Avdiivka looks to be soon lost no thanks to lack of additional funding that would allow the resumption of supplies of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine from the United States.
The ruined coke and chemical plant, once an economic pillar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, is likely to be the last Ukrainian stronghold in Avdiivka, which has been embattled since 2014. Ukrainian troops say it is just a matter of time before they will have to surrender the city, and on Thursday the military said forces had already pulled back from some positions as the Russians have begun advancing rapidly.
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Avdiivka potentially poses a first critical test for Ukraine’s new commander in chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, who was elevated last week by President Volodymyr Zelensky and must decide if and when to admit defeat and withdraw. Many troops accuse Syrsky, who previously led Ukraine’s ground forces, of waiting too long to do the same last year in Bakhmut, another eastern city, when it was under siege last year.
Capturing Avdiivka would mark Moscow’s most significant battlefield victory since the failure of a Ukrainian counteroffensive last year — and would be the clearest sign yet that Russian forces are regaining the initiative as Kyiv runs short of soldiers, weapons, ammunition, morale and money.
www.washingtonpost.com/...
Long before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022 and even prior to his 2014 invasion and capture of Crimea, analysts noted with alarm a different kind of escalation – the threatening rhetoric against Ukraine by Putin and actors within his control. Dating at least to 2008 or 2009, increasingly hostile language laid the groundwork for rejecting Ukraine’s existence as a state, a national group, and a culture.
What follows below is a compilation of publicly available statements (readers are invited to submit by email any that we may have missed).
Experts such as Francine Hirsch, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg,” have pointed to such language as evidence of genocidal intent toward the Ukrainian people. Whether and how the concept of “genocide” applies to Russia’s campaign against Ukraine is the subject of debate, notwithstanding the reference in Article II of the Genocide Convention to “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.” A related issue under discussion is a concept often referred to as “cultural genocide,” which generally connotes the intentional destruction of a group’s identity even in the absence of mass killings. “These calls for ‘de-Ukrainization’ are an incitement to genocide: to ‘destroy, in whole or in part,’ the Ukrainian nation,” Hirsch wrote in April 2022. And Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder, in reference to the same article in the Russian outlet RIA Novosti that prompted Hirsch’s conclusion, wrote, “Russia has just issued a genocide handbook for its war on Ukraine.”
Beth Van Schaack, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, said in a May 2022 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in response to a question about the Russian atrocities coming to light in Ukraine, “Some of the genocidal rhetoric that we’re hearing out of Russia is extremely worrying.”
A report from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights concludes that “Russia bears State responsibility for breaches of Article II and Article III (c) of the Genocide Convention,” and “that that there exists undoubtedly a very serious risk of genocide, triggering States’ duty to prevent under Article I of the Genocide Convention.” Among the evidence the report cites is a range of statements that it says constitute “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” including denying the existence of a Ukrainian identity; accusing Ukraine, contrary to evidence, of committing the very kinds of atrocities that Russia is or envisions committing; and dehumanizing rhetoric.
www.justsecurity.org/...
- Russian forces are conducting a tactical turning movement through Avdiika likely to create conditions that would force Ukrainian troops to withdraw from their positions in the settlement. Ukrainian forces have yet to fully withdraw from the settlement and continue to prevent Russian forces from making gains that are more significant than the current incremental Russian advances.
- The Russian offensive effort to capture Avdiivka underscores the Russian military’s inability to conduct a successful operational envelopment or encirclement in Ukraine.
- The potential Russian capture of Avdiivka would not be operationally significant and would likely only offer the Kremlin immediate informational and political victories.
- The Russian command reportedly reorganized the command structures of the Russian grouping of forces in southern Ukraine.
- Russian forces conducted a relatively larger series of missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of February 14 to 15.
- Ukrainian security forces reportedly conducted a successful drone strike against an oil depot in Kursk Oblast.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to elaborate on an amorphous ideology for Russia to support geopolitical confrontation with the West by attempting to portray Russia as the leader of an international anti-Nazi movement.
- Putin intentionally misrepresented a statement from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an attempt to promote pseudo-history aimed at denying Ukrainian statehood.
- Russian sources claimed that the Russian military officially removed Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) Commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov and replaced him with the BSF’s Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk.
- Select members of the US-led coalition the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (also known as the Ramstein format) formally launched an air defense coalition and agreed to form a drone coalition and demining coalition to support Ukraine following the group’s 19th meeting in Brussels on February 14.
- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO and Ukraine will create a joint analysis, training, and education center in Poland following the meetings of NATO Defense Ministers in Brussels on February 15.
- Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kupyansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Uralvagonzavod plant in Sverdlovsk Oblast, one of Russia’s largest tank producers, on February 15 to promote Russian efforts to expand Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB).
- Head of Ukraine’s nuclear operating enterprise Energoatom Petro Kotin stated that the situation at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is becoming more dangerous due to Russian activity near and at the plant.
www.understandingwar.org/...
