming it has been taken, or at the least that AFU has withdrawn from it, creating a gray zone—with the logical extension that forces from the south near Severne will attempt to close the new gap formed north of the old Zenit/Air Defense Base area.
Interestingly, rumor has it that Zelensky was desperate to hold Avdeevka through his time at the Munich conference, so as not to be humiliated. However, the withdrawal order was only given because the 3rd Brigade (Azov) had already totally countermanded orders and began withdrawing on their own, with other units possibly following. To stave off total collapse of the command, Syrsky was forced to give an official order of withdrawal, but Zelensky is reportedly furious, as per Resident_UA channel:
Our source in the OP said that the Office of the President instructed the General Staff and the Security Council to conduct an investigation in the 3-brigade, which refused to comply with the order and enter Avdeevka in position. On Bankova, they are very angry at Syrsky, who promised to keep the city while Zelensky on a EU tour, but I had to urgently leave the most fortified positions that had been created in Avdeevka for ten years.
In quickly taking over such a large area, Russian MOD’s official numbers claim a likely record day with around 2300 AFU either killed, wounded, or captured:
And while the pro-UA crowd scoffed, interestingly Ukrainian MP Peter Derbal gave the number as 850 soldiers lost in the Avdeevka retreat:
There were some unconfirmed Russian reports of over 500 AFU prisoners being taken, and while I haven’t seen quite that high of a number, I can confidently say that yesterday was possibly the most videos of captured AFU that I’ve seen. I myself have posted probably over a dozen videos, and there are still yet others I didn’t even bother posting. Some samples: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, and many others.
The most striking however was this young company officer, a lieutenant, who gave the juiciest details about the AFU’s battle order and plans for the Avdeevka zone:
Some of the revelations confirmed some long-standing reports, like that the zone’s battalion commanders sit 40km away in Pokrovsk and refuse to come to the front.
Naturally, the usual suspects were utterly despondent—and in fact, a new tone of total cynicism and distrust in the tired and predictable propaganda of Ukrainian authorities was noted among some of the biggest luminaries:
Putin issued an official decree congratulating Colonel General Mordvichev who, as commander of the ‘Center’ group of forces, was the sector commander in charge of the Avdeevka capture. In the message he also outlined precisely which Russian units were involved in the heroic feat:
Supreme Commander-in-Chief
of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
to General Colonel MORDVICHEV A.N.
Today, the troop group 'Center,' while advancing, has completely captured the city of Avdeevka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The units involved include: the 30th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 2nd army; the 35th separate motorized rifle brigade, the 55th separate mountain motorized rifle brigade, the 74th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 41st army; the 1st separate motorized rifle brigade, the 9th separate motorized rifle brigade, the 114th separate motorized rifle brigade, the 1454th motorized rifle regiment, the 10th tank regiment of the 1st army corps; the 6th tank regiment, the 80th tank regiment, the 239th tank regiment of the 90th tank division.
I express my gratitude for the excellent combat actions to all the troops under your command that participated in the battles for Avdeevka.
Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in battle while carrying out the tasks of the special military operation!
Supreme Commander-in-Chief
of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation V. Putin
In particular brought to light were units of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District. Both the mentioned 55th Separate Mountain and 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade belong to the group, and are said to be comprised of a lot of Tuvans and Buryats, which led to figures like Roepcke claiming Putin is “exploiting ethnic minorities”.
And here the 30th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 2nd Guards Army from Samara, Russia give their side of the story of how the final capture went down:
The general gist of the Avdeevka battle appeared to happen along these lines: in the earliest stages, DPR units like the 114th were used as the spearhead and damage-soakers, reinforced heavily with Storm-Z penals. As the breakthroughs increasingly came, more Russian units were inserted from the 41st CAA. This culminated in the final couple weeks, as Ukrainian lines began to break, Russia inserted more elite Spetsnaz and scout units to push through swiftly and surround flustered and haggard Ukrainian defenders.
By the way, interestingly, the 74th seen above in particular had already liberated southern Ukraine once in WWII, as per wiki:
It’s tradition for them.
Ukraine’s final consolatory cope is that Russia suffered upwards of 50-100k losses in taking Avdeevka, or so they claim. Unfortunately, this is not backed in even the slightest by their own most meticulous casualty analysts like MediaZona, which still has Russian losses dipping sharply in the last couple months:
Granted, January/February figures will likely be revised upwards retroactively, but probably not dramatically.
