Weekly Russia-Ukraine war summary: Russian Armed Forces slow down in Ukraine, AFU “pocket” near Kurakhove eliminated, new ATACMS strike

In this week's summary:

• The Russian Armed Forces are advancing in Kurakhove's residential area; a “pocket” occupied by Ukrainian troops to the south of the town has been eliminated.
• Russian troops are expanding their zone of control in the outskirts of Pokrovsk and deploying sabotage crews there.
• At the Vremyevsky bulge, the AFU drove the enemy from the outskirts of Velyka Novosilka and the village of Novyi Komar.
• Russian self-styled “war correspondents” reported the alleged storming of Plekhovo in Russia's Kursk Region by North Korean special forces; the correspondents most likely fell prey to a hoax.
• Territorial advances by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine have fallen to their slowest pace since October.
• November 2024 was marked by a 20% drop in the intensity of the Russian Air Force's use of FAB bombs with UMPK guidance kits.
• After a long break, Ukraine carried out a new ATACMS attack on Russian territory, targeting military facilities in Taganrog.
• The Biden administration plans to expedite the delivery of military aid to Ukraine before Trump's inauguration.

Situation at the front

This week, the situation in the vicinity of Kurakhove continued to deteriorate for the AFU.

The Russian Armed Forces advanced inside Kurakhove, occupying the Yuzhny neighborhood as fighting continued in the city's high-rise residential areas. In addition, Russian pro-war sources have reported the elimination of an AFU “pocket” south of the city, a development partially confirmed by Russian flags planted in Uspenivka and Annivka. Ukrainian media blame (1, 2) Oleksandr Lutsenko, the already former commander of the Donetsk Operational Tactical Group of the AFU, for the situation and argue that Ukrainian forces should have been withdrawn from the pocket much earlier.

In the Pokrovsk sector, the AFU is also facing a deepening crisis: the Russian Armed Forces have captured Shevchenko south of Pokrovsk and have been sending reconnaissance and sabotage groups into the city. The AFU has so far managed to destroy these groups. Meanwhile, the Russian side is reporting Ukrainian counterattacks in the area.

Ukrainian OSINT blogger Tatarigami_UA writes that Russia's successes in the Pokrovsk sector are the result of a new tactic: the use of small teams of infantry to identify weaknesses in the enemy defense, followed by a massive strike on these areas of the line of contact. Russia’s competent use of drones and FAB bombs with UMPK guidance kits also plays a significant role. Another important component of the success of the Russian offensive pointed out by Tatarigami_UA involves flank maneuvers to cut off supply routes for the Ukrainian forces in fortified areas.

On the Vremyevsky bulge, Russian self-styled “war correspondent” Yury Kotenok confirms the withdrawal of Russian forces from Novyi Komar and the southern outskirts of Velyka Novosilka, while the Ukrainian side claims to have cleared Razdolne.

In Russia's Kursk Region, the village of Plekhovo is reported to have been liberated, as confirmed by footage (1, 2) and images of a Russian assault being repelled in Kurilovka to the north. Russian self-styled “war correspondents” wrote (1, 2) that Plekhovo had been cleared by North Korean special forces, but they may have fallen prey to a hoax. Meanwhile, the Russians' previous claim that their forces control Daryino at the other end of the AFU bridgehead in the Kursk Region is not confirmed — judging by Ukrainian footage, fighting continues there. Russian sources also claimed the liberation of Novoivanovka, this time without any visual evidence.

This past week, the Russian Armed Forces seized 90 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine, according to DeepState data analyzed by the Russian independent media outlet Agentstvo. This is the slowest progress the Russian forces have made since late October. The indicator decreased for the second week in a row. Agentstvo's findings were confirmed by the estimates of Ukrainian OSINT channel Oko Gora, which asserts that the Russian forces captured 72 square kilometers from Dec. 2 to Dec. 8, 2024, progressing at a rate of 10 square kilometers a day.

Mutual strikes and sabotage

The AFU Air Force Command reported (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) intercepting 133 drones, including Shahed-type UAVs, out of the 318 that Russia launched during the week (another 175 were radar lost under the influence of electronic warfare tools or turned out to be decoys). Ukraine also reported intercepting 85 out of 100 Russian missiles of various types. No UAV raids were reported from Dec. 10 to Dec. 12, but yet another massive missile and drone strike on Ukrainian energy facilities took place on the night and morning of Dec. 13. A number of heat and power generation facilities were seriously damaged, according to the Ukrainian DTEK Group. The Russian Ministry of Defense admitted to the attack on civilian infrastructure and declared it a retaliatory strike in response to Ukraine’s use of Western long-range missiles against targets on Russian territory.

