Novorussia SITREP: Debaltsevo cauldron *not* closed yet

Here is, according to Colonel Cassad (by far the best source of info right now) the map of the situation this evening (local time):

Junta in blue, Novorussians in red

The junta forces are definitely in a bad operational situation.  They are surrounded all all sides except the north, but the highway leading north which the junta needs resupply its forces in and around Debaltsevo and which it could use to withdraw these forces is under constant Novorussian fire. 

They crucial city of Uglegorsk  (УГЛЕГОРСК on the map, bottom left) is mostly in Novorussian hands, but the outskirts are still held by the junta.  In Chernukhino  (ЧЕРНУХИНО on the map, bottom right) the Novorussian attack was successfully repelled by the junta forces.

Yesterday evening I listened with interest at the combat report of Basketok, the military commentator of the Anti-Maidan website who looked at the bigger picture and who commented in some details about the situation around Mariupol.  So, as they say, there is good news and there is bad news.

The good news: the junta appears to be completely unable to mount any effective offensive.  Except for one successful counter-attack north of Peski, even the junta can't even claim a single tactical success.

The bad news: the Novorussians are clearly stronger, and they are generally prevailing, but nowhere near the kind of superiority to achieve an operational breakthrough.

At this point in time, and unless something qualitatively changes, my very tenuous prognosis is that the Novorussians will close the Debaltsevo cauldron and most of the junta forces will either die or be taken prisoner with only a minority extracted on time.  I hope that Novorussians will be able to take Avdeevka, Pervomaiskoe, Nevelskoe, Krasnogorovka and Mar'inka and relieve the pressure on Donetsk, but I don't see the Novorussians retaking Mariupol (I hope that I am wrong, of course).

If I am correct, and that is a very big "if", then the new frontlines will give the Novorussians a more or less viable line of contact.  The one agreed upon in Minsk left most of Donetsk within striking range of junta artillery, unless, of course, the junta complied with a 40 or 50 kilometer withdrawal, which it clearly did not.  This is why the Novorussians have indicated that a return to the original Minsk line of contact was unacceptable, and this is the correct decision, of course.

The last very good and important news item is that the junta's mobilization is a disaster which now forces the junta to even use road cops to hunt down draft dodgers.  I know that I have said that many times in the past, and caught hell for doing so, but time is definitely not on the junta's side, not politically, not economically and not militarily.

The Saker

Novorussian SITREP January 23

Over the past 48 hours not much has changed.  

Donetsk:

The airport is confirmed fully in Novorussians hands and the main combats are in the towns of Peski, Avdeevka, Krasnogorovka and Marinka which are shown in black on the map below:

Combats to protect Donetsk

In all these locations the Novorussian Armed Forces are on the offensive in order to push back the Ukrainian Repression Forces.  If the Novorussian succeed in booting the Junta forces out of these cities they will have to operate an important retreat as the terrain behind these cities open steppes were the Ukrainian artillery cannot hide.  In other words, if the Novorussians take these town the terror attacked on Donetsk will stop.

Gorlovka:

Gorlovka is still being hammered by the Ukrainian artillery which has resumed using cluster munitions.

Mariupol:

The Novorussian artillery regularly conducts strikes against the outskirts of the city were the Ukrainians have dug in.

The big news of the day is political: Zakharchenko has declared that the Novorussians are done taking prisoners and that they have no more interest in prisoner exchanges (which exchanged Ukrainian prisoners not for Novorussian soldiers, but for random citizens, criminal and even mentally retarded people).

In the meantime, the Minister of Defense of the Donetsk Republic has declared that 597 bodies have been recovered from the Donetsk Airport and that more are under the rubble.  Keep in mind that what the Ukrainians like to call a "brigade" is usually a battalion-size force, about 600-800 men.  In other words, it is quite possible that the entire 93rd "Zhitomir" Brigade whose commander was taken prisoner by the Novorussians has basically ceased to exit.

I would argue that it is quite possible that the Ukrainian front might break down and that the Novorussians could liberate a good part of historical Novorussia. 

As for Poroshenko, he still promises a unitary Ukraine, only one official language and a total war against the "terrorists".

Regardless of the Kremlin's efforts to cool down the situation, I don't see any reason at all for the combats to stop.  And since Voentorg is working at full capacity, there is a good chance that Moscow is still pretending that a negotiated solution can be found when, in reality, the Kremlin has already decided that no negotiated outcome is possible, at least not with the freaks currently in power in Kiev.

