Victory Chronicles
-DAY 236

ISW KEY TAKEAWAYS: EUROPEAN SECURITY DEPENDS ON UKRAINE LIBERATING ITS TERRITORY

Above: Europe will have no peace until Ukraine has peace. (CNBC)

• Principled legal, moral, and ethical considerations require supporting Ukraine’s efforts to regain its lost lands and people and should not be dismissed.
• If Ukraine is to emerge from this war able to defend itself against a future Russian attack and with a viable economy that does not rely on long-term international financial support, it must liberate almost all its territory.
• Ukraine must regain certain specific areas currently under Russian occupation to ensure its long-term security and economic viability. Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against a future Russian attack requires liberating most of Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts. Ukraine’s economic health requires liberating the rest of Zaporhizia Oblast and much of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, including at least some territory Russia seized in 2014. Ukraine’s security would be materially enhanced by liberating Crimea, which would also benefit NATO’s ability to secure its southeastern flank.
• Ukraine has every right to fight to liberate all the territory Russia has illegally seized, particularly in light of the continued atrocities and ethnic cleansing Russia is perpetrating in the areas it occupies. Kyiv’s insistence on regaining control of Ukrainian territory to the internationally-recognized borders is not an absolutist or extremist demand—it is the normal position of a state defending itself against an unprovoked attack as part of a war of conquest.

GENERAL STAFF DAILY ENEMY LOSSES

Above: Armed Forces of Ukraine

https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua

• Liquidated personnel, 65,320 +(320)
• Tanks 2,537 (+8)
• Armored personnel vehicles, 5,205 (+12)
• Artillery systems/MLRS, 1,599/366 (+10/1)
• Anti-aircraft warfare systems, 187 (+1)
• Aircraft/helicopters, 268/242 (+1/0)
• UAV operational-tactical level, 1,241 (+17)
• Cruise missiles, 316 (+1)
• Warships/boats, 16 (+1)
• Vehicles and fuel tanks, 3,969 (+10)
• Special equipment, 144 (+1)

CIVILIAN MISSILE STRIKES

Above: Several Iranian kamikaze drones hit Kyiv Oct 17.  (AFP News Agency)

• Areas of more than twenty settlements were hit by the enemy. In particular, Bilopillia in the Sumy oblast, Slovyansk, Pavlivka and Novosilka in the Donetsk oblast, Marganets in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, Pravdyne and Biloghirka in the Kherson oblast. The enemy attacked Mykolaiv with fifteen kamikaze drones, eleven of them were shot down by our defenders.
• In the Volyn, Polissya and Siverskyi directions, the situation remains unchanged. There is still a threat of missile and air strikes, as well as the use of the “Shahed-136” attack UAV from the territory of the republic of belarus.
• The enemy fired in other directions:
  • in the Slobozhansky direction – from mortars, barrel and jet artillery, in the areas of Veterynarne, Vysoka Yaruga, Vovchansk, Vovchanski Khutory, Gatishche, Dvorichne, Zelene, Kozacha Lopan, Krasne and Ogirtseve settlements of the Kharkiv region;
  • in the Kramatorsk direction – from tanks, barrel and jet artillery, in the areas of Berestov, Petropavlivka, Pershotravneve settlements of the Kharkiv oblast; Hrekivka and Novoyehorivka in Luhansk oblast and Zarichne, Terny, Torske and Yampolivka in Donetsk oblast;
  • in the Bakhmut direction – from tanks and rocket artillery in the areas of Andriivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Bilohorivka, Vesele, Opytne, Soledar and Yakovlivka settlements of the Donetsk oblast;
  • in the Avdiivka direction – from tanks, barrel and jet artillery, in the areas of Berdychi, Vodyane, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Nevelske, Novomykhailivka and Pervomaiske settlements of the Donetsk region.
• The enemy did not conduct offensive operations in the Novopavlivsk and Zaporizhzhia directions.
• Fired artillery of various types in the areas of Bohoyavlenka, Velyka Novosilka, Volodymyrivka, Vuhledar and Paraskoviivka settlements of the Donetsk oblast.
• In the South Buh direction, more than twenty-five settlements along the contact line suffered fire damage. In particular, Nikopol and Novokamyanka in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, Ternovi Pody, Partyzanske, Shyroke in the Mykolaiv oblast, and Myrne in the Kherson oblast.