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)
Geolocated footage published on February 15 shows that Russian forces recently advanced northeast of Synkivka and southeast of Vilshana – both areas located northeast of Kupyansk.[52] ... The officer added that Russian forces operating in the Kupyansk direction are well-trained and are well-supplied but are using barrier detachments (specialized units that shoot at their own personnel who retreat or those who do not attack) in the area.[55] The officer observed that Russian claims about Russian personnel soon having one first person view (FPV) drone per fighter are plausible and noted that Ukrainian forces need additional electronic warfare (EW) systems as Russian forces are intensifying their drone usage in the Kupyansk direction. Positional battles continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka; and southeast of Kupyansk near Ivanivka, Pishchane, Berestove, Kotlyarivka, and Kyslivka.[56]
Russian sources claimed on February 15 that Russian forces have seized nearly 90 percent of the industrial zone near Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna), despite previously claiming full Russian control over the area on February 8 and February 9.[57]….Positional engagements continued northwest of Kreminna in the area south of Nevske; west of Kreminna near Terny, Yampolivka, and Torske; southwest of Kreminna near Dibrova; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[60]
Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets assessed that the Russian military command is completing the regrouping of military personnel in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions.[61] Mashovets noted that assault detachments of the 752nd and 252nd motorized rifle regiments (3rd Motorized Rifle Division, 20th Guards Combined Arms Army [CAA], Western Military District [WMD]) transferred to Zhytlivka (immediately northwest of Kreminna), likely to support assaults in the Terny direction. Mashovets noted that it is likely that the Russian military command will operationally subordinate assault detachments (each detachment having up to a battalion’s worth of combat power) of the 2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division (1st Guards Tank Army) operating in the Kupyansk direction under the commander of the 144th Motorized Rifle Division (20th CAA) operating on the Svatove-Kreminna line. Mashovets added that the Russian command committed two ”fresh” assault companies from the 31st Motorized Rifle Regiment (67th Motorized Rifle Division, 25th CAA) in the Yampolivka direction and are transferring elements of the 47th Tank Division (WMD) from the Kupyansk direction to the Lyman direction – possibly to relieve elements of the 90th Guards Tank Division (41st CAA, Central Military District [CMD]) and fully commit the 90th Tank Division to the Avdiivka direction where other elements of the 90th Tank Division are already fighting. Mashovets concluded that the Russian command’s desire to continue simultaneous offensives in both Lyman and Kupyansk directions will require Russia to commit additional reserves as the remainder of the 90th Guards Tank Division deploys to Avdiivka.
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces recently marginally advanced near Bakhmut on February 15. Geolocated footage published on February 14 indicates that Russian forces recently marginally advanced west of Bakhmut.[62] Russian sources claimed on February 15 that elements of the Russian 11th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Brigade advanced to the outskirts of Ivanivske (just west of Bakhmut).[63] Positional engagements continued northeast of Bakhmut near Vesele; west of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka, Khromove, and Ivanivske; and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, Andriivka, Kurdyumivka, and Pivdenne.[64] Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Ilya Yevlash stated that the Russian command is transferring units to the Bakhmut direction from other unspecified sectors of the front and that Russian forces are attacking from Bohdanivka in the direction of Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut).[65]
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces recently marginally advanced near Bakhmut on February 15. Geolocated footage published on February 14 indicates that Russian forces recently marginally advanced west of Bakhmut.[62] Russian sources claimed on February 15 that elements of the Russian 11th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Brigade advanced to the outskirts of Ivanivske (just west of Bakhmut).[63] Positional engagements continued northeast of Bakhmut near Vesele; west of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka, Khromove, and Ivanivske; and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, Andriivka, Kurdyumivka, and Pivdenne.[64] Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Ilya Yevlash stated that the Russian command is transferring units to the Bakhmut direction from other unspecified sectors of the front and that Russian forces are attacking from Bohdanivka in the direction of Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut).[65]
Russian forces are conducting a tactical turning movement through Avdiivka likely to create conditions that would force Ukrainian troops to withdraw from their positions in the settlement. Ukrainian forces have yet to fully withdraw from the settlement and continue to prevent Russian forces from making gains that are more significant than the current incremental Russian advances. Geolocated footage published on February 15 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced to the southern outskirts of the Avdiivka Coke Plant in northwestern Avdiivka.[1] Additional geolocated footage published on February 15 indicates that Russian forces captured a Ukrainian fortified position south of Avdiivka that has long been a Russian sub-tactical objective, ... Recently geolocated Russian advances indicate that Russian forces have cut the last road in Avdiivka connecting southern and northern Avdiivka, but Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Dmytro Lykhoviy stated that Ukrainian forces are currently using prepared secondary ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to supply Ukrainian forces in southern and eastern Avdiivka.[3] ….Lykhoviy acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from unspecified positions in the Avdiivka area but stated that Ukrainian forces also continue to recapture some unspecified positions from Russian forces.[5] The spokesperson for a Ukrainian brigade previously deployed to the Bakhmut area stated on February 15 that elements of the brigade redeployed to Avdiivka and are counterattacking Russian positions within the settlement.[6] Russian forces may be able to complete the envelopment of some Ukrainian forces if the Ukrainian forces do not withdraw or conduct successful counterattacks.
www.understandingwar.org/...
Starlink denies that it is used in Russia or sold by an intermediary in Dubai, but what that statement omits is that the accusations are not about the usage in Russia but by usage of the Russian military which operates in Ukraine. Even the Starlink Availability map shows that two areas (in red) in Ukraine which are temporarily controlled by the Russian military, can be used by Starlink. Only the Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russian forces in yellow are excluded.Starlink must do better than that and clarify the situation.