Gabriel B
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Ukraine - December 17, 2023

Ukraine - December 17, 2023

Dec 18, 2023

There has been a notable increase in the amount of combat footage coming from the Vodyane area, located to the west of Avdiivka and northeast of Pervomaiske. Russia is probably redirecting their forces here in a thrust north after their efforts to take either the Avdiivka coke plant or Stepove have sputtered out. A successful push north of Vodyane would see Russian troops drawing near to the most significant supply line into Avdiivka. With the frontal assaults on Avdiivka having also subsided a bit over the past few days, this seems to be Russia's new strategy in the area. If it succeeds, it will most likely be simply due to the exhaustion of Ukrainian troops; Ukraine reportedly had few defenses erected in the Stepove area beyond the ones that Russia had already seized, yet Ukraine managed to hold the line at Stepove. Russia has previously already tried to advance north from Vodyane and has been rebuffed before.

A lot of footage is emerging from Synkivka, and it largely shows Russian troops taking massive losses in the very northern part of the suburb. In one rather memorable video, a Ukrainian tank plows it's way through a house which had been used by Russia infantry. With no reports of new Russian advances in the area Ukraine is likely conducting mopping up operations on the remain ts of Russia's last attacking force. While Russia may have briefly broken Ukrainian lines, it undeniably came at a steep cost to Russia.

Russian aviation had a challenging day, as it started with Ukraine launching a swarm of drones against an airbase in Morozovsk, which is in Rostov oblast, Russia. The drones were seemingly all intercepted or did minimal damage (one plane seems to have taken some damage to a wing), but this likely put Russian air defense operators on edge. According to Ukraine, Russia later in the day likely shot down one of their own Su-25 planes. Russian sources confirmed the loss, but declined to provide details to its downing, though notably said an investigation would be launched. Ukrainian sources categorically denied that they shot the plane down.

The Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) have launched another incursion into Belgorod oblast, but it was pretty short lived. They entered the area around the village of Terebreno after heavily shelling it, and withdrew after a few hours. The LSR heavily implied that they had left behind mines in the area, and threatened to return to Russia again in the future.

Ukraine's SBU claims to have found an "inactive" recording device in an office that Commander in Chief Zaluzhnyi may have used in the future. Similar, also allegedly inactive, devices were found in the offices of several of his employees. Ukraine's Security Service has as a result launched a criminal investigation. The discovery of such devices raises a lot of questions about Ukraine's security procedures, and raises questions about whether or not Russia has been directly listening in on extremely secretive conversations in the past. While Ukraine's push in Zaporizhzhia oblast was no particular surprise, the precise details weren't telegraphed in advance. Russia's ability to more or less hold the line at all points that Ukraine attacked this year may have been bolstered by their hypothetical ability to have listened in on Zaluzhnyi, which would have given them insight to the exact number of Ukrainian troops being deployed to various fronts.

According to Zelenskyy, the EU will soon begin screening Ukrainian legislation for compliance with EU laws. This is pretty vague wording, but likely means that the EU is not condensing the screening process as there are some chapters to be screened that don't really relate to domestic laws; these include things such as foreign relations, transportation infrastructure, and the vague "other issues" category that the EU includes. The screening process can take up to a couple of years, so Ukraine likely won't be done with the screening process until the end of 2024 at the earliest, with the process quite possibly lasting until 2025 or 2026.

The new blockade of Ukraine's border with Poland is set to begin tomorrow. The blockade is currently scheduled to last for several months, until March 8. This is a major setback for Ukraine, and makes the recent development of a new train car by Ukrzaliznytsia that is compatible with both Ukraine's rail network and the rail network used by countries such as Poland that much more important.

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