Sitrep for October 3-4 (as of 16:30)
The situation on the front line
The Ukrainian offensive in Kherson direction is developing very quickly. Video evidence of the liberation of Havrylivka, Novooleksandrivka and Zolota Balka has appeared, they are shown on a map by the Deep State project.
Analyst Def Mon notes that now the entire territory up to Dudchany has come under the control of Ukraine.
The pro-Russian Telegram channel “Rybar” reported about the further Ukrainian advance from Dudchany, it posted a map which appears to be the most relevant and close to reality (although they usually try to show scenarios that are more optimistic for the Russian side).
A video of Ukrainian soldiers announcing the liberation of Davydiv Brid appeared. They also reported that Starosillya and Velyka Oleksandrivka had also been liberated, but there is no confirmed information about that yet.
Despite the fact that Russian troops have built fortifications - pits and trenches - in the area, they are experiencing a significant shortage of personnel, the positions are mainly held by paratroopers.
Dudchany is a strategically important settlement in this direction, because Chaplynka, where a lot of Russian military vehicles are located, can be hit from there. However, we don't expect HIMARS MLRS to be sent there anytime soon as it's still too dangerous due to the proximity to the front line.
The bridge across the Dudchany reservoir was reportedly undermined by the retreating Russian forces.
Apparently, in the Kherson direction the AFU gained superiority in both military vehicles and the number of servicemen. It is possible that the front line may soon collapse.
The New York Times have recently published an article about Vladimir Putin’s personal involvement in strategic command and defense planning in the southern front. It is reported that he is consistently rejecting military commanders’ requests on a planned retreat from Kherson to preserve equipment and personnel and, thus, to avoid a repeat of the situation that happened in Lyman. The desire to keep Kherson at any cost may be explained by the fact that after Kherson is liberated the road to Crimea will open for the AFU. Additionally, defeats in Kherson region will likely cause new waves of panic among the population of the peninsula.
In the Svatove direction, Ukrainian troops continue to develop the offensive. They liberated the settlements of Borova, Iziumske and Druzheliubivka.
The Ukraine Battle Map project also marks Nevske as liberated.
Twitter analist Def Mon posted an assumption on how the AFU will attempt to envelop Svatove moving from the Kupiansk bridgehead and Lyman.
It should be noted that some of the mobilized have already been deployed to prepare the defense line in Svatove.
It is now confirmed that Lieutenant General Sychevoy was removed from the position of the commander of the Western Military District. General Roman Berdnikov was appointed the new commander.
Mobilization Update
Seventeen regions have reported the completion of mobilization. In some regions, the final number of mobilized people differs from the planned number in a lower way. For example, in the Novosibirsk region, it was planned to mobilize 8,000 people, but the report shows just over 2,000.
Based on the fact that the mobilization was triggered by Ukrainian successes on the frontlines, we believe there will be second, third, and further waves of mobilization, but we doubt that more Russian soldiers will help to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that more than 200,000 people have been drafted into the army during the mobilization, and they are training at 80 training ranges in Russia and the occupied territories. Our team has not seen any visual confirmation of such a large number of mobilized people.
In Alabino, contract servicemen tried to take away uniforms and phones of conscripts who had arrived for training, but were beaten.
In the training center in Yelani, three mobilized men died.
Mobilized troops who came to train in the “DPR” are located at a firing range 60 kilometers from the front line, within range of HIMARS rockets.
There are reports that mobilized people from Sakhalin are sent to the front immediately after arriving in Rostov. We should note that after the completion of the annexation procedure, from the point of view of the Russian Ministry of Defense, sending to the territory of, for example, "DPR" will be considered as sending to a training ground on Russian territory.
In the Khabarovsk region, more than half of the mobilized were drafted by mistake, as a result, the military commissar (the head of recruitment) of the Khabarovsk region was transferred to a similar position in Magadan.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov promises to send his sons, aged 14, 15 and 16, to the front lines. The use of children as combatants is a war crime, but we believe that they will be filming TikToks in the rear, like other Kadyrovites.
The head of the Republican Party for New York's 45th electoral district, Boris Pincus, said that a few weeks ago, the US Senate approved the allocation of $350 billion for rebuilding Ukraine. According to him, this is only the beginning: a Marshall Plan is in development which includes the most active participation of all European countries. He also stressed that Ukraine is already in urgent need for restoration of the infrastructure of the most impacted regions.
The situation on the front line is developing so rapidly that we do not have time to report all relevant information. It is possible that the liberation of new settlements will have been confirmed by the time of this sitrep release, and we will discuss it tomorrow.
