Situation in Donbass by August 17
Situation in Donbass by the morning of August 17.
Luhansk People's Republic.
1. If to the north of Luhansk the front line remains stable for a already a quite continuous period of time on the broken line from Lutugino to the border with the Russian Federation, then on the south-west and the south approaches to Luhansk the enemy unfolded offensive action with the goal of organizing a complete blockade of the city. The "assault" of Luhansk that started the day before yesterday expectedly ran out of steam in the suburbs, because the assault was clearly performed with insufficient forces. The units that were advancing from the south got into the urban area and ended up drawn into unconvincing street fighting, which appeared more of a simulation of activity rather than triumphant relations that the "liberation of Luhansk" has begun.
2. Together with that the fighting continued for Khryashevatoye (which is not fully controlled by the enemy) and for Novosvetlovka that was captured 2 days ago. The latter is wrapped from 3 sides (the most danger for the operation for extending the encirclement ring to Novosvetlovka is posed by the south direction) and is processed with MRLS and tubed artillery. Nevertheless, the attacks of LPR militia fighters with the forces of infantry and tanks don't deliver a decisive success yet, the enemy, leaning on the housing blocks of Novosvetlovka even though rains with the requests for help, but for now keeps the main positions. Both sides suffer quite noticeable losses in people and materiel during the fighting. The persistence of the sides is understandable. Novosvetlovka has the operational significance in the view of fighting under Luhansk and the political significance in the view of guiding "white trucks", which apparently the junta agreed to let through.
3. Right now it is calm on the border in general. To the south of Izvarino there are no junta military for quite a bit of time already, and so the traffic is carried out through the border without much of a problem. The majority of trophies from the South Cauldron were already evacuated - either immediately to the front or to repair. The main problem - the lack of fuel and lubricants and spare parts as well as the crews. Regarding the appeared rumors on the topic of arms trading - on the territory of Donbass already since the Spring there is a black market for weapons, which is absolutely unsurprising. And it goes to both sides. The authorities of the Russian Federation lately took to this question more actively, because there were instances of reselling weapons and evacuating it into Russia. Nothing surprising here - while there is a war, there is always a layer of people of criminal nature, which take advantage of the war, engaging in burglaries, maraudery, protection rackets and among other things, trading weapons. This can be impeded by more rigorous filtering of people and cargo that arrive from the territory of Novorossia and by strengthening special measures on establishing order in the pre-front strip and the rear.
4. The situation is stable in the area of Alchevsk and Stakhanov. The LPR militia and the "Ghost" brigade (now it is not a battalion) confidently keep the crucial settlements and road intersections, performing disturbing action under Pervomaisk and Debaltsevo. Debaltsevo itself, in contrast to victorious announcements, wasn't captured but the line of military contact noticeably moved towards this crucial point over the last 4-5 days, so a portion of forces, which the junta could use in combat in the area of Uglegorsk and developing the offensive to the south of Debaltsevo it has to keep for defending the city. Overall, considering the limits of militia forces on this location, they solve their problems well here. The junta for now has insufficient forces here to start the offensive with the goal of defeating the Alchevsk-Stakhanov militia group.
Overall, an operational crisis in the area of Novosvetlovka-Khryashevatoye is apparent on the LPR territory, along with a quite stable situation on other location. It only remains to wait for the results of combat.
Donetsk People's Republic
1. On the south approaches to Donetsk the offensive on Ilovaysk started to noticeably run out of steam, the incomprehensible attempts to breach the militia defense head-on and the unfortunate attempt of wrapping Ilovaysk form the south-west led to a shift of the main attack to Mospino, which ended up wrapped from the three sides, and at the same time the junta announces that the unfortunate fighting under Ilovaysk were a part of a clever plan in order to divert the militia fighters from Mospino. Actually, after a defeat under Ilovaysk the junta simply due to its overall advantage in people and materiel performed a new strike in the joint between Ilovaysk and Mospino and also strengthened the advance from the south-west of Mospino. The city itself isn't surrounded yet, but the roads to it are exposed to fire and the risk of encircling the garrison of Mospino exists.
At the same time the main strike of the south group becomes altogether straightforward and leads it at best (in the case of capturing Mospino) to the south outskirts of Donetsk. More ambitious plans regarding the convergent strikes with the goals of cutting the roadway that leads to Donetsk through Torez and surrounding Donetsk once again were scrapped. Credit goes, among the others, to the Ilovaysk garrison.
