12/26/23-12/27/23 Ukrainian General Update Language Learner

12/26-12/27/23 Update, day 671-672 of Russian invasion.


Belarus/Western Border:

Belarus and Russia claim to have completed stationing nukes in Belarus, under RU authority.


Kyiv/ West Ukraine:

Per Zelensky, UA tripled its production of weapons and equipment in 2023 compared to 2022. Some 300k people are employed in the UA defense industry. UA is also allocating some 47 Million USD to the development of new drone pilots.

The UA government is tentatively working on a 36 month of service demobilization timetable. Additionally, Zaluzhny stated that only a steady increase in RU losses can stop RU from continuing the war. He also remarked his dissatisfaction with new recruitment officers

While currently UA does not produce new tanks, there has been significant work on repair and refitment of damaged tanks, per UA minister of Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin. UA is committing to drastically expanding its domestic production of artillery, drones, APCs, and air defense systems.

The UA government currently projects spending some $20 billion USD in military salaries for 2024. UA received $5 billion USD in financial aid for December. $3.8 billion of this came from Japan and the EU.

Per the UA deputy Economic minister, if the EU and US do not provide aid in 2024, UA may have to postpone pensions and salaries. Currently, UA is projected to need $37 billion USD of financial support in 2024, as their GDP grew 4.5% in 2023 with allied support. He also stated that work is required to finance additional mobilization of new troops.

The ZSU reported that conscripts will now be able to choose a specific brigade for service, conditional on them taking certain steps prior to the general sorting of troops. Currently, the general sorting for new conscripts in the ZSU is:
GUR-Intelligence forces/SOF
Air Assault forces
Mountain Assault forces
Everyone else.

Per the UA PM Denis Shmyhal, the UA energy grid remains in good shape for the first month of winter, with daily consumption rates decreasing. The rates for electricity continue to be fixed at approximately 7 cents per kWh.

The UA MoD certified the first body armor specifically for female servicemember's, under the "Ukrainian Armor" company. THe

Per the ZSU, RU has utilized chemical weaponry 465 times thus far, with 20% of these occurring in this last month. The overwhelming majority of cases were CS gas grenades, although 28 cases have been investigated further. Its noted that RU forces have taken to using modified RGO grenades, which are timed to potentially airburst and thus distribute material further.

General Zaluzhny successfully defended his thesis on military discipline and sanctions for violations thereof. While the exact specifics are classified, Dr. Zaluzhny received his PhD from the National University in Odesa's law Academy.


Sumy/Chernihiv/Kharkiv city:

RU continues to shell across the border, damaging a water tower and electrical equipment in Chernihiv oblast.


Kupyansk/East Kharkiv/Kreminna:

UA repelled some 8 assaults near Kupyansk, predominantly near Synkivka where RU forces continue efforts to assault down to the highway.

UA additionally repelled some 3 assaults in the forests near Kreminna.


Kramatorsk/Bakhmut:

UA soldiers received a medical evacuation ground drone from volunteers in the battles near Bakhmut.


Avdiivka:

RU continues assaults around Avdiivka, with an increase in artillery volume. Today, RY forces attempted a breakthrough with several dozen armored vehicles, retreating when they lost half of them to a combination of drones, ATGM's, and artillery.

Per UA commanders in the area, RU is modifying their tactics as they cannot sustain the high losses of equipment, and hence they more often send a platoon level assault with 2-4 vehicles rather then more. He also noted that RU is increasing the use of suicide UAVs and extensively using ground drones to transport ammo, as well as experimenting with weaponry on them.

RU has contested additional territory due N of Avdiivka, near the industrial water features 2-3 km E of the Coke plant. Other RU attempts to the S and SE directions of Avdiivka have not yielded results.



Donetsk/Luhansk occupied regions:

RU continues to skirmish with UA troops near Marinka, contesting the final streets of the western suburb. Marinka itself no longer exists.

RU forces continue apparent complex assaults towards Novomykhailivka, S of Marinka. They have not yielded any results over the last several days.