The Saker

Novorussian SITREP January 20th

 I have to admit that what happened in the past 24 hours has been a surprise for me.  For one thing, I expected an attack later in the year because right now the weather conditions are bad and very much favor the defenders.  I also expected a heavy fire preparation of the battlefield (meaning that the Ukies would shell Novorussian positions) followed by a push by Ukie armor along several well defined axes.  I expected the Novorussians to retreat to pull-in the attacking Ukies into firepockets and then gradually destroy them.  This is not at all what actually happened.

First, the Ukies continued shelling, but not the Novorussian forces, but the usual terrorist shelling of the civilian neighborhoods of Donesk and other cities, Gorlovka, in particular, has suffered terribly and is completely in ruins.  That kind of shelling makes the Ukies feel good, but it serves no military purpose.

Second, there was not concentrated attack of Ukie armor.  2 tanks here, 4 thanks there, but nothing like the heavy armor attack the Ukies could in theory launch.

So yes, the Ukies did try to attack at the airport, and the combats there for a while were extremely intense, no doubt about that, but these were limited attack.  The same deal goes for the town of Peski which now is mostly in Novorussian hands: the combat operations there were very intense, and the Ukrainians are still dug in the the northern outskirts of the town, but the size of the entire battle is still clearly local.

So my first conclusion is this: this was a major escalation of combat operations, but this has NOT been The Big Ukrainian Attack.  That attack has simply not materialized yet.

The second outright bizarre and counter-intuitive event was the reaction of the Novorussians who instead of digging in actually went on the offensive in several locations including Mariupol.  The good news is that the Novorussians are clearly very careful and moving in slowly and carefully which is vital for a successful operation to liberate Mariupol (assuming that this is their goal).  The Novorussian morale is, by all reports, rock solid, optimistic and careful.  Exactly what you need to prevail.  The Novorussian victory at the airport is a huge moral boost for the Novorussians and a crushing psychological blow for the Ukies.

My second conclusion: the Novorussians have done everything exactly right.  Far from feeling the need for a layers defense in depth, they have immediately counter-attacked and they have done so successfully, deliberately and carefully.

Today I listened with great interest to a press conference by a Ukrainian military spokesman who declared that a large number of Russian Federation troops had participated in the combats around the airport and that more had entered the Ukrainian territory.  This is very good news because the Ukie always begin by hallucinating about Russian Federation forces every time they are badly defeated somewhere.  It could well be that the Ukie losses are even bigger than we know.

As for the Russians, they have clearly reopened the Voentorg spigot at full capacity.  Well, in reality, the Voentorg was already working at full capacity for months now, but now the Russians don't even try to hide it very much.  Novorussian commanders are now openly saying that they have all the men and weapons they need.

Still, and while the news today is all good, I caution everybody against over optimistic "hurray we won!!!" kind of attitudes.  I will repeat this crucial finding again and again: The Big Attack has not happened yet.

Why not?

Good question.  For one thing, the weather is really not good for the Ukies.  Not only does this kind of weather inherently favor the defender over the attacker, but the Russian hardware (sights) is much better suited to these conditions that the old Soviet era gear used by the Ukies.

Second, you might have heard of this old rule of thumb that the attacker needs roughly 3:1 superiority over the defender to be successful.  As any rule of thumb, it is not really true, it has a lot of exceptions and it makes a lot of usually inapplicable assumptions.  Still, this rule is still "kinda, sorta, generally true".  For the Ukies this does not mean an overall 3:1 superiority along the entire front, but yes, it does suggest that a 3:1 superiority is needed along the axes of attack in order to punch through the Novorussian defenses.  The only way to achieve that is with high mobility.  And this is where the current weather conditions definitely complicate things.  So maybe the Ukies are waiting for better weather to start The Big One.

