Victory Chronicles-DAY 1064

More than 109 combat clashes took place over the 1,300-kilometer front line in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s military said in its morning report. 

The “most intensive” was near Pokrovsk, a heavily fortified town that Russia has been trying to encircle in the Donetsk region instead of attacking it directly. 

“The enemy is intensively attacking Ukrainian defenders in the Pokrovsky direction. Here, during the day, the aggressor carried out 54 assault and offensive actions,” the daily military summary said. 

It continued: “The greatest activity of the Russian occupiers is in the areas of the settlements of Vodyane Druhe, Zelene Pole, Elizavetivka, Hryshyne, Novoserhiivka, Petropavlivka, Myrolyubivka, Promin, Myrnohrad, Novyi Trud, Pokrovsk, Zvirovo, Uspenivka, Slovianka, Sribne, Shevchenko, Andriivka, Ulakly, Yantarne, Dachne.

Forty-seven attacks in the direction have already been repelled by Ukrainian defenders, and seven more clashes are ongoing.”

Separately, seven recorded combat clashes were recorded over the same 24-hour period in the Russian region of Kursk where Ukraine has a military presence.  

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Ukraine created a “buffer zone” between its northeastern region of Sumy and Russia by invading the neighboring Russian oblast of Kursk in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the yearly Swiss-based Davos Economic Forum. 

North Korean troops sent to buttress Russia’s attempts to retake the lost territory have seen 4,000 already killed, Ukraine’s second war-time president told a panel audience in the ski resort town on Jan. 21. 

Some 60,000 combined Russian and North Korean forces are engaged in the Kursk region to try and oust the Ukrainian army that has embedded itself there in what was a surprise incursion last summer, Zelenskyy said. 

He noted that the fierce battles taking place there are geographically closer to Davos than to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. 

Near the Donetsk regional town of Toretsk, Ukrainian artillerymen from the Predator Brigade of the Police Patrol usually have six-hour rotations and start their mornings with so-called 3-in-1 packets of instant coffee, sugar and cream. Meanwhile, they clean their cannons before skirring away to their positions to provide cover for their infantrymen from enemy fire. 

Even when this artillery unit has downtime, they watch videos on their computer gadgets, but above ground, Russian assaults are almost non-stop and their subterranean dwelling only provides an illusory sense of security. 

Sources: Photo courtesy of Dmytro Smolienko, Joint Forces Task Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lb.ua

Scouts in the Azov unit of Ukraine’s National guard are seen outside of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast. Their eyes and ears from the 2nd Battalion carry out combat missions to mop up the area of the invading Russian enemy. 

In this 10-minute long video, viewers are offered a glimpse into the challenging and exhausting combat routine of the Azov 12th Special Forces Brigade near Niu York in the Donetsk region. 

Skirmishes and firefights never stop as the Azov combatants engage the enemy. 

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces conducted a series of drone strikes against Russian defense industrial enterprises and oil refineries in Russia on the night of Jan. 20-21 as part of an ongoing strike series aimed at degrading Russian military capacity.
• The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces also continue to conduct strikes against Russian command posts in the Russian rear.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping held a phone call on Jan. 21 and emphasized deepening cooperation.
• Acting Kursk Oblast Governor Alexander Khinshtein’s recent appointment has thus far failed to solve or distract from Russia’s failure to adequately respond to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast.
• Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near [the Donetsk regional towns of] Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk, and Kurakhove. Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions near Pokrovsk.
• Russian ultranationalist military bloggers renewed complaints against the Russian Ministry of Defense for failing to hold the Russian military command accountable for military failures.

Another Georgian legionnaire, many of whom have fought for Ukraine’s independence since 2014 when Russia first invaded, was killed in action in the Zaporizhzhya region on or before Jan. 13. Kakha Tilidze was a presidential secret service guard and protected former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. He later moved to New York and found a rewarding job for ten years and also underwent training with the U.S. Army Rangers. Afterward, he stayed behind and started to train incoming Ukrainian soldiers. 

“He was a bright, extremely intelligent, very beautiful and noble person. A great patriot of Georgia and Ukraine. He is survived by two children and many people who miss him very much, including me,” Saakasvili said on Facebook. When the full-scale war started, he joined his fellow countrymen in the Georgian Legion to fight against invading Moscow forces. 

On Dec. 27, he received the award “Cross of Freedom” from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

When he and others were wounded, Tilidze insisted every wounded soldier be placed inside the medical evacuation vehicle and he would be the last one in. That’s when an enemy drone struck him, killing him on the spot. 

He is survived by his widow Tsira Kinkladze, and daughter Animariya and son Daniel.

Sources: Mikheil Saakashvili, Giorgi Revishvili, Obrozovatel, Olena Ivashchenko

• Hromadske International: Special Operations showed how they repelled an over 8-hour assault by North Korean troops. Over 20 enemy soldiers were destroyed.
• Kyiv Independent: ‘We want to bring stability’ – State Secretary Rubio’s position on Russia’s war against Ukraine
• The Independent: Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s forces suffer 2,000 losses in a day as Kyiv’s NATO hopes ‘hinge on Trump’
• BBC: War clinics in Ukraine witness sharp rise in drug-resistant infections
• RFE/RL: Trump suggests new Russia sanctions if Putin refuses Ukraine peace talks