Ukraine War Update NEWS: Pt 1 - Overnight & Other News
Table of Contents 📖
"Shoot all the effing cars. As for the locals, eff if I know. I'd rather kill the locals. You should round up all the locals, tie them up and effing torture them"
Hello Team
🎦 00:00-00:25⏩
Jonathan welcomes everyone to a new year of videos and warns that he will be out and about today. Normal output will be affected as he will have to rush through this one. Jonathan starts with the Ukrainian General Staff Report for Russian losses from the previous day, reminding viewers that caveats apply which can be found in the video description.
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🪦 DISCLAIMER FOR GENERAL STAFF LOSSES DATA
- These are real people with real lives and real families who love them. Don’t let the numbers sap your humanity.
- These numbers probably aren’t accurate but they’re the best we have and we don’t need them to be accurate to be indicative of patterns of activity.
- All losses are estimates. Losses cannot be counted with accuracy because of the conditions on the ground.
- Both sides would see it to be of their advantage to minimize their own losses maximize the other side’s losses.
- Neither side releases their losses but we have enough transparency from the Ukrainian side to have confidence in they are indicative.
- Personnel losses are hard to count. If a soldier gets injured, heals up, and returns to the front line only to get injured again, is that one loss or two? Also, how to deal with losses from PMC’s or soldiers fighting with RF from occupied territories?
- Equipment losses are hard to count. If an AA complex involves several parts and one part gets disabled, is that a loss, or a fraction of a loss? If a tank gets disabled, repaired, back into the fight, then disabled again, is that one lost tank or two?
- All recorded losses are vulnerable to multiple reporting. We have already seen numerous cases of multiple drones in the air reporting the same loss from different angles as multiple engagements.
- Losses are not always reported on the same day they occurred. It is frequent that drone losses are reported at least 24 hours after other terrestrial equipment losses. Certain losses may not be reported for days or weeks for military intelligence reasons.
Russian Losses
🎦 00:25-03:25⏩
Jonathan notes that the figures released are low, potentially due to New Year celebrations and the Russians preferring to stay in the trenches with vodka rather than attack - although he means this literally! The losses are 1080 personnel, 2 helicopters and 41 vehicles and fuel tanks. It's likely to be bitterly cold in Ukraine. There's no additions to Andrew Perpetua's list. The GUR are claiming to have taken out 2 helicopters with Seababy drones in the Black Sea a few days ago and Jonathan discusses how data for aircraft is arrived at - visual confirmation, radio interceptions of maydays and confirmation from Russian sources about lost aircraft/paying respects to dead pilots. Jonathan is confident that at least 4 helicopters have been taken out recently and that this is bad news for the Russians. We see a still from the seababy attack.
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Ukraine Strike on Kursk
🎦 04:57-07:52⏩
Ukraine claims to have struck a Russian command post in Kursk, saying they did everything to minimise civilian casualties. Jonathan feels sure that intel would have confirmed the presence of troops. He trusts that Ukraine is not wasting missiles on civilian infrastructure - this was a targeted strike. The target was the 810th Marine Brigade in Ivanskoye. This brigade was hit previously and had been rotated out for rest and recuperation. According to the Russian OSINT channel "No Context", the brigade was being given awards when the strike hit - a common mistake for both sides, gathering troops together makes them vulnerable. OSINT technical say that the strike was "highly successful" with reports of heavy casualties.
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Ukraine destroys Russian NEBO-M Radar
🎦 07:52-10:00⏩
A Russian Nebo-M radar was destroyed by an Atakan missile guided by a Ukrainian "Shark" drone - a reconnaissance drone with a picture of a shark on it. These radar systems are a significant target for Ukraine, costing around $100 million. Jonathan believes he may have reported on this strike previously - back in October. However, he reiterates that Russia has lost a number of these systems, which will significantly hurt their military capabilities.
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Russian Panic over Ukrainian FPV Drone Use
🎦 10:00-10:47⏩
Russians are complaining about Ukrainian use of FPV drones operated by the "Mr Drone Man" - Magyar and his team. The Russians claim that Magyar has 190,000 FPV drones with fibre optic cables that are resistant to electronic warfare, something which Jonathan says that Ukraine should have had all along, particularly as Russia had a headstart with them. He views this as panic from the Russians. A Russian soldier gives advice to his comrades about how to avoid being hit - "be extremely careful" he says, "analyzers won't show it" (because they are fibre optic) - they can travel 5, 10, 15km. The soldier recommends taking more cargo to counteract them as they are not very manoeuvrable. Jonathan agrees that large scale use of these drones will inflict damage on Russian forces.