Zaporizhia/Southern Axis:

RU has not conducted any substantial assaults along the southern front, primarily focusing on Robotyne and utilizing drones and artillery elsewhere. 22 settlements were targeted. Ru did apparently take some contested territory to the SE of Robotyne.

Evidence emerged of more summary executions of UA POW's captured near Robotyne. This comes after drone video evidence revealed that RU soldiers were using UA troops as literal human shields during assaults.

Near the coastline by occupied Melitopol, RU forces shelled a bird sanctuary with mortars for unknown reason, killing a considerable number.


Kherson:

The situation on the south bank of the Dnipro remains challenging and costly. UA soldiers there state that the town of Krynky is destroyed, more a mix of mud, broken trees, and housing rubble constantly bombarded by RU forces. Due to issues in evacuation, numerous KIA casualties cannot be realistically recovered across the river, and instead are collected at the river for hopefully divers to retrieve in the far future. While UA enjoys heavy FPV drone usage here, RU has considerable drone recon monitoring the area and access to/from the south bank, and supports with long range rocket artillery fire and glide bombs towards anything they see moving.
One company of 90 people lasted approximately 2 weeks before forcing a withdrawal. RU troops additionally complain about this being a suicide mission.

14 assaults were conducted towards Krynky today. UA troops there destroyed 1x grad MLRS, 8 artillery guns, 5 UAVs, and 11 APCs.

RU forces shelled Kherson's train station at 6 pm on tuesday, when an evacuation train was due to depart. Several civilians were killed and injured. Over 100 were present. Over 100 people were succesfully evacuated to Kyiv, with a train meeting them partway to provide food.

Due to the heavy shelling of Kherson, some 94,000 people were cut off from electricity before electricians repaired the lines over the next 2 days.

RU forces attacked a medical stabilization point in Beryslav with drone dropped grenades.


Odessa/Black Sea/Crimea:

Following the strike on the Ropucha class Novocherkasy landing ship, both the ship itself and a training ship nearby were sunk. Additionally, there is damage to the docks nearby. Its reported that the ship was carrying some 4400 artillery shells and several hundred MLRS Grad rockets.

Currently, there are no RU ships out of port in the Black sea or Sea of Azov.

Perhaps in an attempt at revenge, RU attacked Odesa with a large drone wave. It's noted that RU drones are now operating paths that take them over residential areas en route to their objectives, so that if they are shot down they still cause damage. 12 drones were shot down, and there were 4 casualties. Overall, RU launched 46 drones of which 32 were intercepted across Ukraine. The bulk of non-intercepted drones were targeted at Kherson.

RU allocated 1500 housing sites for veterans in the war in crimea, and continues efforts to resettle RU citizens and displaced Kherson citizens there. Approximately 10,000 resettlements were recorded.


Russia:

RU apparently intercepted a drone over the Rostov-on-Don region, SE of Ukraine.

Reportedly RU snipers are taking to using western produced scopes. Approximately $175 million USD worth of optics were imported since the war began to Russia for "non-military use" officially.


General:

Over the last day UA forces conducted airstrikes and RU forces conducted 67 air strikes and 12 missile strikes.

Yesterday Ukrainian forces eliminated:

790x soldiers (Total 355,750)
17x APC
14x Tank
2x Air defense
10x Artillery (0xMLRS)
31x vehicles
13x UAV


Overseas:

The US allocated its final UA support package for 2023, $250 million USD in ammo for artillery, air defense, and soldiers.

Since the beginning of the full scale invasion, Estonia has trained over 1300 UA soldiers. This is 1/3 of the quantity that Estonian recruits are trained per year. To date, some 34,000 UA soldiers have been trained in the EU borders.

Per the EU ambassador from Austria, it will take 6-11 years for Ukraine to join the EU, using the examples of Austria and Spain's accession.

The EU is preparing a contingency plan to supply up to 20 billion Euros without Hungarian PM Viktor Orban's veto being considered.