The problem is, UA sources pulled wool over their followers’ eyes by continuously replaying old losses or showing highly edited videos which didn’t actually represent many casualties. One recent demonstrative example: one of UA’s top accounts, Dmitry from ‘WarTranslated’, posted a video earlier in the week claiming to show a Russian soldier walking around a corpse-strewn battlefield in Avdeevka. But his own geolocation of it was far east of Stepove, near Krasnogorovka, where battles had not raged in many months. In fact the strongest battles of that area were in early 2023, which is likely when the footage is from—as that’s when Russia first captured the adjacent area, leading to the conditions which facilitated the later Avdeevka assault.
The flagrant lies and exaggerations, as usual, work against Ukraine.
Conversely, the losses as recorded by direct Ukrainian troops from Avdeevka are staggering, by all accounts. Some samples:
And many of the captured POWs speak of high losses in their units as a universal fact.
But while the events on the ground had been a foregone conclusion, some of the more intriguing developments swirled behind the scenes, as the world’s power elite scrambled to shore up Ukraine’s corroding reputation at the Munich conference this weekend. There Zelensky was given a customary standing ovation by the cretinous nomenklatura of dying Europe:
Days ago, Mosiychuk had predicted that Zelensky would seek a desperate tour of European capitals for optics’ sake:
And optics is one way of putting it. While Zelensky hobnobbed with world leaders, his own shadow cabinet rubbed elbows with figures like Soros:
Who was even an honored guest at Yermak’s table:
Yermak presses the point about needed ammunition, which was the theme du jour of Kuleba, Zelensky, and co.’s petitions during the conference.
But most insightful was what Kuleba and Zelensky said about artillery in particular.
First Kuleba complains of Ukraine’s artillery compatability problems: even though NATO uses 155mm as standard, the actual rounds of various NATO 155mm systems are not totally interoperable between the various guns:
This is because there are other considerations like the powder charges meant for each cannon’s specific pressure/PSI thresholds, etc. It’s akin to tank rounds; for instance, though they’re both 120mm, the British Challenger has a rifled barrel and cannot use the same ammo as the unrifled 120mm Abrams, Leopard, and Leclerc barrels, etc.
But Zelensky struck the biggest bombshell on this count. Remember the months and years of propaganda revolving around the one key linchpin in the narrative of Ukraine’s so-called ‘dominance’—that of NATO’s artillery advantage in accuracy and range over that of Russia. Well, the truth has once again slowly crept to the light:
Some may recall I’ve solely been belaboring this point, to combat this most far-reaching of deceptions. I’ve outlined how some NATO systems like the Caesar can achieve higher ranges than most—but not all—Russian systems; but it also requires special ammo, which Ukraine has nearly none of.
Yes, highly specialized ammo can propel the AH Krab, M777, Phz 2000, Caesar, etc. to ranges of 35-40km or higher, but the average round they use most often has a range of about 24km, slightly less than the average round Russia uses. Russia has systems like the 2S5 Giatsint and 2S7M Malka that can do 30-40km with even normal rounds, and in the case of the 2S7, upwards of 50-60km with specialized ammunition.
As I said time and again, the US was forced to gin up the ammo shortage with DPICM cluster rounds—and their range is even worse, at a measly ~15km or so. This is all not to even mention the fact that Russia’s barrel situation is far better than Ukraine’s, which means Russia’s guns maintain their accuracy far longer, while Ukraine is forced to shoot at minimal distances like 14-16km even with its most long-ranged systems due to barrel wear and the fact that firing at max range would be totally useless. Oh, and by the way—specialized ammo stresses and depletes barrels even faster; you can’t have it both ways.
Russia’s advantages here are particularly the case in light of reports like the following that Russia is heavily expanding its barrel production specifically, with Motovilikha and other plants reportedly purchasing new Russian and Chinese heavy duty CNC machines for the process.
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The Munich conference brought little more than empty speeches, as well as this, which is sure to devastate Putin:
Jokes aside, there was a pledge from France and Germany for about ~$4B total in military aid specifically:
Kuleba continues to contend that the war costs Ukraine $100m per day, so that should be about 40 days’ worth.
Interestingly, while European and German leaders steadily bankrupt their nations for Ukraine, the latest poll from Germany shows the number of citizens who believe Ukraine will win has drastically plummeted:
The number of Germans who believe in the victory of Ukraine fell by 6% over the year from 20% to 14%
— survey by the sociological institute INSA
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As a last note on Munich: rumor had it that one of the main reasons for Zelensky’s gala tour hinged specifically on galvanizing European leaders around the question of Zelensky’s legitimacy in the post-May 21 period, when his martial law extension expires, technically making him an illegitimate president due to having bypassed elections.
"The powers of the President of Ukraine expire on the night of May 20-21, 2024 and cannot be extended, while those of the Verkhovna Rada can. After May 20, the Rada will be legitimate, but the president will be not," Dubinsky wrote in his Telegram channel.
