hcrof

UKR Air Command issued the data of Cospas - SarSat - international satellite system for search&resque, where can be seen four radiobeacons in the allegedle palces of pilots ejecting in that day. The more western mark obviously belonged to Su-35 - Russians recognized it was lost near Shakhtarsk. Pilot was resqued. 
Other two marks are in Diakove (UKR) and south from Millerovo (RUS). Looks like damaged Su-34 tried to make emergence landing on Millerovo airfield, but fell down and only one pilot could eject. 

Second Su-34 with mark near Diakove was allegedly filmed falling down in flame by the settlers of Diakove. Interesting - women, who are filming, speak Ukrainian or mixed RUS-UKR (so-called "surzhyk"). They say the jet feel down directly on the village street.
 

The attorney general in Germany has announced the beginning of investigations into a partner of the North Stream 2 pipeline project for handing over documents with sensitive NATO information to Russia.
There is no charge yet, but the suspected crime is treason.
I find it quite astonishing: There have been maybe 2 or 3 court cases of treason in Germany since 1949. Now there are 3 or 4 ongoing cases and investigations related to Russia over the last 2 years.
It took the Ukraine War to shake the tree, as tragic as that sounds.

Agent Murz published a new post. The most interesting is the number of losses that is being discussed in RU Nats TG channels.  
Unreturnable 16 000 are KIA, MIA (mostly dead as well), and gravely wounded (had to be medically discharged). That gives as plus around 32,000 wounded and total losses around 48,000.

I'm digging around, and here's a little snippet of what the RU improved - infantry cooperation with aerial bombardment. In later phases of Avdiivka battle, meat groups began assaulting more aggressively immediately after bombing, attempting to overrun the bombed area as quickly as possible.
There are claims that it worked extremely effectively against weakened UKR units. Weakened UKR units tend to leave bombarded areas altogether, giving aggressive RU meat groups the perfect chance to overrun areas before stronger UKR units arrive for counterattack.

There is a phone intercept of L-DPR soldier that I personally determined to be genuine (voice, accent, and emotions appear authentic).
Interesting points:
From the attack, just 6 out of 25 returned. In the guy formation two regiments are almost completely gone (UKR 3rd TG channel mentioned that in recent fighting two RU two brigades were almost completely destroyed) Slavs [seems to be nickname of RU troops] do not allow to pick up dead bodies [of L-DPR soldiers]. TOS-1 is used to burn dead: "so that we don't walk on them" and to prevent rotting.

In other news:
This rate is devastating for RU economy as no RU business is profitable enought (unless it sell cocain). 

The kind of total loser who is unable to cope with life often due to various health conditions. 

Regarding quality of RU infantry 
I have heard the same thing from my local contacts from different part of RU.
 
From various UKR comments pre-war Strategic intent of UKR General Staff was to attrit the RU army to the point where it no longer functions as a cohesive modern fighting force. Interestingly, it was planned to be accomplished not via sheer manpower losses (since RU can replace cannon fodder), but by attrition of officers, specialists, modern equipment, and weaponry.

Ukrainians reportedly left "Zenith" in the south (position as held for 1,5 year), but rather without fight. There are various news as to state of Ukrainian forces in what appears to be a cauldron around southern part of the town being closed fast. Some people seem to be panicking a little bit, but it seems situation is very difficult, with one-two field roads as avenues of escape. They are withdrawing but Russian pressure on the flanks is rising.

re naval drones, US 'Replicator' initiative. 'Hellscape' thinking sounds encouraging.
https://news.usni.org/2024/02/14/navy-will-stand-up-lethal-drone-unit-later-this-year-first-replicator-usvs-picked
"The second squadron will focus on small USVs, building on the medium and large USVs that the Unmanned Surface Vessel Division ONE (USVDIV-1) has been experimenting with for the last two years, USNI News understands.
Last year, the Navy experimented with its medium and large USVs to operationalize test platforms with real units as the Pacific Fleet refines concepts for using unmanned systems.
Those concepts are set to inform the emerging “hellscape” concept that would use swarms of unmanned platforms to thwart a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, USNI News previously reported."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/14/joe-biden-could-send-millions-of-artillery-shells-to-ukraine-for-free-tomorrow-and-its-perfectly-legal/?sh=539a38ba20c7

"The law caps annual transfers of so-called “excess defense articles” at a total value of $500 million a year. But the same law doesn’t dictate how much value the president assigns to a particular weapon. He in theory could price an item at zero dollars."
"Biden only rarely has used his EDA authority for Ukraine. And where he has used it, lately it’s been a part of complex “ring-trades” where the U.S. government gives excess weapons to third countries—Ecuador and Greece, to name two—then encourages those same countries directly or indirectly to give to Ukraine some of their own surplus weapons."
"Why Biden hasn’t already put in motion this plan is unclear. It’s possible—likely, even—he prefers to hold out for $60 billion in fresh funding, which gives him more options for buying, or even developing from scratch, a wide array of weapons for Ukraine.
But once Biden decides, as many other observers already have decided, that Russia-aligned Republicans never will approve more money for Ukraine, he could lean on his EDA authority—and speed millions of shells to Ukraine’s starving batteries."

