According to Heinrich Torsten report
published 24h ago (so not 100% up to date but the last one):
Kursk: Ukrainians retook some areas west of Pogrebki (Russian and N-Korean graveyard ==> LOL
@KipPotapych).
Only RU and NK, not Ukrainian?
Regarding North Koreans:
Source:
x.com. In spite of the claims by the Ukrainian officials and military personnel, we still haven’t seen any evidence of the Koreans participating in any fighting.
Oksil River, Kupiansk region: Russian arranged a second crossing over the river. Took Vyshnieve. Got close to Terny.
Russian troops had either crossed back the river or were pushed back. The area is back under the Ukrainian control/grey zone.
Source:
x.com. Deepstate and much of everyone else state the same.
Toresk: Heavy fightings around and perhaps already inside Toresk. No clear situation report there at the moment.
Russians have been inside Toretsk since the end of summer. There is nothing unclear about that. I do not remember exactly, but Wikipedia says they entered the city on August 22.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Per Deepstate, this is what it looks like today:
Russia has controlled half of the city since about October or so. There has been some back and forth, but they pushed Ukrainians out of the areas they recaptured for a brief period of time.
in other news, days after Umerov (UA minister of defense) visited South Korea asking for military assistance, an ask that was declined, Koreans started testing their UAVs on T-80s and BMP-3, according to the Ukrainian outlet (in Ukrainian):
Збройні сили Південної Кореї використали основні бойові танки Т-80У радянського зразка як мішені для ударних дронів під час навчань
mil.in.ua
Some were saying (hoping?) these vehicles will eventually end up in Ukraine. This can probably be taken as a hard no, as well as a confirmation of the refusal on the assistance Umerov had asked for.
The USA has “publicly” called on Ukraine to lower the mobilization age to 18. There have been quite a few articles on the subject over the past few days, but I am going to quote this one from the FP to reference a few other quotations.
Kyiv pushes back against request and shifts blame on delays in western weaponry supply
www.ft.com
Ukraine should “look hard at the ages of individuals that they are willing to recruit, balancing the need to invest in future generations with the current requirements of the battlefield”, the senior US official said.
Ukraine has said it needs 160,000 soldiers to fill out its ranks, which the US sees as “on the low end”, the official said.
I wonder what the baseline is that they are coming from. From all the reports that I saw in the past long while, I’d agree with the assessment above.
“Let there be no speculation — our state is not preparing to lower the mobilisation age,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told parliament last week.
Zelenskyy’s office on Thursday strongly pushed back against the US request and sought to shift the blame on delays in the supply of western weaponry.
“Ukraine cannot be expected to compensate for delays in logistics or hesitation in support with the youth of our men on the frontline,” said Dmytro Lytvyn, the top communications adviser to the Ukrainian president.
While the former is pretty clear and the reasons behind it, the latter would be quite “sensational” otherwise, but with Ukraine it isn’t. I mean a country claiming to be fighting an existential war refusing to mobilize men (most of whom would go to a great length to avoid being mobilized) blames others who don’t owe them a thing and, moreover, because of whom the country still exists in the first place. The response, really, should be “Ok, then”. I mentioned it several times previously, but this tone and expectations are rather ludicrous given the situation the country is in. Another article mentioned Blinken (I think) saying that if they mobilize more men, the US would train them and so on (take it as a hearsay since I do not have a link handy). Kirby suggested as much and quoted in this article as well:
While the Biden administration has eventually approved many of Kyiv’s requests for weapons and given permission to use them inside Russia, officials believe this will not be enough to have a decisive impact.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan last week said: “Our view has been that there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines.”
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday said Washington was “ready to ramp up our training capacity if they take appropriate steps to fill out their ranks”.
Basically we are escalating for no good reason. This article at the Defense News talks about this escalation with no real returns as far as Ukraine is concerned.
