Victory Chronicles
-DAY 259

ISW KEY TAKEAWAYS: MOSCOW IS WORKING SANCTIONS LOOPHOLES TO GET WEAPONS IN TURKEY AND IRAN

Above:  As Iran’s totalitarian regime grows closer to moscow, they face growing public opposition at home. (Sky News)

• The Russian National Security Council Secretary arrived in Tehran on November 8, likely to discuss the potential sale of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia. Iranian Supreme National Security Council likely announced Patrushev’s arrival in Iran to highlight the deepening cooperation between Moscow and Tehran to an international audience (rather than domestically), as well as to implicitly highlight that a high-ranking Russian official turned to Iran for help in Ukraine.
• British outlet Sky News reported on November 8 that the Kremlin flew 140 million euros in cash and a selection of captured British-made NLAW anti-tank missiles, US-made Javelin anti-tank missiles, and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile to Tehran on August 20 in exchange for 160 additional Shahed-136 drones for use in Ukraine.
• The Ukrainian Resistance Center additionally reported that due to failures of the Russian military-industrial complex, Russian military leaders are continuing their efforts to procure dual-use (military and non-military use) goods such as computer chips, quadcopters, night vision devices, and bulletproof vests from Turkey and are using cryptocurrency transactions to avoid purchase tracking.
• The disproportionate financial burden of Russian force generation efforts continues to fall primarily on Russian regional governments’ budgets rather than the federal budget, prompting public backlash. Russian-language outlet Important Stories reported on November 7 that Russian federal subjects have spent 8 billion rubles (roughly 210 million USD) to pay mobilized personnel, but that most federal subjects did not allocate enough money to distribute promised one-time enlistment bonus payments.
• Public backlash and local protests prompted Russian officials from Perm Krai, the Chuvashia Republic, Omsk Oblast, and Russian-occupied Sevastopol to announce that they will distribute payments. Regional heads blamed incomplete records of mobilized personnel and implied that they always intended to provide the payments, which will likely strain local budgets.
• Financial and bureaucratic issues are continuing to hinder Russian efforts to replenish formerly elite units defending critical areas of the front line, potentially threatening the integrity of Russian defenses in occupied parts of Ukraine. A Russian source claimed that a St. Petersburg volunteer for the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division, a formerly elite unit, was registered as a mobilized soldier rather than a volunteer, thereby only entitling him to a 50,000-ruble payment rather than the 100,000-ruble payment for volunteers.
• The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office reported on November 8 that Russian documents left behind in Izyum, Kharkiv Oblast, show that Russian authorities in occupied Ukraine plan to send high-performing Ukrainian students to an educational camp in Crimea and higher institutions in Belgorod Oblast under the guise of “care and recreation.”ISW has previously assessed that the deportation of Ukrainian children likely amounts to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign, in addition to an apparent violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Russian occupation authorities may also be attempting to “brain drain” Ukraine by deporting promising Ukrainian students to Russian-run institutions further from the frontlines.

GENERAL STAFF DAILY ENEMY LOSSES

Above: Checkpoint on the front in Kharkiv Oblast. (New York Times)

https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua

Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces estimated enemy losses for last 24 hours

• Liquidated personnel, 77,950 (+780)
• Tanks, 2,801 (+15)
• Armored personnel vehicles, 5,666 (+12)
• Artillery systems/MLRS, 1,802/393 (+11/2)
• Anti-aircraft warfare systems, 205 (0)
• Aircraft/helicopters, 278/260 (0)
• UAV operational-tactical level, 1,483 (+7)
• Cruise missiles, 399 (0)
• Warships/boats, 16 (0)
• Vehicles and fuel tanks, 4,227 (+11)
• Special equipment, 159 (0)

CIVILIAN MISSILE STRIKES

Above: Destroyed village in Donetsk Oblast.  (Aljazeera)

• The enemy continues to strike critical infrastructure and civilian homes in violation of International Humanitarian Law, the laws and customs of war.
• The enemy launched 3 missile and 10 air strikes. This affected areas of settlements in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.
• In the Volyn and Polissya directions, the situation remains without significant changes. The republic of belarus continues to support the armed aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine, providing it with infrastructure, territory and airspace. The formation of the russian-belarusian grouping of troops on the territory of the republic of belarus continues. There is still a threat of the enemy launching airstrikes using strike UAVs from the territory and airspace of this country.
• The enemy shelled in such other directions:
  • in the Siversky direction – from mortars, rocket and barrel artillery, in the areas of the settlements of Obody, Pavlivka and Pokrovka of the Sumy oblast;
  • in the Slobozhanskyi direction – from tanks, mortars, rocket and barrel artillery in the areas of the settlements of Ambarne, Budarka, Vilkhuvatka, Dvorichna, Kozacha Lopan, Krasne, Ohirtseve, Sosnivka, Starytsa of the Kharkiv region;
  • in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions – from artillery of various types, in the areas of Vyshneve, Kupyansk, Krokhmalne and Kislivka settlements of the Kharkiv oblast; Hrekivka, Myasozharivka, Makiivka and Nevske in the Luhansk oblast and Lyman, Terny, Torske and Yampolivka in the Donetsk oblast;
  • in the Bakhmut direction – from tanks, mortars, barrel and MLRS in the areas of Andriivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Bilohorivka, Zalizne, Klishchiivka, Mayorsk, Opytne, Pivnichne, Rozdolivka, Soledar, Yakovlivka settlements of the Donetsk oblast;
  • in the Avdiivka direction – from tanks, mortars, barrel and jet artillery in the areas of Avdiivka, Vodyane, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Nevelske, Novomykhailivka, Opytne, Pervomayske settlements of the Donetsk oblast;
  • in the Novopavlivka direction – from tanks, mortars, barrel and rocket artillery in the areas of the settlements of Velyka Novosilka, Volodymyrivka, Vremivka, Vuhledar, Mykilske, Neskuchne, Novopil, Pavlivka, Prechystivka of the Donetsk oblast;
  • in the Zaporizhzhia direction – from artillery of various types in the areas of Varvarivka, Hulyaipole, Zaliznychne, Mali Shcherbaky, Novodanylivka, Olhivske, Stepove, Temyrivka, Uspenivka, Charivne settlements of the Zaporizhzhia oblast.
  • In the South Buh direction, the areas of more than 30 settlements bordering the contact line were shelled by tanks, mortars, barrel and rocket artillery, including: Blahodatne, Nova Kamianka, Sukhyi Stavok of the Kherson oblast; Vasylivka, Kobzartsi, Shyroke, Mykolaiv oblast.