Zelensky likely sought secret reassurances from European leaders that they will vocally back his presidency’s legitimacy during that troubling expiry period, when questions will certainly begin to arise at the least, if not outright challenges to his authority.
In fact, swept under the rug was that along with the more high profile elimination of Zaluzhny, Zelensky did a clean sweep of the entire vast fold of the general staff: check this link for a detailed list with bios.
The point is that, Zelensky has clearly used the ‘headline’ removal of Zaluzhny as cover to actually wipe out the entire general staff and put in people hand-selected by Yermak to be utterly obedient who, most importantly, will not challenge his authority or legitimacy after the critical May 21 expiration. This is all about a power grab—there’s no other explanation, particularly given the fact that Zelensky’s stated reason for firing Zaluzhny was that “he did not present a military plan for 2024.” Obviously, neither has Syrsky, nor is any real plan even conceivably possible given what is public knowledge about Ukraine’s ongoing catastrophic limitations.
No, Zelensky’s only chance and hope is to continue biding his time until he can figure out a way to rope NATO into the war via some form of provocation or falseflag. It’s one of the reasons he wants F-16s so badly: they have no real effect on Russian airpower, their true threat comes from the escalatory potential of their technical ability to be nuclear-capable weapons carriers, not to mention can be made to fly from the airfields of other countries. Both things have the potential of causing Russia to enter into direct war with NATO.
One last important topic to cover.
Since the buzz of the Tucker Carlson interview, there has been a spate of narrative pushes about Putin allegedly seeking negotiations with Ukraine, or at the least being “open” to it.
Putin definitely played coy and ambiguous in the interview on purpose. The reason is he wants to appear the peacemaker to the right audience but in a slightly disingenuous way. You see, he’s ‘open to negotiations’, but only after Ukraine totally surrenders or “takes into account the new realities”—which is deliberately left open ended.
New realities obviously means things like Russia keeping all the captured territories, among other things. Being clever, Putin knows these are things Zelensky could never accept, because it would mean his overthrow by the hardcore nationalist factions. That means Putin is fairly safe in making the “offer” while knowing realistically it will never happen, and the true goal is to keep the war going to achieve Russia’s maximalist objectives.
Arestovich’s ‘seditious’ video above is still partly true though, just not in the way it seems. He’s right: Putin is the only one of the players that actually wants peace, it’s just he wants it after Russia gets what Putin feels it is owed—which is its historical lands back. The main US establishment on the other hand doesn’t want peace at any cost, because the whole point of this war is to wage eternal conflict against Russia until it is totally destroyed or subjugated, or at the least wounded and kept in a weakened, enervated state perpetually. Either option requires unceasing escalation and conflict no matter what other side objectives are achieved.
This was supported by a variety of recent utterances from top Russian officials like Medvedev, Peskov, Nebenzya, and Putin himself.
For instance, here Nebenzya states that there is no way the currently controlled regions will ever go back to Ukraine—it is a total nonstarter:
And since we know that this is a red line for Zelensky and co. as well, that means when Putin offers negotiations, he knows it’s from the standpoint that the other side will never accept them.
Now, a new Putin statement hammers this point home. He says that everything Ukraine does in the war is merely a form of attempting some tactical gain, the difference being that for Russia, this isn’t about such trivial technicalities—it’s an existential matter:
Further proof comes from a new report around alleged ‘secret talks’ that were happening in late 2023, when rumors floated that ‘Putin was sending signals he was ready for a ceasefire’:
As you can see above, the source claims Putin said he knew nothing would come of it, confirming that Putin likes to merely make the gestural offer on account of optics, knowing full well that Ukraine is institutionally not able to accept Russia’s bare minimum negotiations requirements.
This Twitter ‘community note’ even dispelled the narrative with a legitimate quote from Putin’s interview:
As you can see, he did say that he can negotiate with Ukraine after it’s “over”—i.e. Ukraine has surrendered. And Putin’s cunning, in my view, is after this very result:
I.e. generating the perception that it was in fact the US and allies that continue to reject ceasefires and negotiations.
However, as a small food-for-thought counterpoint, I will say that Arestovich once more has an interestingly insightful take on this count:
In short: he believes he’s got Putin psychologically pegged, and that Putin, morally, is loath to the idea of fighting this brother war. We must admit that judging by many aspects of Putin’s ‘soft-gloved’ approach thus far, there is some substance to this idea—though it certainly doesn’t mean Putin will surrender. But rather that he may be a sort of tortured figure, allowing his principled faculties of reason to overpower his moral sentimentality to the detriment of his psyche in doing what he knows must be done.
On the topic of polls, here’s a new survey from Ukraine showing the population’s current sentiment in the wake of the Zaluzhny debacle—you can cleary see why Zelensky had to remove him post-haste:
The first sociology after Zaluzhny's resignation was a survey of Advanced Legal Initiatives.