Opinion: "The expanded permissions and new weapons come too late to give Ukraine an advantage on the battlefield or more leverage at the negotiating table."
www.defensenews.com
UK’s Spectator talks the same:
With just over 60 days left in office, Joe Biden’s White House has significantly escalated the Ukraine war it had tried so hard to contain by authorising the use of US-supplied medium-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) and antipersonnel mines against targets inside Russia. Biden’s...
www.spectator.co.uk
This CNN article, another one of many, that interviewed some soldiers at the frontline talks about shortage of men:
“I cannot say exactly how much time we have, if there is any time at all,” said Kashei, a callsign, a reconnaissance sniper. “Now they are pushing their troops to the frontline as much as possible. And then at one point they will all go for an assault. They can go very far. In one day, let’s say.[…]
The drone crew skip through their video library of the past weeks’ costly and chaotic withdrawals. There is the moment when three Ukrainian troops walk into a factory in Selydove a month earlier, advised it is under Ukrainian control, only for one of them to be shot down by Russians occupying the building.[…]
Recruitment brings its own issues. The defense of Selydove, one commander said, was bolstered by 300 fresh recruits, sent to the frontline directly and expected to undergo basic training in the trenches. Errors by command are increasing, several soldiers said, sharing an episode in which a unit of Ukrainian soldiers was attacked by drones on the frontline, after two Ukrainian commanders mistakenly failed to identify them.[…]
Mistakes are commonplace in the chaos and horror of a battlefield, yet this openness and candor is rare from troops who a year earlier would have spoken with fierce pride about Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
“I have no people. I’m f**king alone. I’m f**king tired,” said Kotia, a callsign, another reconnaissance sniper. “I love my job, but we need other young people to love this job too. Our country is awake, but people in it are not. Guys are dying here. This is trash.”[…]
What they say about the Russian troops:
East, the drone commander, said he was assigned to the area in August. “During this time, we have never gone to the training grounds or replenished our personnel,” he said. The Russians “are constantly staffed, constantly trained, there are certain rotations, replenishment of personnel. We constantly hear about it from intercepts, that they have replacements and rotations.”
Other interesting tidbits from the article:
One commander told CNN that troops around Pokrovsk had been ordered to shoot unidentified persons on sight, in fear of Russian reconnaissance groups advancing.[…]
A drone video circulating shows a small house on the edges of Petrivka, a village closeto Pokrovsk, on November 13. The footage shows a local in an orange shirt, guiding advancing Russian troops to a basement where Ukrainian soldiers were hiding.
Frankly, I have no idea what the thought process is currently and how this is supposed to suddenly turn around.
This article discusses various proposed “peace” and otherwise “cease-fire” plans:
More than 3 years of fighting and the arrival of Donald Trump is increasing pressure for a peace deal.
www.politico.eu
Most make zero sense. For example, the Germany scenario after the WW2. Completely different aims in the entirely different perspective. Israel type of scenario makes even less sense provided the scope of the conflict and the size and “quality” of the threat. And so on.
It appears that there is a “crackdown” taking place on the AWOL folks. The fellas are offered to return to their units until January 1 and “the salary payments will resume” as well as other subsidies and “social guarantees”. The article doesn’t talk about the “or else” part and I didn’t look into it further (my guess is there is none).
Согласно новому законодательству, у военных, которые впервые самовольно оставили место несения службы, есть месяц - до 1 января 2025 года, чтобы вернуться без наступления уголовной ответственности.
www.pravda.com.ua
A recent Financial Times article reported that the AWOL is now reaching 18% of the enlisted personnel (I do not have the link handy, so take it as a hearsay).
An AP article talks about desertion:
Some take medical leave and never return, haunted by the traumas of war and demoralized by bleak prospects for victory.
apnews.com
Zelensky now talks about “giving up” land for NATO membership:
President says for first time that his country could cede land temporarily in exchange for protection of a ‘Nato umbrella’
www.telegraph.co.uk
Good luck! Some suggest that there is a “consensus”. There isn’t, clearly.
www.ukrainianworldcongress.org
vk.com
