From "The Analyst":
FRONTLINE UPDATE
There is still a good deal of activity around the borders of Belgorod. The Russian forces have deployed anti-air defences because a large number of drones and even short range missile artillery keeps hitting infrastructure in the city. Quite what the intention or even strategy of the Free Russia forces are is hard to fathom. It seems more like they intend to cause major distraction but little else.
However the Law of Unintended Consequences is making an appearance. Having poked the hornet’s nest, Russian forces have started shelling border villages and the Ukrainian border units have pulled back slightly to avoid the threat. The Liberation forces seem to expect they will pull Russian forces away from further south in the combat zone - yet they look like they could just end up causing more problems by making the Russians pay too much attention to the area and extend the front further.
There has been no change to the front at all until we get to Avdivka. The Russians have actually been pushed back on the northern part of the sector - where they posed the most danger of being able to get behind the river and the Ukrainian defence line. This is very welcome news.
In the central part of the Avdivka front the Russians have been slowed to a crawl, their rapid advances now a thing of the past. They seem to be loosing momentum exponentially, having used their entire reserves.
All along the rest of the East/SouthEast front there has been no further movement - this is quite significant and it shows how draining the Avdivka battle was for them.
The Robotyne salient however has shown Russian gains over almost all of their Surovikin line defences. The SE section of the salient is now very much under Russian control.
The battles in Krynky have died down but the Russians claim to be trying to take the southern side of the ruined Antonovsky Bridge. They’ve been trying that for over 8 months.
In other news there’s growing concern that the availability of commercial satellite images of Ukraine - often taken to order, are being obtained by Russia.
A recent study showed that photos of several targets in Ukraine were followed within 48 hours by a missile strike and then a request for photos of the same site (to check for damage) were requested usually within 24 hours.
This has caused some serious alarm - several companies know that supplying images to Russia is illegal but legitimate requests could be made by almost anyone who then pass them on. The companies say they vet such requests but there are thousands of people in various walks of life from bloggers to strategic analysts, who pay for these images to provide content. It doesn’t seem that difficult that the Russians found a way to get around the problem. So the question is what to do about it?
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!