It appears the Western masters are all in on a "Melitopol to Crimea" offensive in the Spring. Personally, I see this as suicide. This would require a mass movement of troops over open terrain under the guns of the RF just to pass through Zaporozhye.

-Zin

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Explosions are thundering in Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka, and Kramatorsk, part of the DPR temporarily occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Update: Local resources report that an ammunition depot has been destroyed in Konstantinovka

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❗️️️️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Chronicle of a special military operation
for January 20, 2023
Map:
https://t.me/SLGmaps/128

🔻Belgorod region:

▪️Ukrainian formations shelled the village of Karabanovo in the Valuysky urban district: residential buildings were damaged, civilians were not injured.

🔻Starobelsk direction:

▪️On the Kupyansko-Svatovsky sector, the Ukrainian command is gathering manpower and armored vehicles for an offensive from the northwest to Kuzemovka.
➖Russian artillery conducts aimed fire at enemy concentrations in the vicinity of Novoselovsky.

▪️In the Liman sector, the situation has not changed significantly: artillery duels and positional battles continue along the line of contact.

🔻Soledar direction:

▪️At the Soledar sector, the assault detachments of the PMC "Wagner" are fighting with Ukrainian formations at the Krasnopolye-Razdolovka-Veseloye line, and are also advancing in the direction of Blagodatny.
➖Southwest of Soledar, Russian troops have entrenched themselves on the northern outskirts of Krasnaya Gora and are moving into the center of the settlement.
➖Enemy artillery randomly fires at Soledar and its environs: during one of the strikes, military commander Anastasia Yelsukova was injured, the victim was assisted.

▪️In Bakhmut, fierce clashes continue on the southern and eastern outskirts of the city. Units of PMC "Wagner" storm the positions of Ukrainian formations in the area of the meat processing plant.

▪️Southwest of Bakhmut, Russian troops complete the cleansing of the village of Kleshcheevka.

🔻Donetsk direction:

▪️Motorized rifles of the RF Armed Forces continue to fight on the western outskirts of Maryinka. Russian artillery inflicts intense strikes on enemy positions in the city.

▪️In the Ugledar sector, Russian reconnaissance groups uncovered the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the forest belt near the village of Elizovetovka and fired artillery at them.

▪️Ukrainian formations again shelled the settlements of the Donetsk agglomeration: residential buildings, power lines and a gas pipeline in Karlo-Marksovo were also under attack. There are casualties among civilians.

🔻Zaporozhye direction (map):

▪️In the Orekhovsky sector, Russian troops liberated Lobkovoe and Malye Shcherbaki, and also blocked the enemy in Shcherbaki. The capture of settlements will increase pressure on the Kamenskoye-Stepovoye line.
➖Subdivisions of the RF Armed Forces established control over Novoandreevka, Novodanilovka and Malaya Tokmachka. After cleaning up the vicinity of settlements, Russian troops will be able to continue their offensive against Orekhov.
➖South-east of Orekhov, servicemen of the 291st regiment of the RF Armed Forces knocked out Ukrainian formations from several strongholds in the Novopokrovka area.

▪️On the Pologovsky sector, units of the 5th combined-arms army occupied the dominant heights near the village of Malinovka.

The Ukrainian command is reinforcing the defenses at the Belogorye-Charivnoe line, expecting an offensive by Russian troops in this sector.

▪️The enemy fired at civilian facilities in Tokmak at night: treatment facilities and a veterinary plant were hit.

🔻 Southern Front. Kherson direction:

▪️Artillery duels continue along the line of contact: Russian troops hit the concentrations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Berislav, Antonovka, Kachkarovka, Tokarevka and the vicinity of Kherson.

Ukrainian formations fired at Kakhovka, there were no victims or injured.

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From Slavyangrad chat:

I respect the BND the German intelligence service they are very professional and well informed. What puzzles me is the usage of the term "cannon fodder'. The AFU are facing the Wagner stormtroopers. As I understand western military tactics avoids close combat before an effective suppression of they enemy, i.e bomb the shit out of it. The Wagnerians seems to attack in a non conventional way. How high the casualty rate is among these storm trooper is unknown. It's probably high, that doesn't mean a lot of KIA though. But any way the Wagnerian tactics of attacking in urban areas seems to be very effective.  Looking forward for an analysis after the conflict..

