UKRAINE WAR BRIEF DAILY DRAFT
For: 2024-01-17
Slava Ukraini! Since June 2023 I have provided a daily draft for the Ukraine War Brief Podcast collecting news from over 40 sources daily much of which ends up in the script. I will make this Draft available here for those who wish to keep up with events on a daily basis.
INSIDE UKRAINE
ALONG THE CONTACT LINE
GSAFU Morning Report
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in its situation update at 06:00 on Jan. 17 stated that it was the 693rd day of full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
During the past day, 98 combat engagements took place. Over the past 24 hours, the enemy carried out 4 missile strikes, 29 air strikes, and 49 MLRS attacks across the positions of our troops and settlements. As a result of the Russian attacks, unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the civilian population. Destruction and damage to residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure.
The Khortytsia operational-strategic group is responsible for the Kup’yans’k, Lyman, and Bakhmut axes, in the northeastern part of Ukraine.
Kup’yans’k axis: No significant offensive action.
Lyman axis: Ukrainian defenders repelled 11 attacks of the occupiers near Terny, Yampovlivka, Serebryansky forest (Luhansk oblast) and 19 near Bilogorivka and Verkhnyokamianska (Donetsk oblast).
Bakhmut axis: Ukrainian forces repelled 9 attacks near Ivanivske, Klishchiivka and Andriivka (Donetsk oblast).
The Tavria operational-strategic group is responsible for the Avdiivka, Mar’inka, Shaktars’ke, and Zaporizhzhia axes, in the central-eastern and southeastern part of Ukraine.
Avdiivka axis: Ukrainian defenders continue to hold back the enemy who keeps trying to encircle Avdiivka. AFU soldiers are standing their ground and inflicting major losses on the invaders. Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 20 enemy attacks near Novobakhmutivka, Stepove, Avdiivka, and 15 near Pervomais’ke and Nevel’s’ke (Donetsk oblast).
Mar’inka axis: Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to hold back the occupiers in the vicinities of Krasnogorivka, Heorhiivka, Mar’inka and Novomykhailivka (Donetsk oblast). Troops repelled 17 attacks in that area.
Shakhtarske axis: No significant offensive action.
Zaporizhzhia axis: Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 1 attack near Robotyne, (Zaporizhzhia oblast).
The Odesa operational-strategic group is responsible for Kherson, Qırım, (also known as Crimea) and the Black Sea
Kherson axis: Ukrainian defenders continue to expand the bridgehead. Despite significant losses, the enemy does not abandon its attempts to dislodge Ukrainian troops from their positions. Over the past day, the enemy made 6 unsuccessful assaults on the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
Russian Combat Units Suffer Brutal Losses in Dnipro Bridgehead Battles
Ninety days into the daring, some said foolhardy amphibious operation across one of Europe’s major waterways, Ukrainian Marines are still there. Writes the Kyiv Post
Now, after more than three months, if you look at a battle map Ukraine’s assault crossing of the Dnipro River seems to have stagnated - but on the ground there are daily, pitiless battles. According to accounts from both sides, Ukrainian Marines are deeply dug-in and, backed by masses of strike drones, are firmly holding ground first captured in mid-October.
A number of independent observers have reported, no matter what Russian forces try to do, they haven’t been able to dislodge the Ukrainians who will “still be there in weeks and months to come.”
A Dec. 16 New York Times article described the Ukrainian Marines fighting to hold the Dnipro River bridgehead as being on a “suicide mission.” It quoted Ukrainian troops questioning the sense of holding forward positions, cut off from the rest of Kyiv’s forces by a major river, and facing brutal Russian air and artillery bombardment.
Evidence is now mounting that Russian forces have suffered such heavy losses that some troops are reportedly refusing to attack. According to multiple Ukrainian and Russian sources, Moscow’s attempts to wipe out the bridgehead employing substantial ground attacks have virtually come to a halt.
Russians have huge losses of equipment near Krynky
Russia’s 18th Combined Arms Army which operates in the Kherson sector was forced to task the 17th Tank Regt. to use its advanced T-90 tanks in order to try and recover dozens of disabled combat vehicles that littered ground around Krynky according to a report from the UNNIAN News Agency.
