Russo-Ukraine War - September 2024

The first day of September is a date that lives in infamy. Germany's attack on Poland began at dawn on September 1, 1939, with German forces launching coordinated attacks by land, sea, and air. This invasion is widely recognized as the event that triggered the outbreak of World War II, leading to six years of global conflict. [On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, as part of a secret agreement with Germany (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).]

On 02 September 2024, Putin stated "If the fighting stops, the Ukrainian authorities will have to lift martial law. And after lifting martial law, presidential elections must be held immediately. And the current authorities are clearly not ready for this, because they have little chance of being re-elected. Therefore, they are not interested in ending the fighting, so they carried out this provocation in the Kursk region, and before that they tried to carry out the same provocation in the Belgorod region, where your friend lives."

The first day of September in 2024, some 85 years to the day from the start of World War II, was marked by a record high number of Russian attacks on Ukrainian posiitons, according ot the Ukrainian General Staff. The day also saw Ukraine launching a record number of attack drones against Russia, which claimed to have shot them all down. Given the extensive damages reported across Russia, this claim was hardly credible.

As reported by Ukrinform, 199 combat clashes were reported on the battlefield on August 31, with Russian invaders being the most active in the Pokrovsk sector. Russia is a attacking in force inside occupied Ukraine with 35% more attacks reported from the 25th of August until 01 September as compared to the average number of attacks during August from the first to the 24th August. This that is based on figures from the Ukrainian general staff.

Pokrovsk, a logistical hub, is located at the crossroads of Ukraine's most important rail supply routes. Residents of the frontline areas call it "the road of life" without irony. It forms the backbone of the Ukrainian defense supply line from Vuhledar to the north of the Donetsk region. The rapid advance of Russian troops in this area became possible after Avdiivka fell. The Donbas city, some 25 kilometers east of Pokrovsk, was captured by Russian forces in February. Avdiivka was the fortress that was supposed to protect towns, railroad lines and roads in western Ukraine. Since February, Pokrovsk has taken over this function. But now that the Russians have broken through two lines of defense, they are closing in on this last, albeit most heavily defended line.

The Russian army does not have to take control of the city itself to damage the hub. As soon as it reaches the outskirts, Ukrainian supply routes will be an easy target for Russian artillery. There is no doubt that the Russian forces will endeavor to raze the city and its logistics to the ground. The worst possible scenario beyond the capture of Pokrovsk would be a complete Russian occupation of the Donetsk region. The Kursk offensive had no direct and big impact actually on the operations of the Russians in the Donbas region.

Volodymyr Zelensky said that due to the active military actions of the Russian army in the Kramatorsk, Kupyansk and Toretsk directions, a difficult situation has developed for the Ukrainian forces, the most difficult for Kiev is in the Krasnoarmeysk sector (Ukrainian name Pokrovs'ke). "Today I spoke with the Commander-in-Chief. The Pokrovsk direction faces the highest number of assaults. The situation is also difficult in the Kramatorsk, Toretsk, Kupyansk directions. Nearly two hundred battles are being fought daily along the entire front," Zelenskyy said in a video message on Telegram. A tactical crisis had already occurred for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions, which could develop into an operational one.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, reported that the situation in the enemy's main axis of advance is difficult, but they are suffering significant losses. "In the enemy's main axis of advance, the situation is challenging. But all necessary decisions at all levels are taken without delay. Despite the fact that the enemy has an advantage in weapons and manpower, they suffer significant losses thanks to our warriors. The fight for Ukraine continues," Syrskyi said.

The estimable JMS of the amazing World War 2 Youtube channel noted "The main Russian activity which is conducting heavy offensive actions inside occupied Ukraine and only contesting Ukraine with relatively limited forces..... Russia has a problem because they do not have the ability to really train and replace the better forces. If they had we would have expected the new armies coming into actions to have been better trained and the case has rather been the opposite so degrading those forces will have an impact act well beyond 2025.... heavy Russian attacks with a lack of key vehicles and likely suffering casualties in key armed forces that cannot really be replaced points in one obvious direction. Russia is conducting their final push of this year and likely of the war as it is unlikely they can launch additional offensives like this one at scale because what they probably are doing is degrading all of their Armed Forces for any territorial gain while they likely hope for a Ukrainian break....

"Their strategic goal is likely to take as much terrain as possible and then hope for the next US president to Halt Aid to Ukraine and maybe lift sanctions alternatively they will start pushing for peace next year with the usual request of getting all of Donbas or Donetsk Oblast but maybe will not request all of the other oblasts they have illegally annexed but still do not control... the weakness of the Russian strategy they are gambling all on one card and that is a favorable outcome in the US elections ....

"In 2023 Ukraine came very close to breaking through without our cover had they had that they would likely have broken through. In 2025 Ukraine will face a weaker Russian army and Ukraine will have air cover so any Ukrainian offensive will have a much higher chance of succeeding. And if they get into a war of maneuver inside Ukraine, Russia is in trouble because while poorly trained soldiers can conduct attritional attacks with high casualties they cannot meet Dynamic threats.

