War in Donbass. 01/31 - Results of the day

[cassad_eng]

Results of the military action for January 31st.

1. Just like on all recent days, the main events unfolded in the area of the Debalcevo protrusion of the front.




а) The neck of the protrusion north of Svetlodarsk is mostly held by the enemy, because after capturing Troitskoye and fighting near the area of Krasnyi Pakhar the junta is blocking the attempts to approach the M-103 road in the area of Mironovka. The fighting on this location makes it more difficult for the artillery to strike the road, because it is mostly engaged against the counter-attacking junta military.
b) On the north-east segment of the Debalcevo protrusion the front line remained unchanged overall: our forces engage in military action in the suburbs of Debalcevo (which is also confirmed by the junta), but Debalcevo itself remains under the AFU control.
At the same time there are persistent attempts to clear the enemy out of Chernukhino, which will lead to a substantial reduction in the size of the protrusion.
c) There have been no substantial changes on the front line Nikishino - Novoorlovka, our forces apply pressure, the enemy is fighting back and is holding the front line.
d) And finally, Uglegorsk. The town is mostly controlled by the NAF. AFU positions still exist on the outskirts. The yesterday's counter-strike announced by Grishin only allowed to pull "Svityaz" out of the encirclement and to start skirmishes on the outskirts of Uglegorsk. Here the enemy is trying to mitigate the consequences of the sudden loss of Uglegorsk by using attacks on convergent directions. Fierce fighting continues where both sides suffer big personnel and materiel losses, there is substantial damage in the town. Civilian losses are also likely to be serious, because military action is occurring also on the territory of the town itself.
e) Yesterday there was also information that north of Uglegorsk our forces performed a strike and approached Kalinovka, which is right next to the M-103 roadway. The junta sources confirm that the key road is already being subjected to periodic artillery shelling, albeit fairly imprecise. The road itself is still mostly drivable, so it is still too early to speak about the encirclement. The protrusion noticeably narrowed over the last week and gradually turned into an intestine of sorts that stretches from Svetlodarsk to the south-east. In its current form this intestine is obviously useless as a foothold for a junta offensive.
Overall, fighting continues here and the operational results of the January NAF offensive will depend, in essence, on the tactical results of this fighting.





2. On the rest of the front everything remains fairly stable: there are no substantial changes on the line Stanitsa Luganskaya - Schastye - Slavyanoserbsk, the enemy continues to regroup, at least one battalion tactical group was removed from the front here and redeployed towards the area of the Bakhmutka road, where the front has also stabilized. Apparently, there is ongoing concentration of forces with the goal of performing strikes to recapture the lost positions. The enemy continues to reinforce its defense in the area of Krymskoye.
In the area of Popasnaya our offensive has stopped overall, there are local skirmishes and artillery shelling.



A burning church in Gorlovka.

3. There have also been no substantial changes in the area of Gorlovka. The enemy continues to perform powerful artillery strikes on the city, our artillery responds but with insufficient intensity, apparently the main artillery forces were pulled towards the Debalcevo pocket and there's not enough left for effective response against the junta positions to the west of Gorlovka. The threat of the junta offensive continues to grow here as it continues to concentrate forces to the west of the city. In the nearest time one cannot exclude the possibility of a strike with the goal of improving the situation in the area of Uglegorsk. A possible renewal of the enemy aviation activity is also expected here. A group of Mi-24 attack gunships was noted in the Kramatorsk airport.









4. There have been no substantial changes in the area of the airport. There have been local skirmishes near Avdeyevka and Peski. Our forces have suffered fairly serious losses there. The front line near the airport passes about 2km away from the airstrip. Over recent days the enemy redeployed up to a battalion of infantry reinforced with armor into Avdeyevka. In Peski the front line passes through the village itself, just like it used to be. Activity of the enemy sabotage/reconnaissance groups, which conduct disturbing action close to the front, continues in the area of Spartak and in Donetsk itself. Countermeasures against these groups have varying degree of success. Things also remains the same in the area of Mar'inka and Krasnogorovka: just like in Peski, the front line passes through residential districts. It is hard to expect rapid progress of the infantry under the conditions of urban development, furthermore the sides clearly lack forces for decisive action in this area. Donetsk itself is still being subjected to shelling, the NAF have no ability to stop this shelling under current conditions. The enemy continues to overcompensate on civilians for its military failures here.

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NAF infantry in the area of Peski.

5. Things remain the same to the south of Donetsk. The enemy continues to concentrate armor and infantry near Yelenovka and Dokuchayevsk, at the same time subjecting our positions to fierce shelling. Besides Gorlovka, this is another potential location where the AFU may engage in an offensive. It is more likely that it will be directed not around Donetsk but rather directly towards its southern suburbs in order to push the front line that currently stretches from Mar'inka to Yelenovka forward and also to wrap the Petrovsky district of Donetsk.

Overall, after several weeks of fierce fighting the sides reduced the intensity of military action effectively on all locations except for the Debalcevo pocket and Gorlovka. The key points of today will be Uglegorsk, Kalinovka, and Chernukhino. The fate of Debalcevo will depend in many ways on the results of fighting in the vicinity of these settlements.

http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/9282-hronika-voennyh-sobytiy-v-novorossii-za-31012015.html (in Russian) - the online-broadcast of the military action on the "Voice of Sevastopol" for January 31st.
http://cassad.net/tv/videos/4698/ (in Russian) - the video-summary from "Cassad-TV" for January 30-31.

Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2022745.html (in Russian)