The fact that a whole tank regiment dedicated to the tasks of evacuation indicates the intensity of Russian losses.
"The 17th tank regiment of the 70th motorized rifle division has been trying for two weeks to evacuate damaged and motionless armored vehicles from the active combat zone in the Krynok region," the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies notes.
Russia also suffered a serious setback in the region back in December when three Russian SU-34s were destroyed in one day while attempting to attack the area.
Back in December Forbes wrote:
Krynky is, in other words, an attrition trap for Russia. Yes, it’s likely many hundreds of Ukrainians have died or been badly hurt crossing the Dnipro and fighting in the claustrophobic ruins of Krynky.
And barring a Ukrainian retreat from the settlement—which, to be clear, is a possibility—many more will die in the coming weeks and months as the Russians continue counterattacking and bombarding Krynky.
But the heavy casualties the Ukrainian 35th Brigade has suffered in Krynky belie the much heavier casualties the Russian 810th Marine Brigade and 104th Air Assault Division have suffered trying, and so far failing, to dislodge the 35th.
The newly-formed 104th Division “suffered exceptionally heavy losses and failed to achieve its objectives during its combat debut” counterattacking outside Krynky, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported last week.
TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Smoke rises over Sevastopol Bay as explosions ring out in occupied Qirim's Yevpatoriia district
Various news outlets are reporting that explosions were heard in the Yevpatoriia district of occupied Qirim on the afternoon of Jan. 17. They may have been caused by Russian air defence systems at work. A smokescreen is thought to have been used over Sevastopol Bay and the military port of Feodosiia.
An air-raid warning had previously been issued in occupied Sevastopol and the Crimean Bridge was closed to traffic. About half an hour later, the all-clear was given in Sevastopol and roads reopened to traffic. The Crimean Bridge reopened after another 20 minutes.
There has been no word of anything shot down or damage in the area.
THE HOME FRONT
Russian attacks on Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson Oblast injure 23 over past day
Russian attacks against Ukraine injured 23 people over the past 24 hours, regional authorities reported early on Jan. 17.
Civilian casualties were reported in the cities of Odesa and Kharkiv, as well as in Kherson Oblast.
In Odesa, a drone attack at around 2:15 a.m. local time injured three people and damaged residential buildings, Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper reported.
Two Russian missile strikes late on Jan. 16 in Kharkiv injured 17 people and damaged a multi-story building, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov reported.
In Kherson Oblast, two people were injured in a Russian attack on the village of Tiahynka, 40 kilometers east of the city of Kherson.
THE RUSSIAN WORLD
Putin ramps up threats to the Baltic region prior to the Russian Presidential Election
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its Jan. 16 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin notably amplified a longstanding Kremlin effort to set information conditions for future escalations against the Baltic countries, likely as part of his wider effort to weaken NATO.
Putin claimed on January 16 that Latvia and other Baltic states are “throwing [ethnic] Russian people” out of their countries and that this situation “directly affects [Russia’s] security.” Previous changes to Latvia’s immigration law stipulated that Russian citizens’ permanent residence permits would become invalid in September 2023 and that Russian citizens would need to follow the general procedure for obtaining EU permanent residence status in Latvia, including passing a Latvian language exam, by November 30, 2023.
The Latvian Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs stated in December 2023 that Latvia would deport about 1,200 Russian citizens who failed to apply for a new residence permit by the deadline.
Putin has long employed an expansive definition of Russia’s sovereignty and trivialised the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, and Russia has long claimed that it has the right to protect its “compatriots abroad,” including ethnic Russians and Russian speakers beyond Russia’s borders.
Putin recently threatened Finland in mid-December 2023 and reiterated a world view illustrating that he continues to pursue demanded changes to the NATO alliance that would amount to dismantling it.
NEWS WORLDWIDE
Biden to Hold Talks with Congressional Leaders on Aid for Ukraine and Israel
The US Administration’s $110 billion request to provide further assistance to Ukraine, Israel and strengthen US border controls, has been held up by a dispute with Republican representatives.
NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby confirmed on Tuesday that the President has invited Congressional Democratic and Republican leaders to a meeting at the White House on Wednesday to discuss his funding requests and the legislative processes necessary to secure aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and to address complex security measures on the border with Mexico.
