The situation at the front
Ukrainian forces report a "complete lack of coordination" between Wagner PMC forces and the Russian military in the Bakhmut area . Ukrainian troops came into contact with the enemy from the south side of the H32 highway near the village of Ivanovskoye.
“M03 and H32 – the two main roads to the city [Bakhmut] for the Ukrainian defenders – are now supposedly under threat of direct fire following the Russian advance. <…> The Wagner paramilitaries most likely seized the secondary road connecting Bakhmut with the city of Seversk. While numerous alternative supply routes via country roads remain available to Ukrainian forces, Bakhmut is becoming increasingly isolated,” a British intelligence brief dated February 5 said .
The situation in Bakhmut remains difficult. Analysts of the DeepState project note that Russian forces are pressing on the city from three sides:
“The Bakhmut section – the enemy is pulling up reserves to Nikolaevka for a further offensive on Razdolevka and Vasyukovka. Difficult situation in Krasnaya Gora. To the west of Blagodatny, the Katsaps managed to advance, but the exact situation there is currently unknown. Ivanovskoye is holding out, the enemy is unable to cut the road. The situation in Bakhmut is very complicated. The pressure on the city comes from almost three sides. In recent days, our military has had to withdraw from certain neighborhoods in the private sector.”
According to the General Staff of Ukraine, during the night of February 5-6, Ukrainian forces repelled assaults in the areas of the settlements of Verkhnekamenskoye, Vasyukovka, Paraskovievka, Bakhmut, Ivanovskoye, Kamenka, Severnoye, Pervomayskoye, Veseloye, Nevelskoye, Krasnogorovka, Maryinka, Pobeda and Novomikhailovka.
Ukrainian military observer Konstantin Mashovets believes that the question of the success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this direction rests on two frontiers: Yagodnoye – Berkhovka – Zheleznyanskoye – Vasyukovka, as well as Ivanovskoye – Stupochki, along the T-0504 road. According to Mashovets, the retention of these lines means the retention of Bakhmut. “Moreover, the hypothetical encirclement of Ukrainian forces in the area of Krasnaya Gora will have very little effect on the situation directly in Bakhmut itself. But if the enemy directly crosses the T-0504 road and starts fighting for Chasov Yar, and also breaks through to the Berkhovsky reservoir, then Bakhmut will definitely have to be abandoned, ”he writes.
Mashovets also writes that Russian troops continue to strengthen the combat strength of their West and Center groups. In particular, this is noticeable in the Kupyansky and Limansky directions .
Ukrainian Telegram channels publish a video from the Vuhledar direction with three knocked out Russian tanks, one of which is presumably a T-90M, and a tanker running across the field, burning alive:
Russian artillery has been actively working in the Zaporozhye direction in the last 24 hours, writes the WarGonzo project. Shcherbaki, Orekhov, Novodanilovka, Malaya Tokmachka, Yegorovka, Charovnoye and Gulyaipole were under fire.
In the Donetsk direction , the RF Armed Forces shelled Novomikhailovka, Pobeda, the western part of Maryinka, Georgievka, Nevelskoye, Pervomaisky, Avdeevka and New York. The Armed Forces of Ukraine struck at Donetsk and Yasinovataya. Russian troops attacked from the Vodyany side and managed to make some progress. Their goal is access to the North and the coverage of the Ukrainian fortified area in Avdiivka from the west.
In the Lugansk direction south of the Kremennaya Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being forced out of the forest to the Seversky Donets. “If the Ukrainian troops are thrown back across the river, they will not be able to attack the city on the ground in this direction. And from the southwest, these prospects look more and more illusory. Russian units from Dibrova are advancing towards Yampol, ”WarGonzo claims.
