05 Oct: Urgent action. Ukrainians divert their focus to the flanks - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 589: Oct 05

Today, there are a lot of important updates from the Tokmak direction and Crimea.

First of all, today, Ukrainian Intelligence released more information about yesterday’s amphibious raid on the Russian base in Crimea. The video clarified a lot of questions, especially where was the high-speed boat that Russian sources were alluding to. As it turned out, the purpose of the boat was to provide cover during the withdrawal. And it makes sense because it is extremely difficult to return fire from jet skis. So, when the assault units started leaving the shore, Ukrainians on the boat opened fire from a machine gun from a distance to fix Russian troops.

In the meantime, fresh satellite imagery from Plat Labs revealed that there are fewer and fewer Russian ships in Crimea and that the core of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is no longer at home in Sevastopol. Most Russian ships were relocated to Novorossiysk – more precisely, 3 submarines, 2 rocket-launching ships, and 1 patrol ship. Smaller and less important ships were relocated to Feodosia – one assault-landing ship, a lot of small rocket-launching ships, and mine sweepers.

When it comes to the Tokmak direction, here, Ukrainians have opened one more axis of advance – toward Kopani. The goal of this operation is to give Ukrainian forces more room for maneuver when conducting assaults on Novoprokopivka, as well as reduce the risk of a flank attack at the most inconvenient time.

And this is a prudent decision because the latest updates suggest that Ukrainians gradually crossed the minefields and got very close to Novoprokopivka from the east. Recently released geolocated footage shows Russian Airborne units striking entrenched Ukrainian forces in a tree line just east of the village. This video confirms that Ukrainians managed to advance by almost 1 more km and establish tight control over new positions. If Ukrainians advance along the same tree line by 600 more meters, Ukrainians will be able to attack Novoprokopivka directly from the east.

But a more tactically sound decision would be to fix Russian troops on the hills because if we look at the topographic map, we can see that Russians control a hill southeast of the settlement. This hill helps Russians in resisting Ukrainian assault from the north. However, if Ukrainians start attacking this hill from the tree line simultaneously with the attacks on the settlement, Russian forces on the hill would be too busy to provide support to their units that are defending the village.

The biggest Ukrainian vulnerability in this situation would be the western flank because even if Ukrainians completely breach the Russian defense here and enter the village, Russian forces can conduct a counterattack along the ridge of the elevated platform and potentially split Ukrainian forces in half. In order to eliminate the possibility of such a disaster, Ukrainians launched a powerful attack on Kopani.

Today, Russian sources reported that Ukrainian artillery fire does not cease for a minute. Ukrainian sources substantiated these claims by releasing multiple videos of how Ukrainian forces destroy Russian shelters and observation posts. By the way, this is exactly where Ukrainian fighters from the Immaterium detachment detected Russian reinforcements in the tree line and destroyed 5 armored fighting vehicles with cluster bombs.

Russian sources also reported that Ukrainians are conducting their attacks at night, likely to leverage the widely available night vision equipment. Russian sources also admitted that Ukrainians managed to advance and establish control over at least 1 more trench network. Other sources, however, report that Ukrainians conducted a broad attack and managed to put all Russian fortifications on the hill in the grey zone, meaning the trenches in this region frequently change hands. And if we look at the topographic map, we can see that Ukrainians are taking control of the trenches on the tactical heights. If Ukrainians manage to push Russians into the lowlands completely, the flanks will be protected, and any Russian flank attack will be met with a reciprocal flank attack from the north.