In November 2024, the Russian Air Force dropped 20% fewer FAB aerial bombs with UMPK guidance kits on Ukrainian territory than in the previous month. While the authorization to use ATACMS and Storm Shadow / SCALP-EG missiles on Russia's internationally recognized territories may have accounted for some of the decline in the use of aerial bombs, another likely explanation is unfavorable weather conditions.

The following Russian strikes on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure were reported during the week:

• On Dec. 10, missile attacks on the town of Zlatopil in the Lozova District of the Kharkiv Region injured at least 11 people (1, 2, 3, 4).
• On the same day, a missile strike on Zaporizhzhia destroyed a private clinic, killed 11 people, and injured another 22.

The Russian Ministry of Defense, in turn, reported (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) the destruction of 108 fixed-wing drones over the territory of Russia and occupied Crimea. Ukrainian strikes are known to have successfully hit the following targets:

• Natural gas platforms in the Black Sea with the first known use of sea drones as carriers of FPV drones
• A munitions warehouse in occupied Yenakiieve in the Donetsk Region
• A fuel and energy complex facility in Bryansk Region
• An aircraft repair plant and military airfield in Taganrog — after a long break, the strike was carried out by U.S. ATACMS missiles, killing one Russian serviceman and injuring a total of 41 (1, 2).
• The barracks of the Akhmat Kadyrov special police regiment in Grozny, Chechnya.

The Insider also published a column by Fabian Hoffman, a nuclear and missile security researcher at the University of Oslo, about Russia's launch of an Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile in late November against the city of Dnipro. According to Hoffman's assessment, the use of Oreshnik will not affect the course of the war in Ukraine, but will nevertheless force the West to rethink its missile defense strategy.

Losses

The BBC Russian Service and Mediazona, together with a team of volunteers, have updated the Russian side's war casualty counts based on open-source reports. A total of 83,338 dead are confirmed, with 2,365 names having been added to the list between Dec. 6 and Dec. 13. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 4,467 Russian officers have been killed, including eight generals and another 486 military personnel in the ranks of lieutenant colonel and above. As the journalists note, the actual death toll on the Russian side could range from 128,231 to 185,196 killed.

Volodymyr Zelensky said 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed on the battlefield since the start of the full-scale war. Another 370,000 have been wounded, he said, and half of these were back in action. Earlier, Ukrainian military journalist Yurii Butusov wrote that the General Staff of the AFU had informed the Commander-in-Chief about 105,000 Ukrainian troops killed and missing in action.

Weapons and military vehicles

This past week, the U.S. announced two military aid packages for Ukraine. The first one, worth $988 million under USAI, included munitions for HIMARS, UAVs, equipment, components, and spare parts to maintain and repair previously delivered weapons. The second package, provided under the PDA and worth $500 million, included ammunition for artillery, ATGMs, anti-drone systems, and HIMARS, as well as MRAP-class armored vehicles, HMMWVs, “light tactical vehicles,” and other weapons and equipment. In addition, the U.S. Department of State approved the allocation of $266.4 million for the maintenance of F-16 fighter jets. According to CNN, the Biden administration intends to supply Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of missiles, and hundreds of armored fighting vehicles by the end of his presidential term. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives refused to include in the 2025 military budget a provision on lend-lease for Ukraine.

Also this week, the following military aid packages for Ukraine were announced:

• Denmark has delivered its second batch of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine; a total of 19 airplanes were promised, and the first batch was handed over in August 2024.
• Elon Musk's SpaceX has been contracted to provide access to the highly secure Starshield service, developed for the Pentagon, for 2,500 Starlink terminals transferred to Ukraine.
• Canada will allocate nearly $600 million in aid to Ukraine. Roughly $400 million will be provided as financial support and $35 million for “strengthening cyber resilience.” The remaining funds, as Canadian Minister of National Defense Bill Blair explained, will be used for military aid.

Among the novelties of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, a modification of the Osa-AKM surface-to-air missile system with R-73 air-to-air missiles was seen on the front. All AFU air defense regiments have reportedly received the modernized systems thanks to the assistance of the Come Back Alive Foundation. Ukrainian FPV drones controlled via fiber optic cables have also reportedly appeared on the front — a few months after Russian ones.

Meanwhile, Russian drone assembly companies are recruiting citizens of Kazakhstan as young as 14 years old — ostensibly to enroll them in a vocational school. The Russian defense industry reported the completion of the contract for the BMD-4M amphibious infantry fighting vehicle. According to the press release of High Precision Systems, the new BMD-4M is reinforced with enhanced armor and visibility reduction equipment.