02 Feb: Ukrainians conduct a successful counter attack. Russian gains reduced to zero. - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 709: Feb 02

Today, there are a lot of updates about the battle near Vuhledar.

But first of all, more information became available about the combined strike on Crimea. Russian sources reported that Ukrainians tricked the Russian air defense system by first launching decoy rockets. Once the Russian air defense started shooting them down and revealed their positions, Ukrainians launched anti-radar HARM rockets. These rockets are designed to pick up signals from working radars and destroy them, so Russians basically had to either switch the radars off or take a risk and try to intercept these rockets before they destroy the radars. For Ukrainians, it did not matter what Russians decided to do – the air defense was busy, creating a perfect opportunity to launch Storm Shadow missiles. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesman stated that based on the eulogies of Russian soldiers and other reports, at least 3 aircraft and 2 facilities with personnel were destroyed, including Russian general Oleksandr Tatarenko. Moreover, Ukrainians conducted a simultaneous marine drone strike on the Russian Fleet. As a result, 3 drones successfully hit a Russian missile carrier, which promptly went to the bottom of the sea. Such a massive and successful combined strike caused huge discontent in the Russian media space. Russian analysts criticized the overpraised S-400 air defense systems that were supposed to create an iron dome above Crimea and the continuous failure to protect the radars as well as military objects.

Another point of concern for the Russian analysts became the disastrous Russian offensive operation near Vuhledar. Vuhledar became notorious a long time ago because multiple Russian brigades were completely annihilated here, achieving zero territorial gains. In the most recent offensive operation, Russian forces tried to implement a new plan and bypass Vuhledar from the north. In order to achieve this goal, the main target became Novomykhailivka.

The operation started from demining the fields and attacking Ukrainian strongpoints around the settlement. At first, Russian forces managed to achieve some success on the southern flank, and the main reason for such a big jump was the lack of strongpoints. As you can see, there is a small river going through the settlements, creating several lines of swamps between the fields. Ukrainians had a series of small unit-size defenses in the tree lines, however, the main defense belt was located right in front of the village – more precisely, 2 farms, a cemetery, and main road intersections.

By leveraging 3 settlements under their control, Russian forces were launching one mechanized attack after another from all sides, forcing Ukrainians to withdraw to the main defense belt. Russian sources reported that the battle for Novomykhailivka had started as Russians reached the outskirts. Since Russian forces on the northern flank were substantially lagging behind, the only way to collapse Ukrainian defense was by penetrating the settlement from the south and cutting off supplies. Geolocated footage showed that Russians managed to take control of several strongpoints and get a foothold, and started preparing to storm the settlement.

Despite devastating shelling and the use of heavy thermobaric systems, Russians failed to undermine the Ukrainian defense, and Russian forces on the outskirts were slowly killed. Once the garrison was liquidated, Ukrainian fighters from the 79th Airmobile Brigade conducted a powerful second wave of counterattacks and pushed the front line back by more than 2 kilometers, forcing Russians to start the whole operation from scratch.

The only positions that Russians managed to maintain were south of the swamp. Russian forces decided to leverage the natural obstacle in the form of the swamp as a shield against possible Ukrainian flank attacks and expand westward. Russians created a powerful assault unit consisting of 4 tanks, 10 armored fighting vehicles, and around 150 soldiers and launched an attack. Unfortunately for Russians, Ukrainians ambushed the column with drones.

Geolocated footage shows that Russian forces sustained about a company’s worth of heavy armored vehicle losses during assaults in the area. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that only in this attack Russian forces lost 2 tanks and 7 armored fighting vehicles.