Good Morning everyone. It’s a late one today for the 22nd day of the war. Russia has begun to focus more and more on the east as of late. Likely attacking where they cannot where they’d like to. Russia has continued operations near Severodontsk to cut of the city, taking the town of Rubizhne about 10 km north. Hampered by prepared defences and a poor road network Russia’s advances north of Luhansk have easily fallen under the radar for the limited road network and even more limited news coming out of this region. But with the area between Izium and Donetsk where Russia has made the most attacks in the past few days it is becoming apparent that it is here where Russia is looking to defeat a critical portion of the Ukrainian army. It’s no secret that much of the experienced troops have been in this region since the war started. While their numbers have been bolstered by reservists and territorial defence units, to catch these units in the trench’s would be a huge coup for Russia. However as anyone who’s looked at WW1 can agree to breaking trenches is very difficult. And now the trenches have ATGM’s and MANPADs next to their water cooled maxim machine guns. Making it difficult for armour to cross. As of this morning Russia also began an offensive towards Zaporizhzhia. Likely in a mid to get another crossing across the Dnieper river. With the Zaprizhzhia rail yard also playing a crucial role in allowing Russia to operate with greater range on both side of the city. The likely crossing point, the Dnipro Hydroelectric Plant, is a major infrastructure position that, while not a NPP, is responsible for holding back the Dnipro Revivor. When the Soviets blew the dam in 1941 it is estimated to have killed between 20-100,000 people. Ukraine’s counter attack near Mykolaiv seems to have been successful so far, with reports of Ukraine reaching Posad-Pokrovske on the M-14 highway about midway between Mykolaiv and Kherson. Should Ukraine manage to retake Kherson, all Russian forces west of the Dnieper (on the southern front) would have to be supplied from Nova Khakhovka. In the north near Kyiv, Ukraine mounted a small attack on Russian forces near Iprim. The attack is reported to have reached around Bucha just south of Hostomel. However it looks that no ground was taken. And the goal of the attack was the destruction of Russian military vehicles. Ultimately neither side seems ready to mount large offensives, Russia lacking the supply and organization to do so, while Ukraine is more comfortable remaining on the defence. Most of the fighting is between artillery positions and in the air. With Russian drones playing a crucial role in Russia’s smart bombing abilities. Being shown to successfully destroy Ukrainian artillery positions amongst other targets. However this is only a small amount of ordinance, and Russia continues to rely heavily on dumb bombs, and artillery. One big problem however is you need forward observers to call in artillery, and with Russia’s apparent lack of encrypted or secure communications, Ukraine will have early warning of most attacks. The information war is the most crucial war in any war. Knowing where and when your enemy will be somewhere will allow you to properly plan and execute operations to destroy them. One of the most famous examples of this is Operation Focus in the 6 day’s war. Where the Israeli Air Force, acting off intelligence was able to plan and execute a raid on the Egyptian air force. Knowing exactly where all the aircraft would be, and that the pilots would be eating breakfast simultaneously. In the context of this war, we have seen Ukraine be able to target high ranking Russian officers simply because they’re forced to broadcast on open communications. They’ve also been able to track incoming bomber flights via radio communication, and track ground forces and hear battle plans being discussed. This intelligence failing has been arguably the most serious OPSEC failure since the Japanese code was broken in WWII.