Victory Chronicles-DAY 957

On October 7, 2024, Russian forces conducted an airstrike on the city of Kherson, deploying four precision-guided bombs. This attack resulted in injuries to twenty civilians, among them two young children aged 2 and 4, who sustained explosive injuries and shrapnel wounds. Both children are now hospitalized and in stable condition. Additionally, the strike led to the hospitalization of six men, eight women, two elderly men, and an 18-year-old male. The bombardment specifically targeted a previously demolished school and several residential structures within Kherson’s Central District. Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, confirmed these details in an official statement.

Russia is set to increase its spending on state propaganda to a historic record of $27 million a week, according to the draft budget for 2025. The allocated budget for state propaganda is 137.2 billion rubles ($1.42 billion), which is a 13% increase compared to 2024. The main recipients of these funds will be state TV channels, including TV-Novosti and Channel One. Channel One, which has lost a considerable amount of its audience since the start of the war, will receive a subsidy of 6 billion rubles to fill the airwaves. Additionally, funds will be allocated for broadcasts in smaller settlements and for organizing state propaganda in occupied regions of Ukraine. The budget also includes a separate item of 8.4 billion rubles for media projects of the presidential administration, specifically for providing support for Vladimir Putin’s initiatives on the Internet. Despite the significant funding, state-owned TV channels are experiencing a rapid decline in their audience.

At least three tanks are on fire at an oil depot in Feodosia, Crimea after being attacked by a Ukrainian drone. The incident, captured in videos shared on the Telegram channel “Crimean Wind,” shows plumes of smoke over Feodosia. Five fuel tanks were damaged, with two completely destroyed and three currently on fire. As a result of the attack, train traffic from Vladyslavivka to Feodosia has been suspended, forcing passengers to use buses. The aftermath of the attack has also led to power outages in parts of Feodosia and Koktebel.

DIU’s “Kryla” [“Wings”] Special Unit discovered and destroyed a Russian Osa anti-aircraft missile system. “The enemy’s automated air defense system costs 10 million dollars. The cost of the FPV drone used by the scouts to burn down the Wasp is several hundred dollars. The lessons of interesting math will continue!” the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine said in a statement.

The Russian military command may not be willing or able to accept the current scale and rate of vehicle loss in the coming months and years given the constraints in Russia’s defense industrial production, limits to Russia’s Soviet-era vehicle stockpiles, and the Russian military’s failure to achieve operationally significant territorial advances through mechanized maneuver. 

Russian forces expended a significant number of armored vehicles during the first weeks of their offensive effort to seize Avdiivka in October 2023 and later limited their armored vehicle usage while fighting within Avdiivka’s administrative boundaries. Russian forces appear to have limited their armored vehicle use in the area immediately west of Avdiivka in recent months, although Russian forces have simultaneously intensified their offensive operations west and southwest of Donetsk city and frequently conduct largely unsuccessful platoon- and company-sized mechanized assaults in the area. Russian forces have conducted several battalion-sized mechanized assaults in western Donetsk Oblast since July 2024, the majority of which resulted in significant armored vehicle losses in exchange for marginal territorial advances.

The commander of a Ukrainian bridge operating in the Donetsk direction recently reported that Russian forces are losing up to 90 percent of the vehicles used in mechanized assaults in the Donetsk direction. The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank previously estimated that Russian forces were losing over 3,000 armored fighting vehicles annually as of February 2024, although Russia’s current rate of armored vehicle losses may be higher given that the X user’s data notably does not account for Russian equipment losses throughout the entire frontline.

Russian forces have only advanced about 40 km in the Avdiivka/Pokrovsk operational direction since October 2023 and a loss of over five divisions’ worth of equipment for such tactical gains is not sustainable indefinitely without a fundamental shift in Russia‘s capability to resource its war.

Russian forces have likely accumulated a large amount of equipment for these assaults, although the medium- to long-term constraints of Russia’s armored vehicle stocks and production rates alongside mounting equipment losses may force the Russian military to rethink the benefit of intensified mechanized activity in this sector over Russia’s longer-term war effort in Ukraine.

The Russian military command’s willingness to pursue limited tactical advances in exchange for significant armored vehicle losses will become increasingly costly as Russian forces burn through finite Soviet-era weapons and equipment stocks in the coming months and years. Russia will likely struggle to adequately supply its units with materiel in the long term without transferring the Russian economy to a wartime footing and significantly increasing Russia’s defense industrial production rates — a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to avoid thus far.

Fighter Yurii Hrabyna, with the call signs Chechen and Terminator, died on February 17, 2024, while performing a combat mission near the village of Terny in the Donetsk region. The defender was 49 years old.

Yurii was born in Lypove, Chernihiv region, and lived in Sukha Hrun, Sumy region. He graduated from the Nedryhailiv Vocational School with a degree in electrical engineering. He worked in his specialty almost all his life. His last job was at the Kobzarenko Plant. In his younger years, he loved to play football, playing as a right back.

The man was a participant of the ATO. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he again stood up to defend his homeland. He served in the 117th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade (military unit A7318). He was a mechanic-driver.

“My father was not only a military man, he was my mentor, my protector and my best friend. He taught me justice, kindness, courage and love. He always stood by my side when I was having a hard time. Dad, I will always remember you as the best father. Your wisdom, warm words and inexhaustible love will always be my light in the darkness. I will always be proud to be your son,” Artur Hrabyna wrote.

Yurii was buried in the village of Sukha Hrun in Sumy region. He is survived by his parents, wife, son and sisters.

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

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