"Russian manpower pool is too small to sustain people in the Army, the War Industry and the civilian sector, so something will have to give. Probably we will see increased inflation into 2025 considering that we have increased salaries and sign up bonuses for Russian contract soldiers having been doubled in some cases. That would point towards Russia struggling to find enough replacements....

The Russian position in general is weak and it will only grow weaker into 2025.... they want to avoid mobilization at all all costs and in any case if they now lack equipment It's hard to see how they could equip solders from any new mobilization except as a pure infantry Force. Could such a force with decreasing armored infantry Vehicles make gains? I somewhat doubt that and any gains would likely come with significantly higher casualties.

The drone attack on September 1, 2024, was the largest since the beginning of the Second World War. On the night of September 1, the largest drone attacks on Russia since February 2022 took place. Unlike previous attacks, the organizers of the latest, apparently, chose to prioritize striking energy infrastructure facilities - the Konakovskaya and Kashira State District Power Plants and the Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya. In these cases, more powerful Lyuty drones were used instead of the traditional Bobr drones. The largest drone attacks were experienced by Kursk (46 UAVs), Bryansk (34) and Voronezh (28) regions.

Al 158 drones were shot down or intercepted by electronic warfare during a large-scale Ukrainian attack on Russian territory overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said 01 September 2024. UAVs were shot down over more than a dozen Russian regions, according to a statement issued by the ministry on 01 September 2024. “During an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack using unmanned aerial vehicles,” Russian air defenses eliminated 46 drones above Kursk Region, 34 above Bryansk Region, 28 above Voronezh Region, and 14 above Belgorod Region, it said.

Russian officials said its military air defense units had destroyed 158 drones launched by Ukraine overnight, and that debris caused fires at the Moscow Oil Refinery and the Konakovo Power Station in the neighboring Tver region. The strikes prompted military offices to put temporary restrictions in place at Moscow's Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports overnight.

Moscow was also the target of an attack, with seven drones shot down over Moscow Region and two more above the capital itself, the statement read. According to the ministry, eight UAVs were destroyed in Ryazan Region, five in Kaluga Region, four in Lipetsk Region, and three in Tula Region. One or two drones were also shot down above the Tambov, Smolensk, Orel, Tver and Ivanovo Regions, it added. Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that at least 11 drones were destroyed near or inside the capital during the Ukrainian raid.

Two UAVs were shot down in the vicinity of the Moscow Oil Refinery in the southeast of the city, he said. One of the unmanned aircraft crashed into an engineering building, the mayor noted, adding that the firefighters were extinguishing the blaze. Three UAVs also targeted the Kashira State District Power Plant, according to the Moscow Region’s Kashira city district chief, Mikhail Shuvalov. There were no casualties or damage, he added.

Kiev intensified its plane-type drone incursions into Russia in January, mainly targeting energy infrastructure, but also hitting residential areas. Moscow responded by adding Ukrainian power plants to its list of legitimate military targets. Most of Ukraine’s non-nuclear generation capacity has been disabled or destroyed by Russian strikes since then. A major Ukrainian UAV attack on Russian territory took place mid-August and saw 117 UAVs destroyed by air defenses. Another raid, just over a week ago, involved 45 drones, with 11 of them targeting Moscow, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

If earlier Ukraine was unable to cause serious damage to Russian oil refineries and oil depots, now some storage facilities burn for days due to the inability to stop the fire, and the plants are subject to lengthy and expensive repairs to processing facilities. The lack of a solution to the problem only leads to the emergence of new problems. And while now those in charge talk about "fallen UAV debris" , after which (for some reason) half of the oil depot burns down, soon they will have to talk about "fallen rocket debris" on an energy facility, after which the city will be left without power.

The turbine hall of the Eskhar Thermal Power Plant 2 [Coordinates: 49.801306, 36.600112] in the village of the same name, destroyed as a result of missile strike on targets in the Kharkiv region 01 September 2024. Previously, this thermal power plant, which is included in the list of especially important electric power facilities of Ukraine, was almost never hit, despite its proximity to the border. It seems that the decision to finally hit the Kharkiv Thermal Power Plant 2 was influenced by the strikes of Ukrainian kamikaze drones on Russian state district power plants this morning.

At the opening of the “Crimea Platform Conference”, Zelensky said 11 September 2024 “We will not leave anything or anyone in captivity. I want all our citizens in the temporarily occupied territories to hear this. UA does not trade its land & does not abandon its people.”

An extremely successful Russian counterattack was reported in the Kursk region, which allowed the villages of Gordeyevka, Vnezapnoye, Viktorovka and Byakhovo to be recaptured , as well as parts of the villages of Apanasovka and Snagost in the Korenevsky district. The settlements are located in the northwestern part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' control zone, and it was there that the Ukrainians had previously attempted to break through along the road to Glushkovo in order to finally force the Russian Armed Forces to leave the Glushkovsky district, but was stopped.