Eurasia Press & News
- In today’s summary:
- Fierce battles in the north of the Kharkov region – the Russian Aerospace Forces began to use three-ton FAB-3000 gliders
- Volchansk is increasingly reminiscent of Stalingrad – both in the nature of the fighting there and in the degree of destruction in the city
- Russian troops “opened” new directions, including near the settlement of New York near Toretsk
- One of the largest combined attacks on Russian territory using 114 drones and six naval drones
- During the week, during Ukrainian raids, several oil depots, oil refineries, the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works and an air defense training unit were hit
- Another incident with “friendly fire” – a Ka-29 helicopter of the Black Sea Fleet naval aviation was shot down in the Anapa area
- After Putin’s visit to the DPRK, Seoul began to think about providing direct military assistance to Ukraine
- The production volume of new T-90M tanks in Russia by 2025 is unlikely to exceed 90 units per year
- Situation at the front
- Fierce fighting continued in the Kharkov direction this week. Ukrainian sources reported some successes on the western flank, where they reported a systematic clearing of the village of Glubokoe from Russian forces . The RF Armed Forces respond by using the three-ton FAB -3000 aerial bombs with the UMPC module, which are located to the south of Liptsy, which have just appeared at the front (although there are certain doubts about their effectiveness ).
Further east, in Volchansk , a group of Russian military personnel found themselves cut off from the main forces at the Aggregate Plant (although the possibility of small detachments reaching them through the “gray zone” remains ). In general, the Ukrainian military characterizes the fighting in Volchansk as heavy (albeit with “positive dynamics” for the Ukrainian Armed Forces), and DeepState warns against calling them counter-offensive actions, especially since the Russian Armed Forces do not stop attacks in this direction.
The Russians continue to destroy the city and establish defensive lines to the north of it, losing engineering equipment in the process. Russian military correspondents compare ( 1 , 2 ) the situation in Volchansk with the Battle of Stalingrad, speaking about the intensity of the fighting and the fractured front line in the urban area. Meanwhile, Russian military personnel in the border area of the Kharkov region complain about “bare salaries” in the amount of 40,000 rubles per month and being sent on assaults without artillery training and reconnaissance.
Meanwhile, to the west of Donetsk , pressure from the Russian Armed Forces continues. According to Ukrainian soldier Alexander Solonko, in the Ocheretino area , on the northern flank of the Avdiivka operational area , the Russians are carrying out a “mandatory program”, carrying out at least one assault per day. As a result, Russian forces remain only seven kilometers from the Pokrovsk-Konstantinovka highway , which plays a key role in supplying the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbass. The situation further south, in the Marinka region , is not clear enough – Ukrainian ( 1 , 2 ) and Russian ( 1 , 2 ) sources contradict each other regarding the situation in Georgievka , Maksimilyanovka and Paraskovievka , it is only clear that heavy fighting is taking place for these settlements.
Also this week, the Russian Armed Forces began offensive operations in two directions at once in the Donetsk and Kharkov regions . Russian ( 1 , 2 ) and Ukrainian ( 1 , 2 ) sources confirm the advance of Russians in the area of Pivnichny and New York (until 2021 – Novgorodskoye ) near Toretsk (until 2016 – Dzerzhinsk ) on a front sector that has remained static since 2014 . In the Kharkov region, DeepState and the 3rd assault brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces report ( 1 , 2 ) about the preparation and beginning of the Russian offensive on Borovaya , for which a large group has been created.
The situation on the Seversky salient also remains threatening , where the Russian Armed Forces are advancing ( 1 , 2 ) in the area of the villages of Vyemka , Belogorovka and Razdolovka . To the south, in the Bakhmut direction , the position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Ivanovskoe (until 2016 – Krasnoe ) and Kleshcheevka worsened , since the supply of supplies became deadly. The Russians managed to turn the last settlement into a “gray zone”, and the author of the Telegram channel “Officer ✙” considers the occupation of the remnants of this village (like Rabotino in the Zaporozhye direction ) by Russian forces to be a matter of time (and significant losses on the Russian side). At the same time, the Russian Armed Forces are failing in their attempts to break through to the Seversky Donets-Donbass canal in the Kalinovka region , and proudly report on the occupation of five houses in the Kanal microdistrict in the east of Chasova Yar per day, while admitting that Ukrainian forces continue to control the western part of the microdistrict.
In the Zaporozhye direction, the Russian Ministry of Defense marked another “strange victory”, announcing the capture of the village of Zagornoye , in which 14 people lived in 2001 and which has long been indicated on maps of military operations as controlled by the Russians. However, the Z-channel “Warrior DV” explains that the village was indeed captured last year, but the Russians managed to gain a foothold in it only now.
The evolution of the “drone war” continues in different sectors of the front. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are remotely mining Russian positions with captured Russian “Insert” mines, the Russians are hunting for Ukrainian quadcopters by dropping nets on them from their own drones, and the Ukrainians, in turn, continue the series of “aerial victories” over enemy drones by blowing up an FPV drone in the moment a Russian loitering munition “Lancet” flew next to him.
