Sitrep for Sept. 4-6, 2024 (as of 8 a.m. UTC+3)
Frontline Situation Update
In the Toretsk direction, Ukrainian forces have recaptured some positions in the village of Niu-York. According to DeepState, they now control the phenol plant and the area to the north of it.
In the Kharkiv direction, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have made slight advances north of the village of Lyptsi.
On the southern flank of the Ocheretyne salient, Russian forces have advanced towards the town of Hirnyk, as well as in the villages of Lisivka and Halytsynivka.
In an interview with CNN, Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, confirmed the successful distraction of Russian forces through the Kursk operation by stating that "in the last six days, the enemy has not advanced a single meter towards the town of Pokrovsk." Formally, Syrskyi's statement is correct: the advance directly towards Pokrovsk has indeed stalled, and the slowdown in this direction was noted at the end of August. However, this is due to the need to strengthen the flanks for further offensive actions, while Russian forces continue to advance towards the town of Kurakhove and the village of Kurakhivka.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News that the Russian command has deployed 60,000 troops to the Kursk region. This figure does not align with the known size of the Ukrainian group in this direction (10 to 15 thousand): if the RuAF outnumbered the AFU by at least four times, it would likely lead to an intensification of combat operations and attempts to reclaim Russian territory. We doubt that all these servicemen are at training ranges awaiting deployment into combat. Therefore, we consider Zelenskyy's estimate to be inflated, but we cannot determine by how much. There continue to be reports of the presence of certain Russian brigades in the Kursk direction, but these reports do not clarify whether entire brigades have been deployed or just a few battalions, nor how close the strength of these units is to their full capacity.
Many are surprised by the fact that the Russian command does not seek to recapture the occupied territory as soon as possible, but this is logical from the point of view of military strategy. Since Russia also has a shortage of armored vehicles and personnel, holding the defensive line is more advantageous in terms of minimizing its own losses. At the same time, the AFU, holding this territory, will inevitably suffer losses under RuAF strikes.
According to the independent researcher Naalsio, from Aug. 27 to Sept. 3, the AFU lost 19 units of military equipment (mostly tanks, armored and engineering vehicles), while the RuAF lost 12 units (mostly trucks, as well as 1 tank and 1 armored personnel carrier). Thus, the AFU loses more valuable military equipment much more often. This ratio will probably change only when Russian forces launch a counteroffensive in the Kursk region.
In the Glushkovsky district of the Kursk region, two of the three bridges over the Seym River are still not completely destroyed. A video has emerged from the village of Karyzh showing a passenger car driving along the surviving part of the bridge, supplemented with a wooden covering. This is quite risky (since the wheels drive close to the edges of the strip), but nevertheless possible.
In the Bakhmut direction, northeast of Chasiv Yar, the RuAF crossed the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas Canal and advanced into the village of Kalynivka.
Fighting continues in the Vuhledar direction, but Russian forces have not yet made any significant progress since the previous sitrep.
In the Toretsk direction, there was an incident involving the execution of prisoners of war, one of whom committed perfidy (also considered a war crime). A similar incident occurred in November 2022, when Ukrainian soldiers shot captured Russian soldiers, one of whom attempted to open fire on the enemy while surrendering. In the current case, the situation is reversed: a Ukrainian prisoner tried to grab an assault rifle from a Russian soldier, committing an act of perfidy. In response, the Russian soldiers shot not only the attacker but also two other prisoners, which is also a war crime. This assessment is no different from the one we gave two years ago.
Footage continues to emerge showing Dracarys drones (as various commentators call them) setting fire to tree lines. Soldiers from the 59th Tank Regiment described the consequences of their use, saying that the fire caused them to lose most of their belongings, particularly documents and generators.
One of the outcomes of the AFU’s operation in the Kursk region has been an active recruitment campaign for volunteer fighters to join the Russian Army. According to the Agentstvo [Agency] independent media outlet], the number of ads, posts, and videos on various Internet platforms and national channels in August was the highest since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
The RuAF’s advances in the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions are leading to significant personnel losses that need to be replenished. Additionally, the AFU’s offensive in the Kursk region is forcing the Russian Army to form reserves to defend the border regions. However, we have not seen the "situation" in the Kursk region being directly used in this recruitment campaign—perhaps because it is too inconvenient for the Russian authorities to bring it up.
