From "The Analyst":
FRONTLINE 3-4 JANUARY
In the north the Russians have made two small but notable advances into open farm land at Kazyamanivka and Ploschanka. This is consistent with their clear aim to reach the Oskil river eventually and fully control that section of the Donbas.
North of Bakhmut in the Vesele area the Russians made several significant gains northward and southward from the north, into what is a Ukrainian salient, and this seems consistent with their attempts to straighten out the front lines and make them shorter and easier to defend, in the longer term.
In front of Bakhmut Russian forces made a small advance along a railway line but pro-Russian sources have walked back their claims about further advances north of that. Any advance here is bad news because it brings the Russians closer to Chasiv Yar.
On the Klieshievka salient the Russians made a very small gain north of Zelinopillia at the base of the salient.
The high ground above Klieshievka and to its west remains contested. The Russians have control over around half of the trench network. As long as they continue to have to face Ukrainian opposition they don’t have the time or resources to use the heights to make the village ruins untenable - and effectively collapse the salient as far as the rail lines.
However if they manage to take the heights in full the views are so commanding, Klieshievka and the salient won in the summer, are simply unviable. This would force a major Ukrainian withdrawal from regained territory. It’s barely three months since the Ukrainians had the Russians on the run over the railways. It’s difficult to understand how quickly they lost so much of these heights, but the Russians poured thousands of men into this area over weeks at huge losses.
On the Avdivka front Russian forces are still fighting - but at a lower level of intensity- for the ruins of Stepove which remains a grey zone, as well as the outskirts of the coking plant, the industrial zone in the southeast and the south. There is continued pressure but not the meat assaults of recent weeks.
At Novomiykalivka the Russians do seem to be again, making efforts to straighten out what is another small Ukrainian salient, though to little gain so far.
At Robotyne, the Ukrainian General Staff made a quite strident announcement that they had regained some of the ground around Verbove and blunted the Russian ‘spike’ they’d managed to push into the central part of the southern edge of the salient. What bothers me about this is they may be willing to expend valuable resources to hold on because it’s more about what it cost and pride, rather than the reality that it’s not worth the expenditure if things are tight elsewhere.
The fact is the Russians did manage to advance over 1.8km north along 7km of the southern part of the salient over many weeks and with the Ukrainians largely pulling back to higher ground and more easily defended positions.
At Krynky the Russians have stepped up attacks in quantity but not in quality almost as harassment. Otherwise nothing has changed.
One notable incident had the Russians send in a 1,500Kg glide bomb deep behind the lines north west of Kherson. Quite what they were after is unknown but it’s presumed it was either a SAM site or reserve storage area of some kind. This is the first time they risked an aircraft that close to the front in several weeks. However they probably took the chance knowing that the missile strikes had pulled away any SAM batteries from the south - which suggests this was some other key logistical hub (or they thought it was).
Overall fighting remains largely positional with minimal gains or losses relative to recent weeks. How long this lasts depends on what’s available to either side now.
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I’ve seen a lot of speculation after President Zelensky’s new years address, that the Ukrainians are planning something big. His ‘we will bring our wrath’ on Russia words seemingly presaging something - presumably long range drones in big numbers aimed at military and industrial targets.
At least that’s how it’s being interpreted. Slava Ukraini!