KHARKIV

Above: ruzzian peace in Kharkiv. (New York Times)

Map via ISW

LUHANSK AND DONETSK

Above: ruzzia send its men for cannon fodder and the ruzzian people love it.  (New York Times)

Map via ISW

• Ukrainian military officials stated on October 16 that Russian forces are falsely claiming to have captured several towns near Bakhmut in the past several days, but Ukrainian forces have held their lines against Russian attacks.
• Russian forces are likely falsifying claims of advances in the Bakhmut area to portray themselves as making gains in at least one sector amid continuing losses in northeast and southern Ukraine.
• Ukrainian sources reported Russian occupation officials in Kherson City are stepping up filtration measures against Ukrainian partisans and accelerating efforts to evacuate key materials and personnel from Kherson to Crimea.
• The occupiers are trying to replenish their losses in manpower and massively mobilize men in the temporarily occupied territories. Thus, according to the available information, in Stanytsia Luhanska, Luhansk oblast, employees of communal services were forcibly registered for military service under russian legislation and conducted a so-called medical examination.
• The Donbas—the area of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts divided by the line of control since 2014—had been a single integrated economic unit for centuries. Its mineral deposits were extracted and sent by rail to the port of Mariupol, on the one hand, and to Ukrainian industries in the west on the other. The 2014 Russian seizure of large parts of Donetsk Oblast disrupted this economic activity to Ukraine’s detriment. Permanently removing the entire Donbas would do far more serious economic damage to Ukraine.
• The military requirement for that restoration includes the Ukrainian liberation of Mariupol and the road and rail networks north via Volnovakha toward Donetsk City and to the west toward Melitopol and Zaporizhia City. Establishing secure Ukrainian control over Mariupol requires liberating at least some of the land the Russians had seized in 2014.
• The towns of Svatove, Starobilsk, and Bilovodsk sit on major road junctions, control of which determines in part which bases in Russia proper the Russians can use to support future attacks in Ukraine directly.

KHERSON AND ZAPORIZHZHYA

Above: Ethnic Tatar Ukrainians fly the Tatar flag over captured zombie tank in the southern Ukrainian battle to liberate Crimea, historical Tatar homeland. (Visegrad 24)

Map via ISW

• Several Russian sources reported renewed Ukrainian assaults in the Kherson direction and Ukrainian sources reported higher-than-average numbers of daily shelling and missile strikes, but Ukrainian forces are maintaining operational silence about any operations.
• The long-term defensibility of Mykolayiv, Odesa, and the entire Ukrainian Black Sea coast thus rests in no small part on the liberation of western Kherson.
• Ukraine’s hold on its entire western Black Sea coast will remain tenuous as long as Russia holds territory in southwestern Kherson much further north than the 2014 lines.
• As a result of accurate strikes by the Defence Forces, the enemy suffered the following losses in the populated areas of the Zaporizhzhia oblast: Molochansk – up to 40 wounded, Kamianka-Dniprovska – 5 units of weapons and military equipment and about 25 wounded, Enerhodar – up to 20 wounded, Orihiv and Hulyaipole – up to 5 units of weapons and military equipment and up to 50 wounded, Polohy – about 7 units of military equipment and up to 30 wounded.
• Parts of Kherson Oblast on the east bank of the Dnipro are also strategically critical, however. The oblast follows the line of the river to its mouth and then juts out into the Black Sea, coming to within about 40 miles of Odesa. Russian military positions in these areas allow Russian forces to bring artillery, drone, and missile fire against much of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast from many short-range systems without having to use expensive longer-range capabilities that will always be in shorter supply.
• Russia’s demonstrated irresponsibility toward nuclear facilities in Ukraine also makes restoring the ZNPP to Ukrainian control essential from a security perspective. Russian forces damaged the inactive Chernobyl facilities, kicking up radioactive dust and irradiating themselves in the process. Russian false-flag operations and the use of the ZNPP grounds as a base for conventional military operations show a similarly cavalier attitude toward the dangers of bringing war to a massive nuclear power plant.
• Melitopol is a critical junction of roads that run from the Dnipro around the Nova Kakhovka Dam to the Sea of Azov coast and ultimately Mariupol on the one hand and that run from Crimea north to the city of Zaporizhia on the other. If the Russians retain control of Melitopol and the roads running south and east of it, they can and likely will turn it into a major militarized base from which to launch mechanized attacks across the largely flat steppe land to its north and west.
• The Crimean Peninsula, finally, is strategically important for NATO as well as Ukraine. Russian possession of the peninsula allows Russia to base anti-air and anti-shipping missiles 325 kilometers further west than it could using only the territory it legally controls. It lets Russia position aircraft in Sevastopol, about 300 kilometers further west than airbases on the territory of the Russian Federation.