The Ne Norma [Not a Norm] and the Serditaya Chuvashia [Angry Chuvashia] Telegram channels have published a joint study on military propaganda in schools.
We consider the indoctrination of children with ideas such as a defensive war in Ukraine against "fascists" and the destruction of Russia to be a very serious problem. More than two and a half years have passed since the full-scale invasion began, and teenagers who were 15 at the time are now being conscripted for statutory military service, with some of them potentially signing contracts and heading to war. If the conflict is temporarily frozen in the near future, Russia will use this time to strengthen its military potential, and in a few years, it will attack again. By then, the young men joining the army will be those who were children in 2022. In this regard, we consider it especially important to support independent media that provide objective information and urge you to support Mediazona [an independent Russian media outlet] and other independent projects, including our own team.
Several commentators have claimed that the video from Sept. 2, showing military personnel stationed in an active school in Kurchatov, must be fake, as students have been in remote learning for some time. However, we believe that even under remote learning conditions, children may have been present at the school on the first day to receive instructions on how the process would work, or teachers could have been holding meetings. Regardless of the circumstances, the presence of military personnel alongside civilians in such a setting is unacceptable.
Moreover, it is worth noting that both sides in this war actively use data from open sources, and in the future, Ukrainian forces may strike the school, citing the presence of military personnel there. A similar situation occurred with the Russian strike on a factory in Kremenchuk, which had repaired several BTR-70s for the ATO in 2014 but had no further military connection afterward.
The UK has signed a ÂŁ300 billion [$394 billion] contract to supply Ukraine with 120 thousand 152mm artillery shells for Soviet-era guns in the course of 18 months. However, it is not clear where such a vast quantity of munitions will be sourced.
The debris resulting from the Russian strike on the Poltava Military Institute of Communications on Sept. 3 was finally removed by the evening of Sept 5. Overall, 55 people were killed and 328 injured.
A new video of a missile strike on the city of Lviv on the night of Sept. 4 has emerged. It purportedly shows Kh-101 missiles releasing decoy flares. Over the past couple of years, Russia is known to have upgraded these missiles to effectively overcome Ukrainian air defenses. It is worth noting that the strike has killed seven people, including a mother and her three daughters, and injured 64.
A petition to Putin has appeared on the VKontakte social network asking him to create a "green corridor" for the evacuation of residents from settlements in the Sudzha district of the Kursk region occupied by the AFU. The residents who "were left without electricity, gas, food, water and medicine" complain that their needs are being ignored. Since the post on Sept. 4, there has been no response from local authorities. It is worth noting that from the beginning of the AFU’s Kursk operation, Russian authorities have not provided sufficient assistance to refugees nor conducted a full-scale evacuation, which we have been talking about since 2022.
Russian soldiers in the Kursk region continue to engage in looting. A video from surveillance cameras has been released showing one of them breaking into the Kapitosha children's clothing store in the village of Korenevo.
In Omsk, the trial of Sergei Kozlov, an ex-convict who fought with the Wagner Group and killed his 18-year-old pregnant girlfriend, is coming to a close. Kozlov had previously been convicted of several crimes, including intentionally causing grievous and minor bodily harm, theft and robbery. In the summer of 2021, he was sentenced to six and a half years in a penal colony, from which he was recruited into the Wagner Group. Kozlov returned from the war in Ukraine in the summer of 2023, and in October, during a drinking party, he argued with his girlfriend and attacked her. Experts found 138 injuries on the victim's body. Kozlov is charged with the murder of a pregnant woman, committed with special cruelty.
It is worth noting that PTSD can develop not only in those directly involved in traumatic events but also in those who witness them. We encourage readers to prioritize their mental health and take steps to protect themselves from secondary trauma.