Updates
"Over the last 48 hours there have been numerous longrange strikes inside Russian territory using both drones and missiles.
The largest target was the Krasnogorsk Refinery that was hit by a "something" of a slightly more powerful nature.
Crimea was hit by a mix of 36 drones and missiles hitting all bases, including Feodosia.
Also the deep rear inside of the occupied areas was hit more than 100 times trying to take out command posts, bridges, munitions dumps, troop concentrations, fueling convoys, etcetera.
The Russian sources state that this is unfair, stupid me thought that war was supposed to be unfair.
And the best part, they complain that we are using the weather unfairly against them, I will return to this.
Luhansk
There has been a few small gains here along the entire line.
This has been brought on by missing Russians, or weakened Russian units caving from the pressure and lack of reinforcements.
I repeat, the gains are small, but put together it was a few square kilometres that is now liberated in about 24 hours, and it was done without really trying.
Zyrskiy is not about to do anything big, he is trying to conserve shells and resources as much as he can, but if he get a totally free parcel of land he is taking it.
Bakhmut
On the southern side a couple of small parcels fell into Ukrainian hands for the same reason.
Avdivka North
The Russians have now placed reinforcements here.
On the frontline of the bulge there are 3 brigades, with another 3 armoured brigades right behind them, and then two more armoured brigades waiting for some free land closer to the action.
They are now using those units for more forceful attacks using more equipment.
But, that artillery I placed out is now paying in aces and spades, it is basically turkey shooting on Russian armour that waddle around saying gobbledigook on the fields.
In 24 hours they lost all equipment in the attacks and sustained about 50 percent losses among the infantry per wave, so 250ish per wave in WIA and KIA.
They did 4 such attacks in 24 hours, we lost 1 soldier in that time due to a traffic accident and had 8 wounded (3 in the accident).
Those 3000 extra shells per day from the West, plus the internally reallocated shells is making a HUGE difference.
Germany stepped up and filled up so we got the promised 100K extra shells, enough for us to have 30 uncramped days.
And the Germans truly went "Achtung Autobahn", ripped the regulators out of the trucks, stuck police cars infront and drove like... well... Germans.
Kind of a scary concept seeing a very long convoy coming at 150km/h filled to the brim with shells and explosives.
But, it was a god send for us.
Unlike the Russians we made 100 small munition dumps in the deep rear and stuck a couple of local guardsmen at each.
I could have kissed those truckers.
Avdivka Center
For some reason the Russians think that two Brigades is enough here, it is sort of an invitation, so we have been busy firing upon those two and we are doing constant probing attack now to see if we can push in another wedge towards Pisky.
Avdivka South
The Russians have now 4 brigades here holding the line, 4 armoured brigades behind that, and a further 5 in the rear.
But, so far no uptick in attacks here, they are still doing 150 men with 1 or 2 armoured vehicles.
We now have lots of artillery ready for their upcoming larger attacks, so those little probes are rapidly flattened each time.
At the same time we are using artillery and those 1500 new heavy FPV multi-target abled drones to hunt them around in the salient.
For those in the rear we are now using GMLRS and in the deep rear the GLSDBs are doing a number on them.
And still more brigades are arriving, they are basically now having parking issues and are now 4 rows deep, and starting a fifth row.
We will definitely need those shells, and then some probably.
I will return to the "then some" later.
Vuhledarish to Tokmakish
There have been a few small parcels taken here to due to missing Russians, but we try to avoid those areas that are not sticking out to not create problems later on.
Tokmak
Oleksandr also got some shells extra, and is using them to push once more in the Verbove direction, and towards Kopani (as per usual).
It is moving forward slowly but steadily since he is conserving resources.
The Russians are complaining a lot about of the volume of artillery, and are very jealous.
The fire ratio is about 1 to 5 here in favour of Ukraine, the Russians are not happy about it at all.
Kherson
Half of Krynky is now officially Blue.
In reality Ukraine is now pushing back the Russians along the entire line as new forces are moving across.
This was aided by weather, due to wind, rain intermixed with a few fog banks Ukraine could use large barges to push over troops at an increased rate.
This was the point when a Russian colonel wrote back home to state that the Ukrainian army is using the weather in an unfair way in their advantage.
Russian MOD was not impressed by this statement.
It did though give us quite a bit to giggle about today.
This means that a third Brigade is now moving across with somewhat more heavy equipment, still not the heavy stuff, but armoured vehicles and some light artillery than can be dragged around.
Also a few medium-class air defence systems have crossed over.
At the going average rate the Ukrainian forces here will be on parity with the Russian forces in about 2 weeks, but the rate of crossings will pick up over that time.
Sometime after that Ukraine will have more soldiers in Kherson than Russia.
All of it enabled by Russia and their newfound "kink" for Avdivka.
They are sort of giving away things now.
Danes
Denmark have somehow created a small miracle and have put together a whopper of a weapons package, and hinted at this being the new norm.
First they seem to have used their Diplomatic prowess quite wisely, something that we used to be good at...
This has led to them purchasing somehow T-72s in Africa behind everyones back, they are though refusing to say who sold them.
Kenya is sort of suspected though.
Then somehow they got those back to Denmark and serviced them and upgraded the **** out of them.
A first batch of 30 is now ready for delivery.
With those are 15 serviced and upgraded Leo 1s.
And on top of that they also found, serviced and upgraded 45 BMPs.
And to be really annoying Danes they have somehow gotten a 155mm shell factory built and started without telling anyone. This will increase shell allowance at around Christmas with 500 shells per day.
And... to just take being annoying to a new height they have also bought up 30 000 shells from India.
Shells that we produced orginally.
Meh, it is irritating when Danes get hold of our own shell and use them to one up us.
So, we are getting an additional 30K shells in a few days, giving us another 10 days at full swing of extra shells.
I tried to get Tank Girl on my side in regards of annoying Danes, but she just scratched my beard and said I am silly...
Sigh...
Statistics
Russia has now lost more equipment in Avdivka than they have lost in Vuhledar and Bakhmut combined.
Being at such an artillery disadvantage is truly cramping the "Russian style".
Yesterday I compared this to the Battle of Kursk.
The reason that Russia won that battle was that they had a 20 to 1 advantage in artillery.
This time it is Russia that's facing that uphill in artillery, yes the figure is 5:1, but then we have the precission advantage on top of that, and the reach advantage, plus the drone advantage.
And thanks to the herculean efforts of our allies we are getting more and more top notch stuff each day.
Whereas Russia is partying over a single train with old Russian M-30 wheeled 122mm howitzer's donated by North Korea.
Those where introduced in 1938...
Yes, they did a piece on TV about how fabulous it is, a bet a lot of old veterans in Russia laughed themselved to death over seeing them again...
What I am getting at is that we are seeing more and more old **** equipment, some from the WWII and older.
Among those that we have taken custody of is a functioning lend-lease Ford half-ton truck donated by the US to the Soviet Union for use against nazi-germany.
When I saw that one my jaw dropped, and I am trying to get them to donate it to the Arsenalen Armour Museum outside of Stockholm.
The Russians are now using those to deliver troops to the frontline, and a couple of enterprising Ukrainians snuck up to an abandoned one at night and nicked it just for funzies.
I swear that by summer the Tzar Tank will come lumbering at the Ukrainians.
It will probably be very effective since the Ukrainians will be laughing so hard that they forget to blow it up.
It is though sort of an interesting concept.
Tsar Tank - Wikipedia
Fun part, they built a functioning replica later on, so sooner or later that one will come lumbering.
Replica at Kubinka Tank Museum attached.
Fun fact, half of Kubinka Museum has by now been sent to the front."