The situation on the front after the fighting of February 1st.As before, the main military action is unfolding in the area of the Debalcevo protrusion. The enemy still cannot be fully encircled (closing of the encirclement ring by the next anniversary of the capitulation of German forces at Stalingrad would be quite symbolic), although the fire control that was established over the M-103 road already affords to solve tasks in the spirit of "allow/don't allow" the outgoing traffic from the pocket, which was done yesterday, when the rear support units and the staff workers were allowed to evacuate from Debalcevo, the fire wasn't opened on them. In this there is certainly more propaganda than robust fire control, but obvious progress became clear here over the last week, because earlier the enemy used the road quite freely.On the perimeter of the protrusion:a) The bottleneck near Svetlodarsk is firmly held by the junta. Our forces partially control Krasnyi Pakhar, in the area of which there's fighting, but they cannot capture Mironovka and narrow down the bottleneck. The capture of Troitskoye overall mitigated the junta problems on this location, which was helped by the fact that it has been much easier to deploy mechanized reserves approaching from Artyomovsk here than pushing them through to Debalcevo and Uglegorsk.b) The front has stabilized in the area of Sanzharovka and of the numerically labeled high points, approaching the road from this side is not successful yet, so the threat for Nizhnyaya Lozovaya and Logvinovo from this side is minimal. The front is also stuck in the area of Lozovaya.c) Our attacks on the segment Novogrigorovka – Chernukhino with the goal of making progress weren't very successful: the enemy firmly holds its positions in Debalcevo suburbs and has repelled our attacks on Chernukhino. Our side lacks forces to overcome the enemy defense in which our attacks clearly get suck, which leads to the necessity of protracted gnawing of the defense by systematic work of artillery against the explored enemy positions.d) On the segment Nikishino – Novoorlovka – Maloorlovka our forces continue to gradually put more pressure after the capture of Nikishino, but it is obvious that the main forces were thrown on other locations, so here they mostly try to push the enemy back and bind a portion of its forces. It is very unlikely that some powerful offensive on Olkhovatka will follow from here.e) In the area of Uglegorsk our forces repelled the enemy attacks, which hooked onto the outskirts of the town. They continue to probe the enemy defense to the north of Uglegorsk by trying to get a bit closer to the desired road than simply the distance of artillery fire via the movement to Kalinovka and on the Uglegorsk-Debalcevo road. The activity of the sides here is bound by artillery, plus counter fights regularly emerge with the use of infantry and armor. The enemy, understanding the threat posed by our group under Uglegorsk, tried to bind it with tactical fighting in the town suburbs and north of the Uglegorsk-Debalcevo Road. Both sides continue to deploy reserves towards the critical point: tanks and infantry trucks roll towards Uglegorsk through Yenakiyevo, up to a battalion of infantry and 20-25 armored vehicles were redeployed from the side of Debalcevo to help the junta military. Overall, fierce fighting can be expected to the east of Uglegorsk, the victory in which may open a direct pathway to Debalcevo for the NAF.Overall, we can see a continuation of the scenario from previous days, when our forces slowly advance forward, squeezing the Debalcevo protrusion, not encircling but rather squeezing the enemy out of it. The situation for the junta became much more difficult after it missed the strike on Uglegorsk, due to which our forces suddenly had beneficial possibilities for encircling the Debalcevo group in the area of Logvinovo after being unsuccessful in the offensive on Svetlodarsk.Both sides suffered noticeable losses in this fighting (an exchange of sorts took place). The morale of the main detachments of the NAF and the AFU remains quite high. On the other side, in the naziguard units and the AFU units that consists mostly of conscripts there are signs of decay and panic. But overall both sides demonstrate the eagerness to continue the battle further. Meanwhile, despite the fairly adequate opposition from the AFU, the panic is growing in the Ukrainian rear due to the threat of the encirclement and even the soothing announcements by the command representatives don't calm the public: regular footage of the lost villages, lost materiel, junta soldiers turned into KIAs and POWs have a very depressing effect on the rear. The lies of the command that Uglegorsk and Nikishino still remain with the junta at the same time when the Russian media calmly record their reports from there even further discredit the General Staff of the AFU and the Ministry of the Defense of Ukraine. The negative wave against Muzhenko and Poltorak continues to grow. It is clear that if the junta will suffer a defeat under Debalcevo, then their careers are over, even despite Poroshenko's protection. So for them the success of defending the Debalcevo protrusion is a question of professional survival, which may also push them to organize an offensive on other locations in order to lessen the burden on the Debalcevo group.There is also unconfirmed information that allegedly yesterday the attack jet Su-25 of the LPR air force carried out a strike on the enemy convoy on the M-103 road. If such a thing actually happened, then this is the 2nd sortie of the LPR aviation since the start of the war (the first sortie occurred in July to bomb the junta positions under Alexandrovka). There is absolutely no way to figure out if it was the same jet or a different one. Nevertheless, the junta already managed to announce that it will award premiums not only for the destroyed NAF armored vehicles, but also for the downed planes. So, the junta has some fears in this respect, because clearly the questions establishing the air defense on a lengthy front line were obviously badly developed, and their own aviation is afraid to fly because it reasonably fears the NAF air defense. So if our forces will start even episodic use of even 1 attack jet, then this will be an annoying, even if minor, obstacle for the junta. This is besides the fact that under the cover of this "LPR air force" there may be other action conducted using quite different means.Everything is quite stable on the remaining front.a) Stanitsa Luganskaya – Schastye – Slavyanoserbsk: still no change with rare shelling. There are controversial announcements that allegedly in the area of Schastye there were firefight arguments between the AFU units and "Aidar", plus there was an injection in