The Battle for Novorussiya

[Lauren Johnson]

The above video appears to be a TOCHKA-U missile hitting a chemical or munitions plant.

Here is a SITPREP from Col. Cassad (February 9th)

As it was already noted http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2027363.html (in Russian) on February 3rd, the NAF offensive has reached its saturation stage and has stopped on the majority of locations. However, offensive action in the area of Debalcevo and Popasnaya continued and, with great effort, the NAF managed to achieve a number of tactical successes related to squeezing the Debalcevo protrusion even at this stage of the operation. By the 9th the junta still controls the M-103 road, but the NAF already managed to establish quite dense fire control over this key transport artery and the counter-attacks with the goal of widening the bottleneck haven't been very successful for the junta. Moreover, after capturing Uglegorsk the NAF continued action with the goal of narrowing the bottleneck on both sides of the road, attacking in the area of Kalinovka and Nizhnyaya Lozovaya (today there have been announcements even of capturing Nizhnyaya Lozovaya, but for now it is worth waiting for video and photo confirmations). If Nizhnyaya Lozovaya has indeed been captured, then in essence the junta keeps only Logvinovo in the bottleneck and so the threat of a complete encirclement of the Debalcevo group is still quite realistic. Often there are complaints that the offensive is slow, is accompanied by losses, and is often quite strained. But in the area of Debalcevo we still see that the inertia of the offensive still pushes our forces forward and the enemy bends under their pressure, however, there was no break in the junta defense that was expected in mid-January. The enemy suffers losses, abandons settlements, but overall it is holding the front for now.

Chernukhino still couldn't be captured, fierce fighting (including inside urban area) for now don't lead to decisive results. After the loss of Redkodub, Chernukhino is in essence the main hub of the defense of the north-east part of the Debalcevo protrusion and after its loss the protrusion will become significantly smaller and the front may roll back to the line Kamenka Ilyinka Debalcevo. In this area tactical fighting may still lead to serious operational result.

The junta continues its attacks on the NAF positions in the area of Svetlodarsk and adjacent settlements in order to protect the bottleneck near the Mironovka water reservoir. Troitskoye remains under the junta control. In the area of Krasnyi Pakhar the junta hasn't abandoned its attempts to push the NAF back. North of the protrusion the attacks on Popasnaya still didn't lead to capturing the city. As it was already announced in local reports, the enemy defense is fairly robust there.

What's remarkable: by pulling reserves the junta has tried to start an offensive on a number of locations, trying to use the fact that many NAF units are exhausted and suffered losses after almost a month of fighting. This is a rather straightforward attempt to use the numerical superiority on the side of the junta, which, however, hasn't delivered any major dividends for it yet. The junta is much worse at attacking than at defending. But within the confines of fighting for initiative this is a reasonable decision for the junta, the problems with communications of the Debalcevo group if unresolved will lead to an imminent catastrophe. That is why over the last couple of days the enemy has not only tried to carry out local offensive action, but also significantly increased the intensity of shelling frontline cities, using the whole range of artillery systems, showing, so to say, activity.

Shelling of Donetsk, which has recently become more active, serve a terrorist goals rather than military ones. The international community, as usual, prefers to ignore this systematic war crime and the junta continues to clown around, saying that it is the separatists who hammer their own city. The degree of cynicism is unimaginable.

The junta also became active in the area of Mar'inka, where our forces confidently pushed it back in the end of January and now the junta tries to analogously push back the NAF. Here the fighting has a local nature. In the area of the airport the junta still holds Avdeyevka and the majority of Peski. In the area of Gorlovka the offensive actions of both sides led to a dynamic equilibrium of the front on the line MayorskShumy.

As before, the most threatening situation has unfolded in the area of Dokuchayevsk and Yelenovka, where the enemy continues to gather forces for a strike.

The north-Lugansk front and the front line Granitnoye Mariupol didn't change significantly. It is worth noting the attempts at activity by the Mariupol group of the enemy in the area of Shirokino. Apparently they probe the NAF intentions on the Mariupol direction. In the area of the Bakhmutka road, after mutual attacks and counter-attacks, the NAF kept the battered 31-st checkpoint and the high-point 175.9. Novotoshkovskoye couldn't be fully captured in the end. For an offensive on Krymskoye the NAF need to regroup their forces and replenish their first-line detachments.

The enemy attempts to use aviation and drones expectedly led to losses. Our aviation, represented by a single attack jet Su-25, already managed to fly successful sorties, due to which the enemy suddenly became concerned with fortifying its air defense. Overall there are many benefits from even a single attack jet even without bombing raids: the enemy is forced to spend its quite limited efforts on establishing the air-defense system on a huge front line.

Also it is worth pointing out that after the suffered losses and unsuccessful counter-attacks, where the enemy already engaged a part of its reserves, a large-scale redeployment of forces towards the front continues: trains with armored vehicles (including the vehicles from Poland), SpHs and IFVs confidently crawl towards Donbass. This is mostly various Soviet junk, but there are a few new vehicles of Ukrainian origin. The shipments of military gear for the AFU from the "western partners" also continue. And the increasingly more frequent instances of discovering foreign weapon samples suggest that the "voentorg" also works on their side too, albeit not at full strength.

Overall, the situation on the front line is moderately favorable for now. The junta still cannot resolve a serious operational crisis in the area of Debalcevo. Despite the fact that our offensive here mostly ran out of steam, the junta attempts at attacking for now point to the junta not being in the best shape. No matter how you spin it, if the junta managed to take advantage of its numerical superiority over a month of fighting somewhere, then it did so in defense, because our forces attacked with essentially a smaller force. What's the most important: they managed to inflict a number of painful tactical defeats on the junta and also to create a serious threat of a large-scale military catastrophe for it.

Certainly, various stages of the offensive were accompanied by various screw-ups of objective and subjective nature, but overall it is more likely to be an asset for the NAF. Besides the captured settlements and the recaptured territories, this offensive already led to certain political changes and buried the demarcation line that was set in Minsk in September, which among other things forced the EU to agree that the old demarcation line is no longer relevant. Actually, such a turn of the EU diplomatic line became possible to a great extent due to the heroism of common soldiers of the NAF, who captured obscure settlements and numerically labeled high points under harsh conditions, changing not just the front line but also the overall situation around Donbass.

It is worth remembering that overall the junta managed to beat off (except for Debalcevo) and will in the nearest time (unless a diplomatic operational pause will follow) try to attack, both with the goal of returning the positions that were lost in January and with the purpose of helping the Debalcevo group. Despite the fact that the junta spent a part of its reserves in January, the junta still keeps some of its trump cards and it is quite possible that we'll see another attempt to reverse the situation by military means.

Of course, the achieved tactical successes don't cancel the posed goals on pushing the junta forces away from the key cities of Novorossia with the goal of putting an end to their shelling and approaching the borders of the DPR and the LPR with Ukraine.

In this respect it must be clearly understood that the fight will be hard and bloody and that the January NAF offensive, regardless of the final results of the fighting for Debalcevo, will be just another stage of this protracted war. So I would like to forewarn both against excessive pessimism and against facile optimism.