Then there are all those rumors about Ukie units refusing to go on the offensive.  Initially, I dismissed them as Novorussian propaganda, but then the Ukrainian social media also began echoing this information.  Apparently, entire units are refusing to go on the offensive.  Frankly, I don't blame them.  Sure, the Ukies did lick their wounds from the catastrophic campaign last summer, but there is only that much anybody can do in just few months.  In most countries, just basic training, "bootcamp", is 3-4 months after which a civilian is considered only as a basic solider, a "private".  Only then does this basic solider get any kind of specialty.  As for a NCO (non commissioned, a corporal, sergeant, etc.) or an officer - they need even much more training.  Except that the Ukies already used a lot of their older, but at least trained, NCOs and officers this summer and now their are either dead, or crippled or disgusted.  Poroshenko has now announced three waves of mobilization for 2015, but is rather evident for anybody with a semblance of intelligence that he is really conscripting cannon fodder, not a capable fighting force.  In contrast, the Novorussians now have plenty of well-trained, well equipped and battle hardened experienced men on all levels.  And make no mistake, a company of experienced battle hardened soldiers will defeat an entire battalion of clueless recruits, especially if the former are better equipped (which is the case thanks to the Voentorg).

So, maybe, just maybe, the Nazi junta is seriously beginning to run out of idiots and fanatics willing to get slaughtered in the Donbass.  This is not an assumption we can make, it is too early for that, but I just cannot understand what the point of this latest half-baked attack could possibly have been.

Finally, there is the very real possibility that the junta is just completely losing control of the country - that orders are given, some body follows them, somebody not, somebody half war but not  really, that complete disorganization and chaos is settling in and that there is no real Ukie army left, just lots of guns and lots of people, but not a unified combat force.

I honestly don't know and would love to hear who others explain the outright bizarre events of the past 24 hours.

What is sure is that "so far, so good" and that things could have started much worse then they did.  I am therefore very cautiously optimistic.

I leave you with the latest press conference of Zakharchenko (translated and subtitled by the fantastic Kazzura).

Cheers,

The Saker 

Novorussia SITREP: Intensive combat operation all over the line of contact in Novorussia

Things look very bad today and very intensive combat operations, in particular artillery strikes, are reported everywhere in Novorussia.  At the very least, in the following locations:

1) Donetsk Airport: the Ukrainians attacked with a fairly large concentration of armor and under heavy artillery fire.  As for tonight (local time) all of these attacks have been successfully repelled but intelligences sources are reporting a sharp rise in the number of tanks and armored vehicles all around the Donestk airport.  The Novorussians are expecting attacks from Peski and Avdeevka.

2) The Ukrainian artillery has opened for almost everywhere along the front.  The Ukrainian airforce has also dropped several 500kg bombs from high altitude on the city of Gorlovka.

3) Novorussian units are returning fire and the outskirts of Mariupol have come under Novorussian artillery attacks.

4) The Chairman of the Novorussian Parliament, Oleg Tsarev, has declared that his sources indicate that the Ukrainian plan submitted to Poroshenko looked at a spectrum of options: the best one was to totally free Novorussian from all Novorussians, the minimal one was to cut-off Donetsk from Luganks and both of these cities from the Russian border.

5) Plenty of US made weapons have been recovered in the New Terminal of the Donestk airport.

6) There are reports that the Ukrainian forces are attempting to encircle Debaltsevo.

7) Putin's spokesman Dmitrii Peskov has declared that the Ukrainian side had rejected all Russian offers and presented no counter-proposals.  He concluded that the Ukrainians have chose the option of going to war.

8) Please click here for an high res updated map of combats.

9) The Ukrainians are now accusing the Novorussians of using "super-weapons" in Peski.  No, no nuclear devices (as the Ukie defense minister claimed were used south of Lugansk), but heavy-flame throwers of the Buratino TOS-1 type.  The Ukies speak of a "bloodbath in Peski" which, as J.Hawk, the translator for ForRuss noticed, is a sure sign of panic.

10) Initial reports seem to indicate the the Novorussian military has entered the town of Peski.

11) The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the NAF, General Petrov, has declared that the Ukrainians have resumed ballistic missile strikes and that several Tochka missiles were fired today.

12) Zakharchenko has declared that "we are now engaged in a heavy counter-attack operation from Mariupol to Gorlovka".

Evaluation:

It appears certain is that Nazi junta as decided to resume combat operations.  Whether this is "an" attack or "the" attack remains to be seen, but the fact that ballistic missiles and bombers have been used seem to indicate that this one is qualitatively different.  My therefore leaning more towards the "the" attack option.

