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Ukraine SitRep – Zolote Cauldron Closes – Lysichansk Blocked (Corrected twice)
[Corrected (twice) below]
In the last situation report about the war in Ukraine I discussed the situation near Lysichansk.
The Ukrainian leadership is still sending new units into the Lysichansk cauldron in the east. The Russians do not mind that. Their job is to "demilitarize" Ukraine. To enclose more troops in one swoop makes that easier.
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The distance between the red Russian held area at the the top to the one at the bottom at the most narrow gap is a mere 15 kilometer or some 9 miles. There is only one open road running through it from west to east which is used for pushing resupplies to the Ukrainian troops in Lysichansk.
The map has since changed significantly:
Jun 16
Source: LiveUAmap – bigger
What developed was first a smaller cauldron around Zolote at the bottom of the map.
Jun 18
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This was a classic move done by the book.
Jun 20
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Then a battalion of Ukrainian troops that was supposed to hold the villages in the upper area of the pocket retreated. Some say they were ordered to leave, others claim they mutinited. The later is more likely as these were amateur infantry from the Territorial Defense Forces who, without sufficient support, had been send to replace better troops that were ordered back.
Jun 22
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The Russians on the eastern wing moved west to take 5 villages in one day along the pocket's northern border.
Jun 24
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That put the lid onto the cauldron which immediately began to cook the estimated 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers who were inside.
The above maps are quite rough. A more detailed one from the Russian side shows that several towns within the Zolote cauldron have not yet been cleared.
Jun 24
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In today's report the Russian Defense Ministry claims:
Successful offensive of Russian units towards Lugansk within 5 days has resulted in the liberation of Loskutovka, Podlesnoye, Mirnaya Dolina, Shchebkaryer, Vrubovka, Nyrkovo, Nikiolayevka, Novoivanovka, Ustinovka and Ray-Aleksandrovka.
Group of Ukrainian units has been completely isolated near Gorskoye and Zolotoye.
This pocket has encircled four battalions: 3rd Mechanised Battalion of 24th Mechanised Brigade, 15th Mountain Assault Battalion of 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, 42nd Mechanised Infantry Battalion of 57th Mechanised Infantry Brigade, 70th Battalion of 101st Territorial Defence Brigade, as well as an artillery group of 57th Mechanised Infantry Brigade, a group of Nazis from Right Sector organisation and a detachment of foreign mercenaries.
In total, the Gorskoye pocket has isolated up to 2 thousand people: about 1,800 servicemen, 120 Nazis from Right Sector, up to 80 foreign mercenaries, as well as over 40 armoured combat vehicles and about 80 guns and mortars.
41 servicemen abandoned their resistance and surrendered voluntarily just over the past 24 hours.
According to the prisoners, the encircled Ukrainian units are exhausted. The units are currently manned by less than 40%. Higher Ukrainian command has lost control over these units. Armament, munitions, fuel and other logistic supply is completely stopped.
Russian troops are straitening the Gorskoye encirclement by launching uninterrupted attacks at the enemy. Half of Zolotoye had been taken under control over yesterday.
Since this morning some 600 have additionally surrendered. The others will likely follow later today or tomorrow.
Also this morning the Ukrainian deputy commander for Luhansk province announced that the soldiers and foreign mercenaries who held out in the industrial area of Sevierodonetzk east of Lysichansk were told to retreat to Lysichansk. In fact a full retreat from Lysichansk further west seemed to be likely.
But that was no longer really possible for the 10-15,000 soldiers in and around the city as a bridge on the single road that leads to the west has been dropped overnight onto the railway tracks below.
Correction (19:00 utc) This sections was wrong and has been corrected. A bridge was bombed to cut the escape route from Lysichansk but it was a different one than I first wrote. That does not change the conclusion
Bridge marked in red – This map is of a different bridge.
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This map is of the bridge that was actually destroyed. It is at the north-west of the Lysichansk refinery I discussed in the previous situation report.
Bridge marked in red
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A Russian helicopter performed that mission and it now seems that there was a bigger landing of airborne troops west of the refinery.
Here is how the bridge is now said to be looking. Correction (17:30 utc): The picture does not show the bridge on the map.
Correction (19:00 utc) The picture is of the destroyed bridge but it was geo-located wrongly. But that the bridge on the map is now damaged was reported by a source that is usually correct. I still assume that it is in fact so. Again the map was wrong, not the picture of the bridge.
Sorry for this 'fog of war' confusion. The tactical effects of the incident mentioned below stays the same. [end of both corrections]
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There are still side roads and dirt tracks that can be used but the whole area west of Luhansk is under Russian fire control. The long convoy that would be needed for a retreat can not pass without being severely molested.
The big Lysichansk cauldron has thereby also been closed. Despite the still necessary cleanup of the city and two or three small villages one can state that the former Ukrainian province Luhansk, now the Luhansk People's Republic, has been liberated from Ukraine.
