I think we will still get informed updates, as he will still be in the information loop, as he was before going to make the Zap Nuclear plant safe. They will though be posted from the safety of Sweden.
Anyway, for
@Muttley more details on the Avdivka attack.
"The Russian goal has now sort of become clearer in the last couple of days.
As per usual it is pretty much insane.
It seems like they are willing to sacrifice their entire offensive capacity over the next couple of weeks to gain ground, hold it across the winter while they try to rebuild their forces, and then restart things in april/may.
In one way they are probably doing it to counter any Ukrainian Blitz-advancement like last year.
This means that where the Russians previously attacked with 50-100 men in a meatwave attack, now they are doing it with about 500 men at a time, and at more localised areas.
And, they are using large amounts of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and sort of do artillery preparations with their new shells and missiles from North Korea.
They also concentrated their main attack on a single City, in accordance with the Putin Order.
Only thing that was really surprising was the City they picked, for once they picked something that would be an advantage for them in the long run, and a problem for us.
They decided to go once again for the City of Avdivka, the big fortress one with one "i".
As I discuss it there will be detours, bear with me.
Avdivka
Apparently the Russians decided to do something about is having hit them hard here previously and show who's the boss.
We obviously had different opinions.
The Russians started with unusually heavy artillery preparations as they bombarded Avdivka itself, Vodyane in the South and Stepove in the North.
The last two are the points where they have tried to pincer for a year now to close Avdivka into a trap.
Detour 1: They are using North Korean 152mm shells now, and they tried to use North Korean GRAD-missiles.
This was the moment when Russia and the World in general discovered that North Korean GRADs are 123mm and not 122mm.
So the missiles did not fit, there are some hilarious videos of Russian soldiers trying to hammer the missiles into the tubes.
I would not want to be around when you try to fire 40 missiles that are stuck in the tubes...
At the same time two full Mechanised Infantry Brigades started to move into attack posture towards the pincer points.
For the first time in months they had the full amount of heavy equipment, last time that happened was over at the Battle of Kreminna.
This was the point when Zyrzkyi got on the blower and called for reinforcements from us, and this was also the reason for the Pow-wow over at our HQ, people just love our giant arsed map of the area.
Before the pow-wow we had though already had 1 mech bat and 1 tank bat from the 21st roll out, while the rest of the 21st was loaded unto trucks to head over to act as a fire-brigade.
As it turns out, it was needed.
As the Russians attacked they totally swamped the tripwire defence-lines that are manned with groups of 10-15 men, and they attacked those small units with 150 to 350 men each.
The Ukrainian small groups, called in for artillery strikes and legged it back to the next position.
Detour 2: It turns out that Russia has no demining equipment left.
At least in this part of the theatre.
Zyrzkyi has prioritised those systems high up on the target-lists, something that had a big effect.
To support the infantry Russia sent in armoured fists containing IFVs and tanks ranging between 8-12 vehicles each in a column.
The lack of mine clearing equipment forced them to mine-clear by driving equipment over said minefield.
We will soon get back to the effect of that, let us for now just say that it was not pretty.
Russia fairly rapidly advanced 200 to 400 meters into the contact-zones of the pincer-tips.
But at that point concentrated fire with everything from 152mm artillery, GRADs, all the way down to 40mm mini-mortars (from China) was used to slow them down.
It was sort of the moment that if it make a bang, you use it.
Regardless, the Russians continued to advance through this honestly insane meatgrinder.
This was the situation as the tank and the CV90 battalions arrived.
We divided them up so half/half arrived at each pincer-point.
Over the next four hours tankfire and 40mm autocannon fire broke the attack due to direct fire angles at short range.
The sight of huge metal monsters firing upon you as an infantryman knowing that your tanks and IFVs are stuck far behind you was to much for them, and they fell back to about the 200 meter advancement line and started to dig in at forrest lines or ducked down in ditches.
By this point the next CV90 battalion arrived on the Southern side, they moved in about 1km towards Opytne in the Avdivka direction and made a swift counter-attack under-cutting the Russian offensive by moving 200 meters into the Russian lines threatening the Russian supply lines for their Southern pincer-arm.
This night we finally had the entire 21st in place and the situation is somewhat stabilised.
The Russians are continuously attacking though, and they are using both airplanes and helicopters to attack together with artillery.
This means that we are constantly moving about and hitting in lightning attacks to not give the Russians time to find target-solutions.
Effects
More than 800 Russian soldiers have terminally ceased to function in 24 hours in Avdivka, and there are reports of the hospitals in Donetsk being swamped by wounded Russians being brought in.
There are caravans of busses bringing wounded back to Rostov-na-Donu.
Equipment (Avdivka only)
30 tanks, T-72s and T-90s only
79 IFVs of all types.
14 Artillery pieces
1 SU-25
1 GRAD that self-immolated as the crew tried to fire the 123mm rockets...
1 Air Defence System
15 Drones
We did not count other vehicles and fuel-trucks, but it is substantial.
Bridging
The Russians have run out of proper bridging equipment, not that they had a lot of it to begin with, it is one of the stranger experiences in this war, it seems like the Soviet Union never prioritised building bridging equipment.
Anyhoos, the Russians have improvised bridges that can be placed out, they are small, they are narrow, and they are not really functioning that well.
That led to a hilarious video of two Russian tanks slipping off one of the bridges ending up upside down in a small creek, probably drowning the crews, and with 8 other tanks and IFVs getting stuck behind them.
Conclusion
There's ample signs that Russia intend to continue this for about 1 to 2 weeks, that is a judgement based on the number of troops they have in the area, and the amount being brought over from Luhansk.
Yes, they have finally started to move troops from there.
According to Zyrzkyi this is the 14th Battle of Avdivka since 2014, and 11th since 24th of February 2022.
Tank Girl claims there was one more between 2014 and 2022.
Since both have been fighting there I am certain that it is correct +/-1.
I would though not put it beyond Olga to add one battle to the list just to get a reason to nab at Zyrzkyi.
I leave it to the historians to debone this, let us say there has been a lot of battles here.
Heck, it is my second one here.
Anyway, Russia is losing a full brigades worth of dead, wounded and lost equipment per 24 hours.
We are still moving in extra units, among them the 73rd.
We will win the battle, and it may turn out to be The One.
The One where Russia finally loses their ability to perform any offensive operations, at least in a manner that can pose a credible threat.
I will though say this.
Without the 21st ready to move out at any time Ukraine would have been in ****-creek.
You can't load and move out Soviet Gear that fast.
Also, I have had them load and move every other day and clocked every single time and ripped new rectums in any commander that was not fast enough to my exacting standards.
The Russians never believed that Ukraine could drop in a hammer blow at those speeds.
On the other hand, we did not see them coming in time either.
Problem for us is that the units here are so darn close that they can just press the starter button and go and they are at the attack point in half an hour."
I guess it's this direct frontline personal stuff that we'll miss.