the junta media that allegedly Akhmetov offered the "Aidar" command 25,000,000 dollars for them to surrender the thermal power plant located in the area of Schastye to the NAF. Overall, the story is murky, but apparently there is some portion of truth to this conflict, because even though "Aidar" was formally subordinated to the AFU, but in reality it is trying to act as an independent structure that aspires (even though it is laughable) to be a political subject.b) Our forces stand in defense in the area of the Bakhmutka Road, holding the points that they captured earlier. Shelling and medium intensity shelling continues in the area of the 29th checkpoint. The enemy continues to accumulate reserves here, which approached from the side of Lisichansk and which were taken off the front under Lugansk in order to reinforce the shaking front in the direction of Krymskoye – Novotoshkovskoye. Whether a strike will follow here to return the 31-st checkpoint (or rather what remained of it) and the 175.9 high point — we'll see in the coming days.c) Our attacks with the goal of capturing the city continued in the area of Popasnaya. The control over it opens beneficial possibilities for action in the direction of Artyomovsk and the M-103 road as a part of deeply wrapping the Debalcevo group. There are no decisive successes here yet. Powerful artillery fire complicates our progress, which also gets stuck in tactical skirmishes in the suburbs of Popasnaya, which is still subjected to artillery strikes. Overall, things are going so-so for us here, the enemy is always able to deploy reinforcements through Artyomovsk, due to which it is hard to expect a rapid breakthrough.d) Unconvincing fighting continued under Mayorsk and in the forward defense zone of Dzerzhinsk . Considering the fact that the NAF is throwing its main forces to develop the offensive in the area of the Debalcevo protrusion, it is hard to expect decisive results here like a complete capture of Mayorsk, or, even less likely, of Dzerzhinsk. The here continues to shell Gorlovka fiercely, using the fact that the principal part of the local artillery is engaged on other locations. Nevertheless, the enemy is not trying to start an offensive on Gorlovka yet, limiting itself to deterring action and artillery strikes.e) The front line remained unchanged in the area of the airport. Each of the sides controls a piece of Peski. Our forces hold the airport and Spartak. The enemy is holding Opytnoye, Avdeyevka, and the air defense unit. Local skirmishes continue in the area of Spartak and Avdeyevka. Yesterday there was also an attempt by the enemy to carry out reconnaissance in force towards Yasinovataya, which was unsuccessful for them. Donetsk itself continues to be subjected to artillery strikes (mostly the frontline districts), although the intensity of shelling Gorlovka is a bit higher over the recent days. In the area of Petrovsky district and Mar'inka the front line changed little. It is also worth noting that foreign ammunition was used in the area of the airport, which was documented in video and photos. Overall, the voentorg is also working on the other side. Furthermore, now there are active frictions in the USA with the goal of making the lethal weapon shipments more active, primarily focusing on the modern anti-tank complexes, the means of electronic warfare and so forth.f) To the south of Donetsk the enemy continues to gather its forces under Yelenovka and Dokuchayevsk, not even hiding the desire to perform a strike here and approach the southern outskirts of Donetsk. The cries of the public that Debalcevo must be saved may accelerate the fulfillment of these plans. There have been no changes in the front line from Dokuchayevsk to Mariupol. The intensity of fighting here reduced down to the level of the north-Lugansk front. Nevertheless, the junta keeps yelling that the NAF concentrate the forces for a strike in the area of Mariupol.Overall, while on other locations there are mostly local skirmishes, fierce fighting continues in the area of Debalcevo and Uglegorsk, the result of which will determine the outcome of the January NAF offensive. The encirclement is within reach, but for it to be completed it is still necessary to make more efforts and spill a lot of blood. If considering the fighting on the Debalcevo protrusion as a whole, then, despite significant faults of the command of the two sides and various tactical mishaps, both sides demonstrate stubbornness and resilience, especially in defense (not taking the naziguard into account). For now both sides are doing worse in offense than in defense, this is evident from the usually failing counter-attacks of the junta and from significant losses of the NAF during offensive actions. In this respect both sides learn from their mistakes and, as it is typical during the war, these mistakes, issues, and growing pains are paid for in blood. Taking the fighting for the airport into account, our forces lost up to 550-650 KIAs during the month, the enemy lost up to 1700-1900 KIAs, the difference was formed due to gigantic losses in the area of the airport during the first half of January. If the airport is set aside, then the losses of the sides are quite comparable and in general such an exchange is more likely to be advantageous for the AFU rather than the NAF, whose mobilization potential from local volunteers and the visitors from Russia is still somewhat lower than the junta's, which compensates losses by recruiting cannon fodder via mobilization (however, as practice shows the resilience of units with high proportion of fresh recruits is quite low and they are useful mostly for holding on to relatively calm locations of the front), the junta still has quite few seasoned and ready for active engagement units. Besides this, over a month of military action the enemy continued to destroy the Donbass infrastructure quite efficiently by carrying out artillery strikes on the frontline cities of the DPR and the LPR. This shelling wasn't stopped at this time, despite Zakharchenko's promises, moreover, they are getting more intensive. Thousands of homes, tens of factories were destroyed over the last month, hundreds of civilians were killed. In essence, a systemic war crime is being committed. The responsibility for it falls on the junta leadership and "partner Pete". In the end, the "urge for peace" and the attempts to stop the war in the Minsk format ended up with more victims and destruction. As it often happens, the attempts to avoid minor bloodletting led to a situation when there are rivers of blood. This is Yanukovich's syndrome of sorts. There will be a separate material on the political background of the current stage of the war.Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2025031.html (in Russian)