▪️ Ukrainians are categorically against Zaluzhny’s resignation (against -80.45%) and forced mobilization (against - 89.72%).
▪️The absolute majority supports voluntary mobilization with financial motivation (for – 93.97%) and the conscription of security forces working in the rear (for – 86.54%).
▪️ If the presidential elections were held today, the result would be as follows: Zaluzhny - 38.16%, Zelensky - 16.17%, Tymoshenko - 9.91%, Poroshenko - 8.08%.
▪️If Zaluzhny did not take part in the elections: Zelensky - 21.01%, Tymoshenko - 18.83%, Poroshenko - 14.14%, Klitschko - 6.64%.
▪️4 parties would enter parliament: Zaluzhny - 36.92%, Zelensky - 12.76%, Tymoshenko - 9.84%, Poroshenko - 7.65%.
The survey involved 5,105 respondents aged 18 years and over, using the face-to-face interview method and by telephone through the IQR application. The error is no more than 2.0%.
Note the fourth item above: even if you knock Zaluzhny out of the picture and a hypothetical election takes place in the near future—perhaps forced onto Zelensky after the May 21 expiry—Zelensky would only enjoy a tiny, and likely shrinking, lead over Yulia Tymoshenko, and even Poroshenko. His fall from grace is almost totally complete.
And some more (link to polls below):
Only 40% of respondents trust the new Commander-in-Chief of Syrsky. The survey was conducted in February and 35% (!) did not know who the Syrsky was, — KMIS
Most Ukrainians trust Zaluzhny — 92%.
For 2 months, the rating of Ukrainian confidence in Zelensky decreased by 13%.
In Ukraine, the share of those who believe that things are developing in the right direction continues to decline. In December 2023, 54% considered the direction to be correct, and now the figure has dropped to 44%. Residents of the West of Ukraine are more critical.
The trajectory of every single figure shows a dramatic and catastrophic decline in confidence in everything, from the country’s leadership, to its direction. Such a path is not sustainable in the least—the question is: when will the dam break?
For the past week or two, there have been rumors that a massive Russian force has been gathering on the Zaporozhye line. Here’s the AFU spokesman days ago:
Now as of this writing, the offensive seems to have begun, with reports rolling in by the hour of breakthroughs of Ukrainian lines near Rabotino:
This appears to have been a well-timed plan to capitalize on any potential disarray from Ukraine’s hasty Avdeevka collapse, to nab them in another unsuspecting direction. Once again, this is part and parcel to the boa constrictor strategy of which I’ll write in the upcoming Part 2 of the paid piece in a couple days.
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A quick update on the space doomsday weapon situation: it appears our report here was accurate, as CNN now ‘confirms’ that the weapon in question pretty much fits the description I hypothesized in the previous article:
Russia is trying to develop a nuclear space weapon that would destroy satellites by creating a massive energy wave when detonated, potentially crippling a vast swath of the commercial and government satellites that the world below depends on to talk on cell phones, pay bills, and surf the internet, according to three sources familiar with US intelligence about the weapon.
In fact the article suspiciously almost seems to mimic my own word for word:
Experts say this kind of weapon could have the potential to wipe out mega constellations of small satellites, like SpaceX’s Starlink, which has been successfully used by Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia.
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I mentioned Russia’s 55th Brigade from Tuva. Ukrainian Nazis showed their colors and were very upset by the Tuvan heroes:
The particular poster above has ‘Azov Enjoyer’ in his bio:
Well, to rub it in and end on a positive note, here’s the same 55th receiving their prestigious honorary ‘Guards’ title just last month, for heroism and unbreakable courage in combat:
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Lastly, here’s a segment from a new report in liberated Avdeevka showing a resident who waited out the Russian army. Listen to what he says when asked about the Ukrainians who have been kicked out: “Those Germans? Drive them to Berlin!”
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I watched snippets of the so-called 'Munich Security Conference'... it was nothing more than a bunch of snivelling out of touch 'Elite' engaged in Hopium & Copium shenanigans to try & continue justifying their grift worth hundreds of billions of USD & Euros. As Project Ukraine is crushed decisively on the battlefield, the Grift will no doubt continue for a while still; though at this point all of said money is really just going toward bribing the various middlemen, bureaucrats, etc. Tragedy!
Fun seeing the nafoists starting to realize that their hero Zelenskiiyiyiyiyyyyyiiii is nothing but a cheap huckster. They raved about his "leadership" when in fact it was a bunch of adolescent posturing and third-rate tinhorn dictator-ing. I mean a grown man going around the world meeting world leaders whilst wearing a t-shirt? Flipping off Russia and taking selfies? Who but 13 year olds are impressed by this act?