UAF – Ukrainian Forces
UAS – According to Ukrainian Sources
RF – Russian Forces
RS – According to Russian Sources
Summary of the Events
Both sides continued limited attacks without significant gains on the ground. There are signs that Russia is planning another ground invasion on Kyiv from Belarus sometime in early 2023.
Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv and Western Luhansk Oblast – UAF Counter-offensive)
Svatove – RF repelled UAF attacks toward Sofiivka (14 miles NW) [RS].
Kreminna – RF repelled UAF attacks in the direction of Ploshchanka (11 miles NW), Holykove (6 miles NW) and Kreminna itself [RS]. UAF managed to advance another mile closer to Dibrova which is 3 miles SW [UAS]. Fighting continues in Bilohorivka, Luhansk seven miles south of Kreminna [RS].
UAF struck a Russian ammunition warehouse in Kadiivka (37 miles SE of Kreminna) with HIMARS rockets.
Donetsk Oblast: (Russia’s Main Objective)
Bakhmut – UAF repelled attacks by RF near Verkhnokamyanske, Yakovlivka, Soledar, and Vesele 20 miles NE of Bakhmut, and near Opytne, Klishchivka, Ozerianivka, and Mayorsk 14 miles to the south [UAS]. RF are attempting to break through the defense line at Verkhnokamyanske to advance towards Bilohorivka, Luhansk, from the south. RF made some advances towards Pidhorodne (4 miles NE) and continue fighting in the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut [RS]. RF conducted assaults toward Kurdyumivka (9 miles SW) to establish control over strongholds to the west of Andriivka (6 miles S) [RS].
Avdiivka – UAF repelled an attack near Marinka (17 miles SW) [UAS]. RF conducted ground assaults near Nevelske (10 miles SW), Pobieda (20 miles SW), and Novomykhailivka (23 miles SW) and have taken 80% of Marinka [RS].
RF destroyed a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group near Pavlivka (32 miles SW of Donetsk city) [RS]. RF continue to fire on UAF all along the Donetsk and eastern Zaporizhia line. [UAS].
Southern Ukraine: (Eastern Kherson, Southern Zaporizhia, and Western Donetsk)
RF shelled Kherson city and other settlements along the right bank of the Dnipro River killing two civilians. WAR CRIME RF have mined country plots and along the Konka and Chaika Rivers near Oleshky, just south of Kherson city, and are reinforcing along the Molochne River and Crimea with mines, trenches, and fortifications in fear of an amphibious attack by UAF [UAS]. RF have also deployed electronic warfare equipment to airfields in Crimea [UAS].
Satellite images confirmed a strike by UAF on a Russian-occupied hotel in Zaliznyi Port (37 miles SW of Kherson city) destroying a Russian ammunition depot. They also destroyed Russian equipment throughout Zaporizhia Oblast striking in Tokmak, Polohy, and Berdyansk [UAS].
Russia is carrying out work to switch the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant to the Russian energy system [UAS].
RF attacked near Ochakiv with anti-aircraft missiles [UAS].
Russian Mobilization and Force Support
Russia continues to suffer heavy losses of their officer corps who are being replenished with retired and reserve officers. Russia has already lost more soldiers in the nine months of this campaign than they lost during the ten-year Chechnya War.
Russian military officials are refusing to bury soldiers who are part of the private Wagner Group army of Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin in the Alley of Heroes. Instead, they created a separate cemetery called the Alley of Valor.
The Russian activist group Council of Mothers and Wives have amplified their complaints and are appealing to Russian occupation officials to return their sons from war. They had contracts to fight until October 11 but are being forced to remain until the end of the war.
Life in Russian-Occupied Regions
The Russian legislature approved the first reading of a law that eliminates criminal liability for crimes committed in occupied territories if the crime was committed in the interests of Russia. This even includes the punishment of war crimes.
A captured Russian official has admitted that Russian occupation officials used Ukrainian passports to falsify the results of the Annexation Referendums in the four occupied regions of Ukraine.
Ukrainian partisans sabotaged a power transformer substation in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast cutting off power to a region where RF are quartered.
Ukrainians who were forced to evacuate western Kherson region when RF retreated were placed in temporary accommodations which are not adapted for Winter use. Forty Ukrainian children were forcibly relocated from Severodonetsk to Russia under the pretext of medical care. Parents are forced to relocate to Russia if they want to maintain contact with their children. Ukrainians are being arrested in the occupied territories for not acquiring a Russian passport or using a Ukrainian phone application.
Russia is building a new city on the Arabat Spit for Russian citizens who will relocate to recently illegally annexed territory of Ukraine. Russia is offering mortgage rates at great discount to encourage Russian citizens to move into the regions. Russia is also renaming the streets of Mariupol back to their Soviet names.
Belarus
There are signs that Russia is planning another attack on Kyiv from Belarus as they did last February. First, Russia has not lowered their expectations and still talk as if they are winning and are on the verge of taking all Eastern Ukraine and placing a puppet government in Kyiv to rule the rest of Ukraine as President Alexander Lukashenko does in Belarus. Second, Russia recruited 300,000 troops and has already deployed half of them with little training to Ukraine. But they have been training the other 150,000, many of them in Belarus, and will be ready to deploy them in early 2023. Russian military presence in Belarus has been increasing since October and Russian forces training in Belarus have reported that they have not been told that they will deploy back to Russia. And an elite troop of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division is also training in Belarus and could be the strike force that starts the invasion of Ukraine from the north to move on Kyiv.
But if this invasion does come, it will likely fail as the first invasion did. This time the Russian troops are recently mobilized and have very little experience. And Russia has used up most of its firepower and will not have the missiles, tanks, or aircraft power as they had last year. And Ukraine has had nine months to prepare an effective defense.
Other News
Raids on Ukrainian Orthodox Churches Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) have discovered propaganda literature in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The literature denies the existence of a Ukrainian people, their language, their culture, and their statehood. The UOC MP, an arm of the Russian Orthodox Church, only represents 4% of the Ukrainian population, whereas more than half attend the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
A torture chamber used against Ukrainian children has been discovered in liberated Kherson city. The children were given minimal water and almost no food as they were subjected to psychological torture and abuse. They were told that their parents had abandoned them and were forced to clean up blood in adjacent cells where adults were being tortured.
Russia sent an official warning to the US government that if they go through with their plans to provide Ukraine with Patriot missile systems, Russia will respond with “unpredictable consequences.” The US is expected to make an announcement by the end of this week of whether they will supply the systems to Ukraine or not.
International Support
Pope Francis urged people to spend less on Christmas presents and celebrations, and donate the money saved to those in war-ravaged Ukraine.
The EU officially recognized the Holodomor, the Soviet planned famine in Ukraine in the 1930s that killed tens of millions, as an act of genocide. The US still has failed to declare it genocide, but 22 States have.