1/3 Gone. Gone With the Wind.
“Ukraine Has No Navy. But It’s Hammering Russia In The Black Sea.”
“The grainy black-and-white video showed what appeared to be a fast-moving speedboat bobbing on the nighttime waves, swerving back and forth as it approaches a much larger warship. The ship then explodes spectacularly, and the nearly 3-minute video ends with a vessel seen rolling onto its port side just before it sinks.
The speedboat was in fact a Ukrainian-designed unmanned maritime drone packed with explosives, known as the MAGURA-V. The warship purportedly was the Tsezar Kunikov, one of just a handful of heavy landing ships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. It sank off the southern coast of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia seized 10 years ago. The fate of the ship’s crew, estimated at around 70, is unclear.
One day after, the admiral in charge of the Black Sea Fleet was reportedly stripped of his command.
The Tsezar Kunikov is one of nearly two dozen Russian warships that Ukraine has seriously damaged or outright sunk since Russia began its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
Prior to its sinking, Oryx, a Dutch open-source website known for verified tallies of Russian and Ukrainian equipment losses, put the figure at 21 warships and one submarine. Ukraine’s general staff has a slightly higher count: 24 Russian ships and one submarine.
That works out to approximately a third of the entire fleet, which numbers around 74. Those figures do not include smaller craft such as shallow-draft coastal patrol boats or auxiliary vessels.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-navy-black-sea-russia/32826343.html
Reporting From Ukraine:
Note: other versions of this report are found elsewhere on FR, but this is guaranteed to be the complete transcript - unlike the others.
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
[ Death Zone. Ukrainians Detect And Annihilate a Large Russian Attack Force ]
==
Day 731: Feb 24
Today there is a lot of news from the Bakhmut direction.
The most interesting news comes from the southern flank.
Here Ukrainians repelled several Russian attacks and prevented them from gaining any ground. Multiple videos emerged of Russian armor, supply vehicles, and ground troops being hunted down by FPV drone operators, anti-tank guided missiles, or even snipers.
Ukrainian drone operators from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade distinguished themselves the most. One of the videos recorded near Kurdyumivka and Andriivka shows 2 Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, 1 BTR-82 armored transport being detected and subsequently destroyed by FPV drones, and one T-90 tank which was detected and struck by Ukrainian anti-tank operators of 3rd Border Guards Detachment.
Several vehicles carrying ammunition and personnel were also destroyed while passing to Kurdyumivka, likely on their way to Bakhmut.
This clearly shows that Ukrainians established firm fire control of the supply road, which implies that Russian logistical capabilities are being limited around here. Ukrainian drone operators fly as far as Bakhmut itself, one combat video shows a supply vehicle with ammunition being destroyed in a catastrophic explosion caused by a drone.
A pile of mines with various ammunition was also detected and destroyed by drone operators near Kurdyumivka.
A rare video of a Ukrainian sniper was published as well, showing the demise of two Russian soldiers. Overall, Ukrainians are holding on to Klischiivka and there are no signs of Russians taking it anytime soon.
Based on the extensive combat footage, it seems like Ukrainians are trying to undermine the Russian offensive effort on Ivanivske by increasing the intensity of their strikes on Russian equipment moving along the main grounds of communication.
Nonetheless, Russian forces maintain the tempo of their offensive effort, regardless of the death toll and equipment losses. Last time we talked about this area, Russians managed to gain ground to the east of Ivanivske and claimed to launch assaults to the north of Ivanivske.
After intense assaults that included storming of well-fortified Ukrainian positions, Russians managed to generate small gains to the south of the forest and advance to Ivanivske from the north. However, Ukrainians still firmly hold most of the tactical elevations in the area which leaves Russians no chance but to fight their way through to finally initiate their attack from the north.
Otherwise, Ukrainians would launch counter-attacks on their exposed flanks. Russians understand this and in an attempt to fix Ukrainian troops, they are shelling the Ukrainian positions at the elevation to northwest of Ivanivske.
Russian military sources had reported earlier that Russian forces managed to break Ukrainian defenses to the east of the village and enter it.
This was later confirmed by Ukrainian sources and fighters in the area.
Russians launched intense artillery preparations, including TOS-1A thermobaric artillery to strike Ukrainian positions to make the assault easier. TOS-1A is a destructive system whose thermobaric capabilities suck out the air in the area around the impact, making them far more deadly than ordinary artillery systems.
After artillery preparations, the Russians launched large armored assaults towards Ivanivske which managed to enter the village from the east and the south.
However, this came at a heavy cost with dozens of armored vehicles getting destroyed on the approaches to the village by FPV drone operators of the SIGNUM drone detachment.
Among the destroyed armored vehicles were at least 3 BMP-3s, 1 BMP-2, 1 BTR-82, and many, many more unrecognizable wrecks of destroyed columns.
Russian forces were so numerous that Ukrainians had to deploy several drones at the same time to destroy the vehicles in the eastern part of the village.
Ukrainian fighters in Ivanivske were reported to have engaged and destroyed a group of Russian forces that entered the center of the village and restricted them to its eastern edges.
During the attack on Ivanivske, Russians launched one of the attacks from the tactical elevations north of Klischiivka, implying that Russians are not planning to use their advantage of tactical heights to continue advances towards Klischiivka, but rather use them to support the attacks on Ivanivske.
The Russian command likely proceeds to push in this particular direction, anticipating that taking Ivanivske will collapse the whole southern flank.
In the forest to the north of Ivanivske near Chasiv Yar, the Russians did not make any notable progress because of the large focus on taking Ivanivske.
This can also be attributed to increased Ukrainian efforts at launching strikes on Russian supply vehicles on the road to Ivanivske and their armored attack formations which are being destroyed across a wide area from the Horlivka-Bakhmut highway to the northern flank.
These losses result in Russians taking time to organize and supply their attack formations which can further delay their attacks and buy more time for the Ukrainian defenders.
Overall, Russians are trying to accelerate their advances at the expense of higher losses in equipment and manpower to fulfill their objectives, before the Presidential elections in March.
The negative effects of a politically driven approach to warfare, coupled with complex terrain configuration, will give Ukrainians an advantage in bleeding out the enemy and gaining an opportunity to strike back.
And bleeding out Russian forces is an extremely important objective for the Ukrainian forces because it can undermine the new offensive operation that the Russians are about to launch.