Mutual shelling and sabotage
The Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported this week on repelling raids by Russian “Shaheds” and missiles on the night of June 18 (10 out of 10 drones were shot down), on June 19 (19 out of 21 UAVs were shot down ), on June 20 (all 27 “Shaheds” were shot down “and five out of nine missiles) and on June 21 ( all four Kh-59/Kh-69 missiles were shot down ).
As a result of the attack on June 19, a civilian in the Lviv region was injured and the building of a research institute in Lviv itself was partially destroyed . On June 20, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine reported damage to energy infrastructure facilities in four regions of the country, in two of which a total of seven energy workers were injured . The Russian Ministry of Defense, as usual, justified the strike by saying that the affected energy facilities provided “the production of weapons and military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
This week, in particular, the authorities of Donetsk ( 1 , 2 ), Kherson , Kharkov , Poltava (where 22 people were injured ) and Dnepropetrovsk regions ( 1 , 2 ) reported on civilian casualties from shelling . In addition, the Russian Armed Forces once again hit a crossing in the Kharkov region , and Russian sources also reported attacks on the airfields of Starokonstantinov and Mirgorod . In addition, the Russian Aerospace Forces continued to “drop” FAB in the Belgorod region ( 1 , 2 ) – this week no one was injured as a result of “unusual discharges” of ammunition.
Ukrainian forces, in turn, carried out attacks on the following known targets throughout the week:
at the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works in the Lipetsk region ;
for oil depots and refineries in the Rostov region , Krasnodar region ( 1 , 2 ), Adygea and Tambov region ;
at the airfield in Yeysk in the Krasnodar Territory , where fires were recorded on the territory of the air defense training center and a missile hit the barracks (the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on the attack “on the storage and preparation for use of “Shahed-136/Geran-2”, educational buildings, control and communication points for the crews of these UAVs”).
In one of the Ukrainian attacks on the night of June 20, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, at least 114 UAVs and six UAVs took part . During the week, authorities, including the Krasnodar Territory and the Belgorod Region, reported on injured civilians ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ).
Losses
The BBC Russian Service and the Mediazona publication, together with a team of volunteers, updated the calculations of casualties in the war on the Russian side, confirmed by reports in open sources. In total, the names of 56,858 victims have been identified. In total, during the period from May 21 to June 21, 2024, the list was replenished with 2,677 new names and surnames. In addition, Mediazona found out that since the beginning of the war, more than 10,000 Russian military personnel have been officially accused of refusing to fight, including leaving a unit without permission, desertion, and failure to follow orders.
Researcher Cloooud has counted at least 65 Russian soldiers who committed suicide on the front lines and were caught on video. Of these, 37 people used firearms, 26 people blew themselves up with a grenade, one used a knife, and another “decided to lie down by the fire and burned.” In his opinion, Russian soldiers most often commit suicide either from a feeling of hopelessness after being wounded with no hope of evacuation, or due to the belief, influenced by propaganda, that the Ukrainians will torture them in captivity.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, in turn, announced a new estimate of Russian losses – 350 thousand killed and wounded throughout the war. In addition, Ukrainian forces managed to sink, destroy or damage 24 ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The losses of military equipment since September last year, that is, during the current offensive of the Russian Armed Forces, according to Austin, amounted to 2.6 thousand units.
The Naalsio analyst updated the calculations of the parties’ equipment losses in certain directions based on visual evidence. In the Avdeevsky operational area, in the period from June 7 to June 14, it was possible to confirm the loss of 35 units of equipment of the Russian Armed Forces and eight of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the Krynok area on the left bank of the Dnieper, confirmed losses of Russian equipment during the same period amounted to two units, losses of Ukrainian equipment were not recorded. In the Kharkov direction , according to Naalsio estimates, during the week from June 11 to 18, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost seven units of equipment, the Russian Armed Forces lost 28 units (mainly excavators and engineering equipment).
Oryx volunteer Jakub Yanovsky notes that visually confirmed losses of Russian armored personnel carriers exceeded a thousand units. The BTR-82A lost the most – 647 units. As for infantry fighting vehicles , their visually confirmed losses exceeded three thousand. Most of the losses were BMP-2 (1311 units) and BMP-1 (764 units).
On June 21, Z-channels reported that a Ka-29 helicopter of the Black Sea Fleet naval aviation was shot down in the Anapa area. It is alleged that this happened due to “friendly fire” of the air defense, since the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked simultaneously with the help of BEC and UAVs, and to repel this attack, helicopters and ground crews of the air defense system were simultaneously used , which are “not friendly” with each other – that is, not can separate “us” from “outsiders”.