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Russian Commander Killed
🎦 10:47-11:05⏩
The Russian Commander of the 656th Separate Engineering and Sapper Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Maletsky has been killed by Ukrainian forces.
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Distance Strikes
🎦 11:05-11:15⏩
Jonathan says that there is nothing to report for distance strikes so far today, but that he is short of time and has only had a cursory look.
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Drone and Missile Attacks Overnight
🎦 11:15-13:19⏩
100 drones were sent into Ukrainian airspace - 93 were launched, 60 shot down and 26 lost to electronic warfare/decoys. This means that 7 drones got through to their targets - higher than usual. Jonathan feels that the low interception rate is because the Ukrainians have become very good at shooting them down. The drones hit targets in the Chernihiv and Fridonietsk regions. Tim White has footage of a drone hitting a house in Sumi. An elderly couple who live there were unhurt and firefighters rescued their dog. Jonathan feels that the drone that hit the house may have been one that was shot down rather than deliberately targeted. In Kyiv, work is continuing to make the city centre safe. There are conflicting reports about drone and missile attacks last night, but no details yet. Ukraine apparently fired 5 missiles as well.
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Russia Recruits 180,000 convicts
🎦 13:19-14:10⏩
The Kyiv Independent reports that Russia has recruited between 140,000 and 180,000 convicts to fight in Ukraine. This is according to the Foreign Intelligence Service (presumably Ukrainian). Jonathan believes that this is how Russia has maintained the numbers for their meat grinder assaults. He contrasts this with Ukraine who started recruiting prisoners later and who have a much smaller prison population. He wonders how many prisoners Ukraine has recruited - he believes they intended to recruit 9,000.
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Russian Soldier's Phone Reveals War Crimes
🎦 14:10-15:09⏩
Jonathan discusses a horrendous video found on the phone of a dead Russian soldier from the 3rd Assault Brigade. The soldier can be heard to say "Shoot all the effing cars. As for the locals, eff if I know. I'd rather kill the locals. You should round up all the locals, tie them up and effing torture them". The dead soldier was called Rudakov Oleg Igorevich (callsign Rudik) and gave the orders to his men. This shows that the Russians are criminals, says Jonathan.
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Update on 155th Mechanised Brigade
🎦 15:09-17:28⏩
Jonathan discusses the 155th Mechanised Brigade which has been in the news recently. This follows on from the reporting by Yuri Butsov, who has caused controversy by highlighting the issues with this brigade - why haven't they been assigned drones? Why have they been split up and used as cannon fodder?. Zelensky will convene a meeting with the General Staff to discuss the issues and the Defence Minister, Ruslan Umarov, has announced that the Ministry's Inspectorate will conduct a comprehensive review of the ground forces command. This has had a very bad effect on morale within Ukraine, but Jonathan feels that at least something is being done. He contrasts this with Russia where complaints are ignored.
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Ukraine Thwarted Russian Plans to capture Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhia
🎦 17:28-18:18⏩
Jonathan believes that Ukraine's main achievement for 2024 is that they thwarted Russian attempts to capture Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhia, as reported in the Euromaiden Press. Zelensky said that this was one of the most important achievements of the year. He thanked the people who lived in these cities and acknowledged the hardship they had faced. General Zaluzhnyi (Ukraine's top General) had said that the incursion into Kursk/Belgorod was necessary to prevent Russia opening up a front in Sumy and to prevent them advancing on Kharkiv.
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Ukraine Will Not Hold Elections Under Martial Law
🎦 18:18-20:19⏩
Zelensky has stated that Ukraine will not hold elections under martial law, which is enshrined in the constitution. Jonathan clarifies that this is not Zelensky trying to cling to power - Ukraine has its own electoral processes. He has made a separate video about the issue of elections in Ukraine during wartime.
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Wrap up
🎦 20:19-20:25⏩
Jonathan thanks everyone for watching, appreciates their support and says he will speak again later.
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