The situation around the airport has resulted in many poorly informed comments.  The following needs to be clarified.

a) The Donetsk airport has zero military value other then being a heavily fortified location near the city of Donetsk.  The main importance of the airport is symbolic as it was the place where by far the toughest and best Ukrainian units were sent into combat.

b) I am pretty sure that when the new terminal was taken over by the Novorussians (this indisputable as there is *a lot* of footage of this even) the junta generals grabbed their phone and began screaming into it demanding an immediate and massive counter attack.  This is what happened today.  According to Novorussian sources a total of 6 attack waves were repelled and 15 Ukrainian MBTs used in the attempt to retake the new terminal.

c) It is not surprising that this attack failed.  Heavily fortified objectives like the new terminal cannot be taken by tank and artillery fire, though they can be damaged by them.  Such objective can only be taken by very well trained and heavily armed infantry assault groups capable and willing to fight in very dangerous and difficult conditions.  Such groups, often called "assault/storming groups" are composed of experienced fighters which include machine-gunners, demolition-sapper combat engineers, snipers, anti-tank weapons, mortars, grenade-launchers, etc.  These are not the kind of units which the Ukrainians have a lot of, nor are these the kind of units which can be trained in a few weeks or even a few months.  This is why the Ukrainian assault have failed and most likely will continue to fail.

If this is indeed "the" much expected Ukrainian attack, then it fully confirms what everybody has been predicting: the Ukrainians are betting on large numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces and infantrymen to overwhelm the Novorussian defenders.  This is a losing strategy because not only will the by now highly experienced and combat hardened Novorussians perform infinitely better than the terrified and/or brainwashed Ukrainians with just a month or so of bootcamp under their belts, but because the inevitable bloodbath resulting from this kind of attack will rapidly break the willpower and morale of the Ukrainian side.  

The single most important factor here is not whether the Ukrainians will lose, but whether the Novorussians will be capable of winning without an over Russian intervention to support them.  My personal feeling is that yes, the Novorussians will succeed in beating back the Ukrainian assault and that Russia will not have to intervene openly (from what I hear the Voentorg is already working at full capacity, hence the TOS-1 in Peski).

I have to confess that I am nervous when I see Zakharchenko, Givi and Motorola at the very front lines quite literally within reach of the Ukrainian assault rifles.  I do fully understand why they feel that they have to do that, but I also get a knot in my stomach when I see them, especially all together a standing a few feet from each other.  If you are religious, please pray for these courageous men.

The Saker

Novorossiya Military Briefing, August 15, 2014

Novorossiya Military Briefing, August 15, 2014


Map: Hostilities in Novorossiya, August 6-15, 2014

Translated by Gleb Bazov

Overall, it is becoming increasingly clear that the widely publicized offensive on Donetsk has, as expected, amounted to zilch. The Ukrainian Armed Forces does not have any more strength. It simply does not. And that is all. Moreover, the Junta forces are facing several simultaneous catastrophes on the local scale, which can become operational-tactical in nature and then strategic. 

DPR:

The Saur-Mogila Area

The counter-offensive of the DPR forces that began on August 11, 2014 resulted in the DPR army taking control of Stepanovka on August 12, 2014 and then of Marinovka in the morning of August 13, 2014. The Marinovka border crossing checkpoint (“KPP”) was taken over in the afternoon of August 13, 2014. Thereby, the Southern Cauldron 2.0 was formed. As a result, three more armoured-tank groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces ended up being encircled. Although the Junta troops’ desperate attack on Stepanovka on August 13-14, 2014 resulted in heavy fighting on the outskirts of the village and in the settlement itself, it ultimately resulted in the attacking grouping’s complete rout. So far, the trumpeted importance of Saur-Mogila appears to offer the Ukrainian army no particular solace. This suggests that the widely advertised capture of the strategic height was nothing more than a PR move on the part of the Junta (equivalent to the Nazi Germany installing its flag on Mount Elbrus in 1942). 