The Ukrainian military posted a photo with a flag from Belogorivka in the Luhansk region , confirming that it is under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The same was stated the day before by the head of the Lugansk OVA Serhiy Gaidai on the air of the telethon. “The situation is tense, but controlled by our military. All those stuffing about the fact that "somewhere in 15 minutes a full-scale offensive will begin" is not true. Everyone clearly understands how many reserves are being transferred and what is happening on the front line. Everyone is ready to fight back,” Gaidai said. Earlier, the "LNR" claimed that the Ukrainian troops retreated from Belogorovka.
Shelling of Russia
A 70-year-old woman died as a result of the shelling of the village of Kazinka, Belgorod Region. “As a result of a shell hit, the outbuilding of a private residential building caught fire, a 70-year-old woman died , ” Governor Gladkov said .
Near Kaluga, about 150 km from Moscow, a drone exploded in the early hours of 6 February. The governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, said that the drone exploded in the forest. And the Mash Telegram channel claims that it did not explode at all in the forest, but over one of the microdistricts of the city. According to Shot, a high-explosive fragmentation bomb was found at the crash site.
We are talking about a Strizh-type UAV, writes the Telegram channel Voenkor Kotenok Z. Presumably, the drone was flying at low altitude and caught on trees, as a result of which it crashed. The “military informant” claims that the drone was heading towards Moscow, and notes that, in addition to the air bomb, arrow-shaped submunitions (flashettes) were found at the crash site. Photos confirm this:
Supply of arms
The US Transportation Command showed how 60 Bradley IFVs are being loaded for shipment to Ukraine:
Ukrainian military personnel arrived in the UK to undergo training in mastering AS90 self-propelled artillery mounts, the press service of the British Ministry of Defense reports .
The first Canadian Leopard 2A4+ for the Ukrainian army was delivered by plane to Poland. Canadian National Defense Minister Anita Anand said that the Ukrainian military will begin training in the use of this tank in the near future.
Mobilized from Tuva complained about beatings by the “DPR” military
The mobilized from Tuva recorded a video message in which they complained about beatings and threats from servicemen from the “DPR” and the military police. The video was recorded in Tuvan, and its translation into Russian was published by the Russian Asians Telegram channel.
In the video, people in masks and camouflage clothes stand against the backdrop of a forest. They say that they were mobilized on September 29, after which they underwent training in Novosibirsk for three months. In the training unit, according to them, they “were not trained and prepared for fighting on the front line” and promised that they would be sent to the “commandant’s battalion.”
“On February 4, 2023, the military from the DPR arrived, they shot at us from machine guns, forced us to do push-ups, they said that we would not leave here alive. They said that we belong to them, to the DNR,” the mobilized say. They also allege that they were beaten by the "military police".
"Taiga.info" reports that a short video recording of the alleged beating was sent to the editorial office, where several people with machine guns knock a soldier down on the snow and swear at others. The video edition does not publish.
The governor of Tuva, Vladislav Khovalyg, called it "an outrageous case that discredits the position of the mobilized." He stated that he was sending his representatives to the occupied part of the Donetsk region for "direct investigation on the spot." The Vice Speaker of the State Duma of Russia, Sholban Kara-ool, also responded to the appeal, stating that he “interrupts his business trip in Siberia and flies out to clarify the circumstances.”
Prigozhin offered Zelensky a duel in the sky
The Wagner PMC channel claims that at night, "Yevgeny Prigozhin flew a sortie as a Su-24 navigator of the Wagner PMC to bomb Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut." At the same time, in the video, Prigozhin challenges Zelensky to an air duel. “Tomorrow I am boarding a MiG-29. If yours takes, take Artemovsk, if not, we go to the Dnieper, ”he says in the video.
The United States is preparing a response to Putin's nuclear threats
The US Department of Defense is conducting military exercises in case Russian President Putin decides to put tactical nuclear weapons into position, The New York Times reports , citing senior officials in the Joe Biden administration. At the same time, the interlocutors of the publication note that the US military has not yet observed signs that Putin is seriously preparing to use nuclear weapons, and the threats of the deputy head of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, are considered empty.