2. A full-fledged "South Cauldron 2.0" emerged yesterday where the units of the 2 junta brigade and various minor detachments ended up being. The enemy took to a defense with the support of the settlements Dyakovo, Latyshevo, and Dmitrovka. The defeat in fighting for Miusinsk, Krasnyi Luch, and also the fall of Marinovka simply lead to a repeat of the already known scenario where the battered in heavy fighting junta brigades fall into the operational encirclement and start to be processed with artillery. However, considering the militia activity in the area of Dmitrovka, apparently this time there's no time to wait while the cauldron will dissolve by itself and the militia performs the attempts to speed up the process. Obviously, in the light of the new encirclement, the junta will be forced to take a part of forces from under Ilovaysk and Amvrosiyevka in order to try and unblock the cauldron for the second time. In the nearest time a junta offensive with the use of mechanized detachments can be expected in the area of Marinovkal.
It must be noted that the activity of the reconnaissance and sabotage groups in the area of the checkpoint "Uspenka" signified a veiled threat of the wrap of the junta group in the area of Amvrosiyevka, although this is of course more of a medium-term threat.
3. The operational crisis in the area of Miusinsk and Krasnyi Luch is in general overcome. The units from the 30-th mechanized brigade that were encircled to the north of Krasnyi Luch broke out of the encirclement with major losses, the enemy was finally pushed out of the suburbs of Miusinsk. Also all enemy attacks in the area of Snezhnoye were repelled. By today we can say that the battle in the area of Krasnyi Luch-Miusinsk-Snezhnoye was won by the militia, the junta suffered significant losses in people and materiel and failed to achieve anyhow significant results. Thus, the militia at this moment controls the key roadway through which Donetsk and Gorlovka are supplied.
4. The only direction where the junta continues to keep the operative initiative remains the location between Gorlovka and Debaltsevo, where, using its major advantage in armor, the junta tries to cut Donetsk from Gorlovka and to approach Yenakiyevo, in the outskirts of which fighting started. The blown up bridge near Uglegorsk slowed down the junta offensive. The approached reserves bound the advancing forces with combat, but the risk of encircling Gorlovka is quite high, and also the Yenakiyevo garrison, considering its recent rear status is fairly weak. At the same time the reinforced armor group managed to break to Zhdanovka, where heavy fighting for this settlement unfolded. The loss of Zhdanovka may cause a wrap of Yenakiyevo from the south, so the militia is trying to arrest this breakthrough. Together with this, the military action under Yasinovataya didn't deliver any noticeable results for the junta. Overall, the threat of wrapping Donetsk from the north, encircling Gorlovka is preserved, plus the threat also emerged for Yenakiyevo. So it is not worth speaking about fully repelling the junta offensive on Donetsk yet.
Overall, the nature of fighting over the recent days has changed - the junta is already unable to advance everywhere and is forced to regroup for carrying out new strikes, with that it is quite systematically suffering defeats on the south. Nevertheless, without repelling the junta offensive south of Debaltsevo and recapturing Novosvetlovka it is too early to speak about overcoming the crisis.
Separately about the "military surplus store". Over the recent days it became more active, which led to materials that seep into the press and symptomatic "leaks" from the leadership of the DPR.
Of course, nobody will admit this officially, similarly to not admitting the presence of "polite people" in Crimea up until a certain moment. So the official line in this question will deny everything just like before, which is fine.
The guerrilla warfare behind the front lines is gradually gaining steam, the junta clearly lacks people for controlling the pre-front strip, so the announcements about rafales and attacks on the rear checkpoints and convoys gradually come in increasingly more often. They still don't have operational significance, but the tendency here for the junta is unfavorable, even a month ago it was much more calm in the junta rear than now.
Donetsk and Luhansk are still being subjected to shelling, civilians perish daily, homes and social infrastructure are destroyed. The situation has crossed the line of a humanitarian catastrophe already a long time ago.
Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/1734607.html (in Russian)
http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/3783-voyna-na-yugo-vostoke-onlayn-17082014-hronika-sobytiy-post-obnovlyaetsya.html (in Russian) - online-broadcast on the "Voice of Sevastopol" for 08/17
http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/3761-voyna-na-yugo-vostoke-onlayn-16082014-hronika-sobytiy-post-obnovlyaetsya.html (in Russian) - online broadcast on the "Voice of Sevastopol" for 08/16
http://voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/3782-svodka-voennyh-sobytiy-v-novorossii-za-16082014.html (in Russian) - military action in "Novorossia" for 08/16