No SITREP Today - Well A Mini-SITREP - June 19, 2022 (Patreon)

Your EIC is having a really bad day with post-COVID fatigue. I can barely keep my eyes open today. Lunch for Father's Day and a trip to two stores leveled me.

Quick summary - nothing happened today. There was a lot of fighting, but there is no verifiable territorial control changes.

Ramzan Kadyrov claims that Chechen forces captured the Severodonetsk suburb of Metolkine. One problem with the video released, the opening 30 seconds aren't in Metolkine, but Severodonetsk. 

Russian forces committed three companies (1-1/2 understaffed BTG equivalent) on the capture of Toshkivka. The advance started with a barrage of thermite munitions. Ukrainian forces reportedly withdrew, but Ukrainian artillery took a page from the Kremlin rulebook and made the town untenable for Russian troops. By sunset, territorial control was unchanged. Video evidence from Russian state media indicated Russian forces never advanced further than where we had previously mapped the line of conflict and may have lost previous territorial gains in the failed assault.

Russian state media claimed to have captured Vrubivka with three different reports. Only one of the videos showed Russian forces in Vrubivka, in the southwestern part, where we had assessed they were located on June 18.

This is part of a continued pattern of manufactured success through misinformation campaigns. It is factually correct that Russian forces were in all three of these settlements, but none of the provided videos prove they have full stated control. In one case, the video didn't even appear to come from the claimed location. We cannot think of a time when Kadyrov had made a first claim of the capture of any town or location that has been factually true.

We are hoping we will be able to share what we know about the Izyum axis tomorrow, depending on what is released by the General Staff or from Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Just to temper expectations, we are not talking about the liberation of Izyum.

There are claims that Ukrainian forces have advanced as much as 10 kilometers toward Melitipol west of Rivnopil along the South Donbas front. Russian forces have been forced to operate a flexible defense from the South Donbas into Kherson, with Ukraine taking advantage of weakened areas. There wasn't any supporting evidence to back up the claim. We do know that Rivnopil is contested and we will continue to watch this area.

There was strong evidence that some dairy farms in the Tarasivshchyna area near Kyiv were hit by Russian cruise missiles. The General Staff did not confirm any strikes, but NASA FIRMS data showed an interesting area with several barns apparently on fire.

If you've followed any mainstream media stories today, there are more analysts and experts citing Russia's deficiency in infantry troops as bogging down the advance in Severodonetsk and in the Donbas, along with the British Ministry of Defense. The more gloomy assessments from a couple of weeks ago are starting to mirror our report from June 17.

Finally, there was a detailed analysis of the Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) strikes on Donetsk on June 7, where up to 25 Grad rockets hit the city. Based on the analysis, data is very conclusive that the attack was made by Ukrainian forces firing from positions northwest of the city. This is extremely concerning, even if the rockets were fired at a military target. Grad rockets are inaccurate by nature and would produce a lot of collateral damage.

The intentional targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. On the scales of justice, a single rocket attack is insignificant compared to the dozens of atrocities committed by Russian forces against dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns. It still constitutes a war crime and should be thoroughly investigated by Ukrainian military leaders. It is challenging to hold the moral high ground when your enemy is fighting a total war. Civilians from both belligerents have a fundamental right to be protected.