Victory Chronicles-DAY 912

The Third Assault Brigade in the Kharkiv Oblast has made significant progress, advancing almost 2 square kilometers into the front. 

Through counterattack actions, the brigade successfully took control of the occupiers’ defense area and enemy strongholds and advanced deep into the front. Despite being outnumbered by 2.5 to 1 in favor of the enemy, the brigade achieved its primary objective of reducing the offensive potential of the Russian Federation’s 20th Army. 

Over four days, the enemy suffered casualties of three hundred personnel, and much of their equipment and weapons were destroyed or damaged. The successful assault not only diverted the enemy’s attack from the direction of Makiivka but also alleviated tension in other critical areas of the front that were under the neighboring brigades’ control.

The US administration has announced plans to provide Ukraine approximately $125 million in new military aid. The aid package includes various weapons and equipment, such as air defense missiles, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), anti-tank missiles, systems for combating drones and electronic warfare, artillery ammunition, vehicles, and other equipment. The official announcement of this aid package is expected to take place on Friday, August 23. The weapons will be provided to Ukraine from Pentagon warehouses. This new aid comes after a previous security assistance package announced on July 3, which included ammunition for HIMARS systems, air defense interceptors, artillery shells, and other weapons.

Two people were killed, and four were wounded in the Sumy Oblast as a result of attacks by the Russian army. A total of 252 attacks were made on the territory, with 42 settlements shelled. The attacks caused damage to critical infrastructure facilities, apartment buildings, residential buildings, administrative buildings, vehicles, and a gas station. Grain was also destroyed, and the equipment and premises of an enterprise were damaged. Police investigators have initiated criminal proceedings under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which deals with violating laws and customs of war.

Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk released a video of an air strike by the Air Force using GBU-39 precision-guided bombs on a platoon stronghold in the Kursk region. A UAV control center, an electronic warfare unit, equipment, weapons, and up to 40 Russian soldiers were hit.

The Russian military command recently redeployed elements of at least one Russian airborne (VDV) regiment from western Zaporizhia Oblast in response to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk Oblast, possibly to stabilize the lines and improve command and control (C2) over Russian conscripts.

A Crimean occupation official, who had volunteered to fight as part of the Russian 56th VDV Regiment (7th VDV Division), claimed on August 19 that his platoon redeployed from the Robotyne and Verbove area in western Zaporizhia Oblast to “defend” Kursk Oblast. A Russian relative also claimed on Telegram that elements of the 1st Assault Company (56th VDV Regiment) began redeploying to unspecified area in Russia on August 15, and a Russian VDV-affiliated Telegram channel announced a crowdfunding effort on August 17 in support of elements of the 56th VDV Regiment that were reportedly already in Kursk Oblast. Elements of the 56th VDV Regiment have been operating in western Zaporizhia Oblast since at least Summer 2023.

ISW has also observed proprietary, commercially-available data appearing to support reports of these redeployments. The Crimea-based Telegram channel Crimean Wind posted footage on August 22 of Russian military trucks reportedly transferring a “large amount of military equipment” from occupied Sevastopol and Perevalne, Crimea in the “northern direction.”

OSINT analysts on X (formerly Twitter) observed tactical insignia on the trucks seen in Crimean Wind’s footage that reportedly belongs to the 56th VDV Regiment and analyzed other footage of Russian military equipment and trucks moving through Voronezh Oblast towards Kursk Oblast.

A Russian milblogger also claimed on August 22 that elements of the 56th VDV “Brigade” were operating in Russkaya Konopelka (just east of Sudzha and 12km from the international border) alongside former Wagner Group elements before editing the post to claim that elements of the 11th VDV Brigade were operating in the area.

Russian sources recently amplified footage purportedly showing elements of the 11th VDV Brigade allegedly leading conscripts out of an encirclement in an unspecified area in Kursk Oblast, and ISW observed elements of the 11th VDV Brigade operating in the Chasiv Yar direction in early July 2024.

Fighter Serhii Hryhoriev, with the call sign Yuriiovych, died in Russian captivity on May 20, 2023. He was held in a penal colony in the city of Kamensk-Shakhtynsky, Rostov Oblast. The man’s body was returned only a year after his death and identified in May 2024 using a DNA test.

Serhii was 59 years old. He was born in the Russian village of Port Artur. As a child, he moved to Poltava Oblast, Ukraine. He graduated from Pyriatyn Secondary School No. 6 and then did his military service. In civilian life, he worked as a driver in an oil and gas deep drilling expedition in Pyriatyn. Then he worked as a stoker engineer at the Pyriatyn oil depot and as a driver at the Rainbow and Budivelnyk cooperatives. Later, he worked as a construction worker at the Pyriatyn Training and Course Plant. From 2012 to 2016, he held the position of Deputy Director of the Pyriatyn Lyceum’s economic department.

In February 2020, he enlisted for military service under a contract. He twice participated in the Joint Forces Operation in eastern Ukraine. He was awarded the Cossack Cross, III degree.

From the first days of the full-scale invasion, Serhii was in Mariupol. He held the position of a driver at the Maritime Security Training Center (military unit A1499). Later, he and his comrades were assigned to the 36th Separate Marine Brigade named after Rear Admiral Mykhailo Bilynskyi. They kept in touch with the man until mid-April 2022, when he was captured by the Russian military.

“He was kind, calm, fair, and honest. He was a father from the best dream. He had golden hands,” said his daughter Oksana. The defender was buried in Pyriatyn. Serhii is survived by his mother, brother, wife and two daughters.

*Serhii’s story on the Heroes Memorial – a platform for stories about the fallen defenders of Ukraine.

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