On the Russian side some 30-40 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG) have been involved in the whole operation. Most of them can now resupply and rest to later be used elsewhere.
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine as of 11.00 on June 25, 2022
The enemy continues to suffer significant losses. As a result of strikes by high-precision weapons of the Russian Aerospace Forces on the buildings of the Megatex zinc plant in the village of Konstantinovka of the Donetsk People’s Republic, up to 80 Polish mercenaries, 20 armored combat vehicles and eight Grad multiple rocket launchers were destroyed. More than 300 Ukrainian servicemen and foreign mercenaries, 35 units of heavy weapons were destroyed in the Nikolaev area during the day.
Refusals to perform assigned tasks continue in the units of the Ukrainian army and territorial defense. The personnel of the 64th battalion of the 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade, stationed in LVIV, refused to leave for the combat area in the Donbas due to the staffing of untrained reservists and the lack of heavy weapons.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue a special military operation in Ukraine.
Operational-tactical and army aviation, rocket troops and artillery hit manpower and military equipment in 284 districts, two ammunition depots and rocket and artillery weapons in the Volcheyarovka area of the Luhansk People’s Republic, as well as artillery and mortar units in 43 districts.
As part of the counter-battery struggle, high-precision weapons of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the Donetsk direction were hit: eight artillery platoons of the Hurricane MLRS in the Kurakhovo, Ukrainsk, NOVOSELOVKA THE SECOND, VOZDVIZHENKA districts and two artillery platoons in the areas of UKRAINSK, YASNOBRODOVKA, which shelled the city of DONETSK and other settlements of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
More than 780 nationalists, eight tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, three Uragan MLRS combat vehicles, 10 field artillery guns and mortars, and 13 special vehicles were destroyed as a result of air strikes, rocket troops and artillery.
Russian air defense means destroyed 21 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the areas of settlements: POPASNAYA, KAPITANOVO of the Luhansk People’s Republic, ANDREEVKA, BARVENKOVO, BOLSHYE PROKHODY, VELIKAYA KAMYSHEVAKHA, RECRUITMENT, DONETSK, DOLGENKOE, IZYUM, MALYE PROKHODY, MALAYA KAMYSHEVAKHA, OLKHOVATKA, CHERVONIY SHAKHTER of the Kharkiv region, PYATIKHATKA of the Dnipropetrovsk region, BOBROVY KUT, MALAYA SEIDEMINUKHA, MOLODEZHNOYE, Kherson region and in the area of ZMEINY Island.
A Tochka-U ballistic missile was also intercepted near the settlement of Molodezhnoye, Kherson region, and 16 multiple rocket launchers in the areas of the settlements of BRAZHKOVKA, Glinskoye, Dolgenkoye, Kharkiv region, Avdiivka, Donetsk People’s Republic and in the area of ZMEINY Island.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 213 aircraft, 132 helicopters, 1,355 unmanned aerial vehicles, 350 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,797 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 670 multiple rocket launcher combat vehicles, 3012 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 3,848 units of special military vehicles have been destroyed.
Posted by: noname | Jun 25 2022 10:33 utc | 210
In response to Scorpion@234,
What is and isn’t politically correct or what constitutes the preferred narrative or the correct interpretation of events; these things change in tune with political expedience or, if you like, necessity.
During the revolution, whites and reds told horror stories about each other that amounted to total condemnation and dehumanization. Post revolution, condemnation focused on specific figures, leaders and drivers of the white movement, while followers were relegated the role of misguided cattle. Why? Because the existential crisis had moved to a different phase where unity and human resources took priority. A decade or two ago, a process of total rehabilitation of the white movement began in earnest. Why? Because it had the backing and approval of Western powers, with whom Russia tried to integrate. That process of rehabilitation and historical reinterpretation has been slowing since 2008 and is in the process of being rolled back due to the current breakdown in relations. Who knows where we’ll be in 10, 20 or 50 years?
Meanwhile, roughly a 100 years worth of competing and contradictory narratives have been used throughout the entirety of that period by every political player under the sun in pursuit of one goal or another, provided by expats with axes to grind, bitter failures of foreign politicos, domestic political rivals and so on and so forth — all suspect. The only narratives which, hopefully, would be rejected by the mainstream consensus throughout the entire period, would be ones celebrating cruelty for its own sake, real or imaginary, and ones that explain events through the prism of fantastic forces at work, such as ancient aliens and forest spirits — and even then, I wouldn’t exclude the possibility of such interpretations having the upper hand at some point.
Stalin was treated in much the same way. The cult-like following that resulted from his reign made it impossible for the comparatively weaker Soviet leadership to get out from under his shadow, so the information space was saturated with every smear against him, real or imaginary, that could be published without harming the self-image of the population and the ruling elite. Rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators began. With glasnost and perestroyka, the self-image of the population was no longer a concern and the process entered second gear.