All misiles were intercepted on approaches to Kyiv. Though we have impacts in Lviv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro,  Khmelnytskyi and Kharkiv oblasts
Here is giaint crater on the place of falling of intercepted missile near Bucha. It could not necessarily be a ballistic missile, but cruise too - soils NW from Kyiv are soft with many of sand, so even lesser impact can throw out many of soil. In nearby village seven houses were damaged by shockwave
  
 
Total statistic of the strike - 26 missiles launched/13 intercepted:
- 12 Kh-101 (8 intercepted)
- 2 Kalibr (2)
- 4 Kh-59 (2)
- 6 Iskander-M/ KN-23 (1)
- 2 S-300 (0)

SBU caught a spy trying to relay shipbuilding(/drone) information to russia and iran.

He is apparently alive and back fighting. He commented in this reddit post ( https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1aqo3gp/if_you_watched_the_combat_footage_from_chosen/
 
 

The ground conditions in fields western from Avdiivka
Summary from different UKR TGs about Avdiivka situation
 - 3rd brigade arrived in time - 110th brigade was completely exhausted and couldn't hold the line. Reinforcement allowed to stabilize situation from "catastrofical" to "very hard". Units of 110th brigade now are gradually withdrawing to the rear - first time for almost 1,5 years.
- Main effort of Russian on the north - to cut off coke plant ("AKXЗ" mark on the map) from the town, cut off urban area of Avdiivka with multystorey buildings (so called "9th quarter" or "Khimik"), capture fortified "Zenit" position on the south (former AD basem having underground bunkers and by rumors underground pass to coke plant). Now "Zenit" ("Зенит" on the map)is almost encircled

- Reportedly 3rd assault brigade could push back Russians from Industrial avenu in coke plant area and holds transport depo ("Avtobaza"). But due to opsec reasons there are no verified informations about 3rd brigade successs.
- Main trouble of our forces in Avdiivka are gliding bombs, which Russians don't spare. Each day they drop 35-40 heav bombs (including 1500 kg) on Avdiivka and villages in the rear - Lastochmkyne and Sieverne. AD here is very weak. Many criticism in adress of gen. Tarnavskyi and Air Force Command, which probably don't want to risk with Patriots of NASAMS for ambush actions, but infantry and logistic suffer hard under these strikes. 
On the video Russian bombs impact urban "9th quarter", coke plant is further on the backgrond
 

A girl, Bradley commander of 47th mech.briagde issiued a video how her crew works near Avdiivka. Rare episode, how look TOW launches through the thermal sight. 
 

[Edit: Ok, I missed that this popped up earlier in thread. But hey, looks like that video got deleted so at least there's a link again.]

Back to the Tactical problem- this is apparently from a foreign volunteer unit, so plenty of English being spoken. Clearing trenches, kamikaze drones, and at 7:50 some absolute mind-boggling insanity.
Seriously, that's the craziest thing I think I've seen so far.

These two Grads were destroyed by GLSDB strike too. Huge BOOM. Location near Zhytlivka village, Luhansk oblast, Svatove direction.
Chevrone with the rhino belongs to 4th tank brigade, though it old, now they have other. Likely their UAV targeted Grads for missile strike.
GLDSB parts from Tendar's tweet were found after teh strike on furniture factory in Kreminna, were Russian had a repair workshop for vehicles. 
https://twitter.com/sgorlovki/status/1757773363336847392

All good points, I also wonder whether going straight at the ship leaves a wake which is easy to see in the dark. By manoeuvring erratically the wake will be obscured by waves and so the drone will be hard to spot, even with image intensifiers. 

All good points, I also wonder whether going straight at the ship leaves a wake which is easy to see in the dark. By manoeuvring erratically the wake will be obscured by waves and so the drone will be hard to spot, even with image intensifiers. 

And now something funny. A couple of days ago we discussed where 3rd could set up the defenses and I made a quick sketch.

I was looking at the videos of 3rd MRAP in action and noticed something familiar. 
 You can see both damaged greenhouse on the left and transmission tower on the right.
Here is the second video
Again, you can see the transmission tower and at 04:00 damaged greenhouse.
Let's look at map

Some thoughts:
Avtobaza is most likely lost but UKR control industrial area in front of Brevno There is no solid frontline. It is just a bunch of small infantry groups running around and UKR are using lone light vehicles with automatic weapons (from MRAP to Bradley) to keep pressure on them. 

Below is a sketch from RU sources depicting existing supply roads to Avdiivka.

However, UKR say that both roads are less than optimal and partially unsafe to use.

A bit of good news from Avdiivka
This night UKR destroyed column of RU reinforcements moving toward the breach

Also, UKR soldier reports

All good points, I also wonder whether going straight at the ship leaves a wake which is easy to see in the dark. By manoeuvring erratically the wake will be obscured by waves and so the drone will be hard to spot, even with image intensifiers. 

RU Nats complain that simple machine gunners using unstabilized mounts are the primary defense of RU Navy warships against drones. These gunners have an effective range of a few hundred meters. So, I think drones imitate attacks but halt outside the effective range of Russian machine gunners. When they find an area not covered by MGs, one goes for a kill while the rest of them transmit the results for BDA.