War in Donbass. 01/26 - Results for the day
Briefly about the results of the military action of January 26 in Donbass.
1. The Debalcevo pocket hasn't become a full-fledged encirclement yet, our forces managed to get within acceptable distance for shelling the crucial road that connects Debalcevo with the mainland. Meanwhile, offensive action is conducted on the perimeter of the pocket. The enemy is mostly holding on to its defensive positions for now. This week will be decisive here: either our offensive will get stuck and the pocket will be preserved, or our forces will finish it and a full-fledged cauldron will come into being.
2. Fighting continues in the area of Popasnaya, but the town itself is still not captured. Both sides note the fierce nature of fighting on this direction. The plans of a strike through Popasnaya on Artyomovsk are quite clear and well understood by the junta, so they will try to hold firmly to this town.
3. The enemy tried to engage in offensive action in the area of Gorlovka and Donetsk, in particular they tried to recapture the lost Krasnyi Partizan. The NAF temporarily transitioned to conducting defensive action on these directions. Gorlovka and Donetsk are fiercely shelled, suppression of the junta's artillery positions is unsuccessful for now. Zakharchenko said that they'll try to push them back from the cities. How will it work out - we'll see in the coming days.
4. In the area of the airport the junta, as it was already officially recognized, gradually pushed the NAF out of Peski. Our forces are present on the outskirts of the village, they couldn't penetrate the defense in the end and the incoming reserves allowed the junta to stabilize the front line here. Fighting continued under Avdeyevka, but as it was announced officially, they aren't going to storm Avdeyevka, because the junta is using civilians as shields. The airport and Spartak remained under the control of the NAF. Due to the lack of news on sweep or capture of Tonenkoye, no substantial gains were obtained out of this activity. Overall, the front line here gradually stabilized.
5. The AFU activity continued in the area of Yelenovka and Dokuchayevsk. On this location, Dokuchayevsk and the NAF positions were subjected to artillery strikes and mechanized detachments tried to penetrate the NAF defense near Yelenovka, which led to armor-against-armor fighting. The enemy attacks are repelled and the junta has no substantial gains here.
6. Everything is quite stable under Mariupol after the infamous provocation, which the junta is trying to spin now. Meanwhile there was an attempt to spin another false-flag operation that involved using the DPR uniforms. Today there was a video on the network where the DPR materiel is rolling around in Mariupol. I remind once again that this was exactly the scenario about which the DPR military intelligence forewarned just a few days ago. Of course, there is no DPR materiel in Mariupol. Regarding provocations, it is worth noting that the LPR officials announced that an analogous provocation with using the LPR uniforms is being prepared in Stanitsa Luganskaya.
7. Little has changed on the front at Stanitsa Luganskaya - Schastye - Slavyanoserbsk. The sides exchange periodic artillery strikes. It is also worth noting the LPR yesterday transitioned to using the electricity from Russia, making yet another step of separating from the Ukrainian infrastructure.
8. In the area of the Bakhmutka roadway the attempts of capturing Krymskoye and making progress to the west of Slavyanoserbsk didn't deliver any decisive results. The enemy's reserves that entered action slowed down the NAF offensive in this area.
Overall, if we evaluate the situation on the front, then we can see that after the first successes of the NAF the enemy reserves entered into action, reinforced the shaky location, and is even counter-attacking on a number of directions. Debalcevo pocket, which is on the border of turning into an encirclement, remains the main problem of the junta. Here the junta is still unable to stabilize the situation for now. Meanwhile, the resumption of enemy attacks suggests that it has quite sufficient forces for both defensive and offensive action. Nevertheless, the situation is very unstable, because the NAF hasn't engaged their principal reserves yet, so the development of the situation will depend on how they will be used. The losses of both sides over the last week are very serious. The junta losses mostly exceed our losses due to a huge number of dead and wounded in the area of the airport.
Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2012285.html (in Russian)