KHARKIV-LUHANSK

Above:  New York Times

Map via ISW

• Ukrainian forces likely made marginal gains northwest of Svatove, Luhansk Oblast on November 8. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian army aviation (helicopters) struck a Ukrainian formation in Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove), indicating that Ukrainian troops have advanced at least as far as that point.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces intensified counteroffensive operations in the Kreminna direction on November 8. Several Russian milbloggers indicated that Ukrainian troops resumed attacks towards Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast after a brief pause in operations and that Ukrainian troops are attacking Kreminna from concentration areas around Chervonopopivka, about 5km northwest of Kreminna.

LUHANSK-DONETSK

Above: Destroyed church in the village of Dolyna, Donetsk. (AP)

Map via ISW

• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on November 8. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks on Bakhmut itself and south of Bakhmut near Ivanhrad (4km south), Klishchiivka (7km southwest), Mayorsk (20km south), and Opytne (4km south).
• Spokesperson for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, stated on November 8 that the Bakhmut-Avdiivka-Vuhledar line is the hottest area of the front, and that Wagner Group troops comprise the majority of Russian strike groups in the Bakhmut direction. A Russian source reported that Russian forces have made little to no progress on the Donetsk Oblast front line, specifically near Soledar, due to Ukrainian resistance.
• A Russian source published video footage on November 8 of the Donetsk People‘s Republic (DNR) “Sparta” Battalion flag raised in the vicinity of the Donetsk City Airport and claimed that DNR forces took the area on November 7. Russian milbloggers additionally claimed that Russian troops conducted assaults on Ukrainian positions in Krasnohorivka and Marinka and broke through Ukrainian defenses in Vodyane (on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City).

KHERSON-ZAPORIZHZHYA

Above: An abandoned enemy military camp in Kherson.  (New York Times)

Map via ISW

• Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces attempted to attack near Pravdyne (25km northwest of Kherson City), in western Kherson Oblast near the Kherson-Mykolaiv Oblast border around Sukhyi Stavok and Davydiv Brid, and in northern Kherson Oblast towards Sukhanove (35km north of Beryslav).
• Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign against Russian concentration areas in Kherson Oblast on November 7 and 8. Ukrainian military sources confirmed that Ukrainian strikes destroyed Russian equipment concentrations and significant fuel reserves in Hola Prystan and other Russian concentration areas in the Kherson and Beryslav raions.
• Russian occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast may be trying to force residents out of the oblast by cutting communications on the west bank of the Dnipro River following the end of mass public evacuations to the east bank. A Russian military correspondent in Kherson City claimed on November 8 that there is no internet in Kherson City and that phone lines work only intermittently.
• An advisor to the Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Military Administration head, Serhiy Khlan, stated that occupation authorities in Kherson City, Kakhovka, and Nova Kakhovka collect the personal information of residents who did not evacuate, including their addresses and reasons for not evacuating.
• Russian authorities are continuing to import Russian citizens to serve in occupation administrations, replacing possibly ineffective Ukrainian collaborators and personnel from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR) in occupied parts of Ukraine. DNR Head Denis Pushilin announced on November 5 that First Deputy Chairperson of Yakutia and former Mayor of Irkutsk, Dmitry Berdnikov, became the deputy occupation head of Mariupol.
• The enemy continues to loot and destroy civilian infrastructure in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson region. Thus, on November 7, convoys of trucks with household appliances and construction materials moved across the Kakhovska HPP dam. Dismantling and removal of equipment, mobile communication towers of Ukrainian operators continues.
• In the area of the city of Beryslav, the russian occupiers blew up power lines and the equipment of a solar power plant. The occupiers took away all artistic values, furniture and equipment from the Kherson Regional Museum of Shovkunenko.
• In the Melitopol and Mykhailiv districts of the Zaporizhia oblast, the russian occupation forces are forcing the local population to obtain russian passports. At the same time, the invaders take the passports of Ukrainian citizens and threaten resettlement.
• Ukrainian authorities attempted to counteract Russian authorities’ continued efforts to consolidate control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on November 7. Ukrainian nuclear power company Energoatom reported on November 7 that it will increase the salary bonus from 20% to 50% for Ukrainian ZNPP employees who remain loyal to Ukraine.
• The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued to strike Nikopol, Hulyaipole, and other settlements along the contact line in Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts over the past day.Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command notably reported that a Russian Su-35 fired a Kh-31 missile (a high-end and scarce precision munition) at a Ukrainian air defense system the Bashtansky Raion of Mykolaiv Oblast on November 8 but missed.