Snezhnoye-Miusinsk-Krasniy Luch (DPR+LPR)

The situation is under the complete control of the Militia. Although the enemy grouping has not lost its combat capability entirely yet, it has been dissected by the Militia into parts and is fighting on the defensive. Considering the importance of the nearby road intersection for communication lines between the Republics and Russia, the elimination of this enemy grouping has been prioritized. Control over Miusinsk has been fully restored. Krasniy Luch also is firmly in the hands of the Militia.
South of Donetsk

In the last few days, fierce battles were fought in the Ilovaisk area. The importance of this region is that it represents a convenient springboard for an attack into the rear of the Amvrosievka grouping of the Ukrainian forces. On the other hand, the Junta’s contemplated offensive aimed at the encirclement of Donetsk also required the taking of this city. And that is why the DPR Army fought to retain it at all costs. And not only succeeded, but defeated the advancing enemy grouping. Throughout the area, the enemy has been driven back and in the last day showed no signs of activity. It appears that the Junta has exhausted its reserves in this direction of the front (that which was available likely will be redeployed in an attempt to de-blockade and relieve the new Southern Cauldron, opening several important opportunities for the DPR Army).
West of Donetsk

Apart from the foolish destruction of the bus carrying Praviy Sector militants, nothing else happened. In general, there is a lull in this section of the front.

North of Donetsk, Gorlovka, Debaltsevo

Fierce battles were fought here in all the previous days. At first, there were the strikes of the Kiev forces on Nizhnyaya Krynka, the DPR Army’s junction area between Gorlovka and Yasinovataya. Simultaneously, a second strike followed from Debaltsevo on Uglegorsk. This part of the operations was aimed at the encirclement and dissection of the Donetsk-Makeevka-Gorlovka grouping of the DPR Army. Due to lack of sufficient troops the operation became bogged down without reaching its goals. Yesterday, the DPR Army commenced its counter-offensive. Yasinovataya is once again controlled by the DPR. The development of the offensive in the direction of Panteleimonovka will cut off the enemy strike group from the rest of the forces. Near Gorlovka the enemy has lost dozens of armoured vehicles, essentially losing its strike capabilities. Moreover, the grouping of Mozgovoi has started an offensive into the rear of Debaltsevo. As of this morning, battles were being fought on the outskirts of the city. The threat to the Junta in losing Debaltsevo is the creation of yet another cauldron. At the same time, the battlefield here has been radically transformed. The Junta is no longer advancing, but rather is doing its best not to end up encircled in new cauldrons. 

LPR

South of Lugansk

The Russian humanitarian convoy awoke the hostilities from hibernation also on this front. The goal of derailing the convoy has prompted the Junta’s leadership to organize an attack on Novosvetlovka-Khryashchevatoye. The goal here is to cut off the remaining open road that enabled the supply of the Lugansk garrison. The initial success (caused by the suddenness of the strike) has turned into a complete rout. As of this morning, the units of Battalion Aidar were crushed in the area of Khryashchevatoye (the Junta has admitted 22 dead and 36 wounded). In the area of Novosvetlovka, the units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (totaling up to a company of tanks and a company of motorized infantry) sustained significant losses (losing up to half of the tanks). Right now, the LPR Army is engaged in artillery suppression and elimination of the entrenched grouping. A day or two, and here also everything will be over. 

Conclusions

Whatever one’s attitude may be with respect to the latest resignations (Strelkov, Bolotov), but … it was after these resignations that the general staff of the Militia’s Armed Forces was created, such that it can now properly be called an army. This is so because central command was the one thing that the Militia lacked to function as such. The result of this coordination is already apparent. Moreover, by formally giving the leadership of the Republics a purely Ukrainian appearance, this transformation has provided the Army of the Southeast with the capacity to start solving tasks outside the borders of the Republics. Not only military ones, but political objective as well. The centralization of the military command will also oust the remnants of Makhnovism, which have been discrediting the movement. And so, a radical turn in the war no longer is just fast approaching. It is already visible with a naked eye.

Among the Junta forces, increasingly, it is not the names of regular units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that we see flash in the briefings, but those of militarized battalions. This is a direct consequence of the losses that were suffered by the Junta troops in the last several weeks, resulting in units of the second line coming to the forefront. This forced transformation immediately aggravated the losses of the Ukrainian strike groups (the example of Ilovaisk is quite telling in that regard). In other words, the most battleworthy units of the Junta have either already been exterminated (the 72nd, the 79th, the 51st, and parts of the 24th Brigads), or are currently blockaded in cauldrons (the 80th, the 95th, the 30th, and parts of the 24th Brigade). At the same time, the militarized battalions that were left holding the front cannot compare to the regular army despite all their patriotic zealotry. In other words, at the front we are observing an equalization of forces not only in terms of quantity (particularly in military hardware), but also in terms of quality (in fact, quality-wise, the Army of the Southeast already has an appreciable advantage).