With the end of the USSR and advent of the 90’s, Yeltsin condemned the USSR in its totality in front of US congress and spent his days rubber-stamping historical grievances presented by former Soviet member states while preserving favorable conditions for crucial loans and food aid. Meanwhile, lived experience of the majority of Russians is a photo-negative of the narrative that was created around them, leading to an intuitive rejection of accepted dogma regarding these topics. Today, the history of Stalin & USSR is gradually being re-examined, but it’s like sorting gems from imitations.
Looking at Ukraine and the Ukrainian information sphere, you have competing, irreconcilable narratives and interpretations for every major or minor event. Often they are used to reinforce one-another, despite being in contradiction. Ask the average Ukrainian about what was going on in Donbas from 2014 on, you get 10 versions all at once, and they know it all for a fact from personal experience and acquaintances on the ground.
I’ve been closely following the situation in Eastern Ukraine from the 90’s onward, so I have my own comprehensive view of the situation, but I can’t even begin to imagine how I would interpret events there if I had to rely on second-hand accounts of Ukrainians, some who claim to have seen everything with their own two eyes. It doesn’t even compare to a photo-negative, it’s like some parallel reality. And these are all very recent events — one might still be able to find uncut feeds directly from the ground that document key developments.
If even 10% of the dissonance found herein can be implied for the way historical events from decades and centuries ago were preserved and recorded, approximately reliable accounts of events can only be arrived at through deduction, from analyzing objective factors, and everything else is suspect.
Posted by: Skiffer | Jun 25 2022 15:10 utc | 265
Question from the TASS agency:
Moldova received the status of a candidate for the EU. How fast will this introduction be? How can one assess the operational readiness of Moldova to join the sanctions against Russia?
Answer:
Moldova stood in a long queue for accession to the EU, stretched for decades. Good luck! But you want it faster. Therefore, another way to gain EU membership becomes much more relevant: the creation of a new Greater Romania (Romania Mare).
Romanian politicians have been leading political dances around Moldova for a long time. And now literally. The deputies completed the first-ever joint meeting of the parliaments of Moldova and Romania with a dance performance, holding hands. It looked very funny. But the consequences can be much less funny.
The West is almost legislatively trying to prohibit Russia from considering the Ukrainian people close, in every possible way provoking the deepening of conflict. But with regard to the Romanians and Moldovans, the situation is different. The Bucharest officials, incited by the Brussels “integrators”, are haunted by the idea of recreating the project of Great Romania, buried by the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Recently, they have been openly stepping up efforts of various formats for the “legal” takeover of Moldova. Moreover, on the part of Bucharest, we are not even talking about the unification of “fraternal peoples” into some kind of state-like entity. The Romanian authorities arrogantly perceive the interfluve of the Dniester and the Prut as their “temporarily breakaway” province. No wonder the categorical rejection by more than half of the Moldovan society of the Anschluss imposed from outside. In Pridnestrovie, the flag of Romania, strongly associated with grief and suffering during the Great Patriotic War, does not want to see by a vast majority of residents.
The devaluation of Moldovan statehood, which has gained speed, follows Ukrainian patterns – hatred of our country is put at the forefront. An ugly law has been adopted banning the St. George ribbon, which symbolizes victory over Nazism, the Russian media are being eradicated, objectionable opposition leaders are thrown behind bars under far-fetched pretexts.
Who wants a voluntary and sudden death of their state? Usually for politicians such a position is unnatural. They try to protect their own statehood and their personal opportunities. And if, on the contrary, they are ready to destroy their own country for thirty pieces of silver by joining another state, then this is called differently – treason. Surprisingly, this is what the current Moldovan authorities want. Ignoring the will of a significant part of her people, the current president of Moldova is ready to strike out the statehood of the country entrusted to her in one swoop. She, of course, acts according to the recipes of European and overseas curators, which is not at all surprising, because, together with the Moldovan one, she also has Romanian citizenship. Apparently, in the new Romania Mare, she was promised a highly comparable position.
But is it necessary for ordinary citizens of Moldova: Moldovans, Russians, Ukrainians? They weren’t promised anything. Is that the ephemeral “European perspectives” in the status of a candidate for the EU. That is, insanely expensive energy resources and the final loss of the Russian market for Moldovan vegetables, fruits and wine. And of course, the high European prices in the stores of not at all rich Moldova (sorry, the new Greater Romania).
Now they ran ahead of the locomotive. Trying to please their new masters, not being in the EU, they are ready to join the European sanctions against our country. Well. Let them try. Then they can be 100% sure that they will not receive from us not only “expensive” energy and other resources, but none at all. Let them enjoy the sanctions before they get into the EU.
And the final touch about Romania Mare. If a serious mess begins around the Anschluss of Moldova by Romania, it should be borne in mind that about 220 thousand Russian citizens live in Transnistria…
-Dmitry Medvedev
Posted by: ostro | Jun 25 2022 15:58 utc | 271
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