“Tomorrow, President Biden will host congressional leaders from the Senate and the House, along with key committee leaders and ranking members at the White House to discuss the critical importance of his national security supplemental request” Kirby said.
MILITARY & TECH
Ukrainian Crews Set A Complex Missile Trap For Russia’s Best Radar Plane
On Sunday night, Ukrainian air-defenses shot down one of the Russian air force’s very rare, and very valuable, A-50 radar early-warning planes, likely killing all 15 people aboard—potentially including high-ranking officers. A Russian Ilyushin Il-22 command plane was damaged in the same attack, writes David Axe in a new article from Forbes.
“Who did this?” the Ukrainian air force quipped. The answer, it seems, is the air arm’s 90-mile-range Patriot PAC-2 air-defense missiles. Less likely: shorter-range Patriot PAC-3s or S-300s.
Exactly how the Ukrainians shot down the four-engine A-50 with its top-mounted radar is unclear; an A-50’s rotating radar can see airplane-size targets nearly 200 miles away. but analyst Tom Cooper—who has written many books about Soviet and Russian warplanes—has a theory.
Ukrainian radar and missile crews lured the Russian crews into a trap.
If Cooper’s theory is correct, the Ukrainians set the trap on Saturday, when Ukrainian air force jets—presumably Sukhoi Su-24 bombers—struck Russian air force installations across the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. “A number of radars were knocked out,” Cooper reported.
The Saturday strikes, the latest in a long campaign of Ukrainian raids on Russian defenses in Crimea, suppressed the Russians’ ground-based radar coverage, leaving the surviving missile batteries on the peninsula partially blind — So Russian commanders did the obvious, but stupid, thing. They ordered one of their few remaining A-50U radar planes, which normally fly far to the south over the Sea of Azov, to push farther north in order to extend radar coverage over most of Crimea.
Satellite imagery and radar data seem to place the A-50’s northernmost flight path over occupied Berdyansk, just 75 miles from the front line. That’s within range of the single Patriot surface-to-air missile battery, out of three in the arsenal, that the Ukrainian air force has deployed along the southern front.
The trick was for the Ukrainians to target the A-50 and its accompanying Il-22 without giving the Russian crews too much advance notice of the attack—and without sacrificing their precious Patriot system.
FrankenSAM project begins to pay dividends
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, has said that Ukraine successfully used a so-called hybrid air defence system on the night of 16-17 January, destroying a Shahed attack drone from a distance of nine kilometres.
"We decided to make our own air defence system. We took Soviet components and used [them with] Western missiles, or we took Western launchers and used [them with] Soviet missiles. I am happy to report that one of these systems was successfully used for the first time last night. We shot down a Shahed attack drone from nine kilometres away, and this is the first successful use of such a system.
...I am very pleased that we have deployed it on the battlefield, protecting our skies and our people."
— Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industries
Although Kamyshin did not name the system in question. Presumably, he was referring to the US/Ukrainian FrankenSAM project.
Defense Express outlet reported that the FrankenSAM project had three anti-aircraft missile systems: the first one is a hybrid of Buk launcher and RIM-7 missiles, the second one is a combination of a Soviet-made radar station and AIM-9 missiles, and the third one, which is also the most powerful one, has elements of Patriot air defence systems.
Germany sends new military equipment to Ukraine
Germany has delivered a new package of military assistance to Ukraine, including projectiles, drones, and armored personnel vehicles, according to the German government.
The new military package includes:
Ammunition for Leopard 1A5 tanks
25 reconnaissance drones RQ-35 Heidrun
8 armored transporters
16 fuel trucks Mercedes-Benz Zetros
5 vehicles for border guards
3 civilian cars
50 SatCom communication terminals
500 LED lamps
Equipment for neutralizing explosive ordnance
Nearly 2,000 M92 combat helmets
The German government also said that the new aid package includes 20 infantry fighting vehicles Marder and 15 self-propelled anti-aircraft systems Gepard.
That’s it for today’s Draft folks if you would like to keep up with events in Ukraine daily please consider subscribing, its free!
Check out the speculative article I posted earlier today Merci Mon Ami on the possible reason for the sudden interest in Ukraine on acquiring a very specific French aircraft.
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