For the first time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to capture a Russian tank with a Tsar-Barbecue, take the crew prisoner and drive the vehicle under its own power to Ukrainian positions. According to the geolocation of the OSINT project “CyberBorosno”, this happened in the Kleshcheevka area . The NIP Tisk channel clarifies that the design is based on the T-62 tank.
Russian soldiers in the Donetsk region beheaded a Ukrainian military man. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, during aerial reconnaissance, a damaged armored vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was discovered at one of the combat positions, and there was a severed head on it. Other military personnel, as reported by the Telegram channel “Thoughts of Islam (Belokiev Islam),” killed Ingush military man Rashid Daurov for refusing to go on an assault, withdrawing funds from his bank card and trying to stage suicide by hanging.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine also reports that at least 551 children have died in the country during the war, and another 1,388 have been seriously injured. The largest number of victims are in the Donetsk , Kharkiv , Dnipropetrovsk , Kiev , Zaporizhia and Nikolaev regions .
Weapons and military equipment
This week, Ukraine’s partners continued efforts to increase Ukrainian air defense capabilities.
The Netherlands announced that they managed to “assemble” the Patriot air defense system for Ukraine thanks to help from an unnamed country (some of the vehicles were provided by the Netherlands themselves). Romania also approved the transfer of one of its Patriots, provided that negotiations with NATO and the United States continue to find an adequate replacement. Finally, the United States announced the suspension of orders from third countries for missiles for the Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems – all missiles coming off the production line will be sent to Ukraine.
Another notable event was the change in the position of the Republic of Korea on arms supplies to Ukraine. This decision by Seoul, which until now has been limited to financial and humanitarian assistance to Kiev, as well as sending the US artillery ammunition to replace those supplied to Ukraine, is due to Vladimir Putin signing a strategic partnership agreement with the DPRK . According to sources from the South Korean Yonhap agency, the Republic of Korea may supply Ukraine with 155-mm ammunition and air defense systems.
Meanwhile, ammunition purchased outside the EU under the Czech initiative should already begin to arrive in Ukraine, although the initiative is experiencing problems with the obligations of participating countries. In turn, the German concern Rheinmetall reported receiving the largest order in history for ammunition worth €8.5 billion, part of which is also expected to be sent to Ukraine. The Ukrainian military-industrial complex, in turn, has mastered the production of grenades for BMP-1 guns and SPG-9 grenade launchers, which had never previously been produced in the country.
In addition, Rheinmetall spoke about plans to deploy three enterprises in Ukraine, specializing in the repair and production of air defense systems, the repair and assembly of armored vehicles, and the production of ammunition. The American company Northrop Grumman also intends to produce 155-mm artillery rounds on the territory of Ukraine. Denmark included funding for the Ukrainian military-industrial complex in its next military aid package worth 1.2 billion crowns.
The Danish package also includes equipment to support F-16 fighter jets, which, according to Vladimir Zelensky, will arrive in Ukraine “in the near future.” At the same time, in Kiev they fear that due to delays in training flight personnel, by the end of the year Ukraine will have more F-16 aircraft than pilots, of which no more than 20 will complete training.
Russian companies continue to look for ways to circumvent sanctions by collaborating with Western companies and purchasing used machines from China. Enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex report on the supply of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles , Tablet-A artillery control systems and Su-34 fighter-bombers . However, according to Fighterbomber estimates , only four of the latter were delivered this year, while non-combat losses since May amounted to two Su-34s.
The production volumes of the latest Russian T-90M tanks are also not impressive (at least in comparison with losses), of which, according to analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), since April 2020, from 231 to 267 units (for comparison, since the beginning of the war, the Russian Armed Forces have lost, according to Oryx, 3,139 tanks, including 97 T-90M units). Researchers suggest that by 2025, Russia could reach production of 90 such tanks per year, but this number may be limited by the T-90A available for modernization, the stocks of which in Russian warehouses are running low.
Meanwhile, the Russian Armed Forces continue to solve logistics problems at the front using a variety of equipment – from heavy transport-attack drones to walk-behind tractors . Also, the Russian military continues to “manipulate” the equipment they have (for example, BMP-3 ) and are mastering the handicraft production of dynamic protection elements from charges for the UR-77 mine clearance system.
About the main events of the war in weekly reports :
June 21: A Ka-29 helicopter was shot down by “friendly fire,” “bare salaries” for the Russian military in the border area of the Kharkov region. What’s happening at the front
June 20: “Debut” of the three-ton FAB-3000 in the Kharkov region, the Russian Armed Forces called it the “Army of Suicides,” the Romanian Patriot for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. What’s happening at the front
June 19: Russian troops became active in the New York area, and a Lancet loitering munition was shot down using an FPV drone. What’s happening at the front
June 18: “Stalingrad” in Volchansk, the “norm” for “banzai attacks” in the Ocheretin area, a beheaded Ukrainian prisoner. What’s happening at the front
June 17: The Russian military is “cut off” at the Aggregate Plant in Volchansk, the first captured tank with a “tsar-barbecue”. What’s happening at the front