Zin: The thing about Western tactics is that most of our (yes, I'm a Westerner) conflicts have been with weak states using technology 30 or 40 years (at least) behind our own. In my view, Russia attempted to approach Ukraine in the way that the USA approached Iraq and Afghanistan and quickly realized this wasn't going to work. Air superiority is off the table when your enemy is of a sufficient size and has large numbers of S-300 air defense systems along with several others. Mind you, Western satellites and Intel were also at Ukraine's disposal. Really, Ukraine was taking direct orders from the West this whole time. Drone warfare has also changed the tactical landscape as well. This is what a real conflict looks like in the modern age when you aren't playing on easy mode.

Edit: To elaborate, I don't think the whole "smash em up first, and then clean up the pieces" tactic will work in this context.

This "special military operation" will pad military textbooks for generations.

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❗️Ukrainian tankers will start training on Leopard 2 tanks - Oleksiy Reznikov.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in an interview with Voice of America that a breakthrough had come in the issue of tanks for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, Ukraine agreed with some countries that own Leopard 2 tanks to train Ukrainian crews on them even before Germany made a decision on their transfer.

For our part, we add that the decision to transfer Leopards to Ukraine will be made sooner or later anyway, but now, by the time the tanks are received, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will have crews already trained for them, which to some extent levels the consequences of the delay to the enemy.

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Representatives of the Western coalition agreed on the need for two separate price ceilings for oil products from the Russian Federation of various categories, the US Treasury said.

It was also agreed to revise the level of the Russian oil price ceiling in March, taking into account changes in the market.

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To elaborate further, the AFU can constantly plug in reinforcements. This makes the whole "smash em up and clean up the pieces" strategy even less effective. Again, to make the comparison to Western military endeavors, in Iraq, the coalition forces merely had to contend with a guerilla insurgency once key locations were cleared. That's entirely different from facing an opposing force that can bring in tanks and artillery to reinforce positions after an assault.

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⚡️In Kyiv, they prepared for the February offensive of the Russian Federation "from three fronts" - the media, citing the head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine

“The attack will come from the north, across the Belarusian border, from Russian strongholds in eastern Ukraine and from the south,” Rustem Umerov, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation and head of the State Property Fund, said.

According to him, Russian troops surround Ukraine from the Black Sea, Belarus, LPR and DPR.

Zin Note: As a reminder, the difficulty in pulling this off cannot be understated. This would create an active front longer than the distance of the perimeter of the entire nation of Iraq and greater than the front the Germans faced in operation Barbarossa.

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Cyberspec continued:

Now lets try and see what this Zaporozhye action COULD mean in the bigger scheme of things:

Option 1

It's the initial phase of the much talked about large Russian offensive with far reaching aims, for example reaching the Dnieper and coming behind the AFU Donbas grouping. Together with another offensive coming from the North Ukraine, basically cutting off Eastern Ukraine.

Another consequence of such a move would be the inability of the promised western aid to reach the Donbas because most of the Dnieper crossings wuld be blocked. The remaining major bridges in the Chuguev area (blue sq) can be bombed.

Option 2

It's a local offensive with the aim of capturing Orekhovo and Gulai Pole to expand the buffer zone protecting the land bridge to Crimea

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🤑🤡 Ukrobanks oblige borrowers to repay loans on property even if it has come under the control of another state

📝 “In case of alienation of the territory of the object, the borrower is obliged to fulfill its obligations in full according to the current agreement. The transfer of territories to the jurisdiction of another state does not release the borrower from obligations.

👍 Life hack: go under the jurisdiction of Russia, there you definitely don’t need to repay the loan anymore

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Almost all serious damage at the Zaporizhzhya NPP caused by strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been eliminated. Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Rosenergoatom concern, informed us about this.

Karchaa stressed that at one time full-fledged repair and restoration work was impossible due to intense artillery shelling of the station. "If the situation is calm and if we work closely, then in two or three months, a maximum of six months, the station can be put in full order," he said.

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