The situation at the front
The Ukrainian military in the Luhansk region took full fire control of the section of the R-66 highway from Kremennaya to Severodonetsk, Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political observer for the Information Resistance group, reports . Thus, the Armed Forces of Ukraine significantly complicated the logistics in the area for the Russian military. According to Kovalenko, Russia is suffering heavy losses among those mobilized on the Svatovo-Kremennaya line, where the Russian command has been trying to restrain the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for more than two months.
The Def Mon analyst emphasizes that Svatovo now falls within a twenty-five-kilometer range of Ukrainian cannon artillery. This allows you to use long-range projectiles.
Russian artillery stepped up efforts in the Zaporozhye direction . According to WarGonzo, Kamenskoye, Stepnoye, Maly Shcherbaki, Orekhov, Novodanilovka, Malaya Tokmachka, Belogorye, Charovnoye, Dorozhnyanka, Krasnoe and Malinovka are under attack. Artillery is also shelling Ugledar.
In the Donetsk direction, fighting is taking place in the Novomikhailovka area and in the city of Maryinka. Russian troops are making attempts to advance in the direction of Pervomaisky, Vodyany, from the side of Experienced to Krasnogorovka and in the Kamenka area.
Fighting continues in the Bakhmut direction . According to Def Mon, the Armed Forces of Ukraine repulsed all the attacks of the Russian army in the Bakhmut area, it was especially noted that the Russian Armed Forces do not have enough ammunition.
Attacks on Kherson
Over the past weekend, Russian troops intensively shelled the Kherson region and Kherson itself, using artillery and MLRS.
“Russian invaders fired at the territory of Kherson region 33 times. Peaceful settlements of the region suffered from fire from artillery, MLRS, mortars and tanks,” says Yaroslav Yanushevich, head of the Kherson Regional Military District, on the Telegram channel about the shelling on December 25.
Yanushevich noted that Kherson was attacked 7 times, hits were recorded in warehouses, private and apartment buildings. The authorities urged residents of the Kherson region to evacuate.
The day before, on December 24, Russian troops shelled Kherson more than 40 times, and the region more than 70 times. 11 people were killed. Yanushevich also said that a total of 64 residents of Kherson were injured, and 18 people are still in serious condition. According to local authorities, a market and a shopping center in Kherson also came under fire.
Yanushevich stressed that people are transported daily by free buses from Kherson to Odessa via Nikolaev, and also several times a week from Kherson to other destinations: Krivoy Rog, Lviv, Dnipro, Kyiv via Uman, Vinnitsa.
A video of the use of incendiary ammunition in Kherson appeared on Telegram channels, which is a war crime. Filming was conducted from the private sector.
Kherson, captured by the Russian military in March, was liberated by the Ukrainian army in early November.
The second attack on the air base in Engels
In the Saratov region, for the second time in a month, a Ukrainian drone attacked the Engels-2 airfield. Russian strategic bombers are based at the airfield. According to the version of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the drone was shot down, three soldiers were killed as a result of falling debris. Baza writes about four victims.
Telegram channels publish alleged videos of the explosion, but it is impossible to unambiguously understand what happened in Engels from them.
Engels is located about 750 km from the border with Ukraine. Probably, like last time, the Soviet Tu-141 drone was used – a reusable operational-tactical reconnaissance aircraft with a flight range of up to 1000 km. OSINTtechnical writes that the fire occurred in the aircraft parking area.
The RF Armed Forces evacuated four to six Tu-95 strategic bombers from the Engels-2 airfield, Channel 24 writes . The planes, according to these data, were transferred to the Ukrainka airfield in the Amur region.
"Liquidation of Ukrainian saboteurs"
The FSB reported that it had “liquidated” a group of four Ukrainian saboteurs who were trying to enter the Bryansk region from Ukraine. A video with bloody bodies was published, and the names of those killed were later named. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the video itself. For example, one of the killed "saboteurs", who had to walk kilometers over rough terrain, had completely clean soles of his boots.
The FSB report says that “the dead were armed with German SIG Sauer submachine guns and 4 bombs of 40 kg in TNT equivalent” and were allegedly preparing a terrorist attack. Experts interviewed by The Insider pointed to the inconsistency of the weapons with the tasks.
Shortly after the publication of the FSB video, the Gray Zone Telegram channel, which is believed to be associated with the Wagner PMC, published uncut photographs from the place where the "saboteurs" were killed. The experts, whom The Insider showed these photos, have an assumption that the people in the pictures, judging by the damage, died as a result of a vehicle being blown up by a mine. This can indirectly explain the clean soles of one of the victims.
Video with an appeal to the head of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Bellingcat investigative journalist Khristo Grozev posted on Twitter a video with an appeal by Wagner PMC mercenaries to the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Defense Ministry Valery Gerasimov. In the video, they call him "pi*or" and "hell f*ck" and complain about the lack of projectiles. At the same time, there is no evidence that these are really Wagnerians.
“To the chief of the general staff: you are a f*ck and a f*ck. We have nothing to fight with, we have no shells. There the guys are dying for us, and we are sitting here, f*cking, not helping. We need shells, we want to f*ck everyone. We are fighting against the entire Ukrainian army near Bakhmut. Where are you? Help us at last. There is nothing more to call you, f * yad. Except for one word – pi * op. When the boys die, where are you all? the video says.
The press service of the Concord company, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of PMC Wagner, said that he is currently out of touch and cannot comment on the video.
Read also The Insider’s summary of the main results at the front on December 23: “Fights in the Lugansk and Bakhmut directions, the explosion of the FSB car in Melitopol. What is happening on the front line.