Russia-Ukraine SITREP for 21 AUG 2023 23:59* - Russian Combat Potential is Fading

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This is Report 472, which is 48 pages and is a full report.

Announcement

The Russia-Ukraine War Report Podcast will restart by September 5, 2023. We are finalizing the details this week.

What's the big story? Russia's combat potential (which doesn't mean they can't hold defensive lines) is culminating with Ukraine now holding the initiative theaterwide. At the time of publication, Ukrainian forces are officially "mopping up" Robotyne.

What's the second story? Guess who's back? Yevgeny Prigozhin. It's now Season 2, Month 1, of PMC Wagner Survivor - Africa Edition.

Summary

•  The table of Russian and Ukrainian heavy military equipment losses using information from the Oryx Database was updated on August 21, 2023
• The podcast is slated to restart between September 1 and 5 with a new host, stay tuned
•  Russian claims that Synkivka was captured and Ukrainian forces blew up bridges over the Oskil River at Kupyansk are false
•  Positional fighting continued in Kharkiv and Luhansk
•  Fighting continued south of Bakhmut
•  Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian troops to the southern edge of Robotyne
•  Fuel shortages have gotten worse in occupied Crimea due to disruption of railroad service
•  The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine (SBI) reported that an explosion on August 19 at the State Research Expert Forensic Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that killed four occurred during the examination of an “explosive device”
•  Explosions heard near Rostov-on-Don that created panic on Russian social media were sonic booms
•  At least one Russian military aircraft was damaged due to a drone attack on the Shaykovka Military Airfield in the Kaluga region
•  Russian propagandist and head of Russia Today (RT), Margarita Simoyan, shared pictures of a Ukrainian drone being shot down near her Moscow villa
•  Moscow was attacked by up to four drones overnight, causing light damage in the Strogino and Krasnogorsk districts
•  Partisans burned a railroad relay cabinet in Moscow, which caused train delays
•  Record rainfall in Buryatia washed out a section of the Baikal-Amur Highway and railroad, with repairs scheduled to be completed on August 24
•  The United States Department of State advised American citizens in Belarus to leave immediately due to impending border closures
•  Anticorruption investigations continue with two military commissar employees in Cherkasy accused of receiving bribes
•  A Ukrainian senior military officer is under investigation for continuing to pay soldiers who were under his command even after they left the Ukrainian Armed Forces
•  Greece announced it would train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s
•  Up to 100 Russian Storm-Z penal mercenaries deserted their unit in occupied Staromlynivka
•  Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin released a video allegedly in Africa claiming they are consolidating their efforts on the continent
•  WarGonzo’s leader Seymon Pegov interviewed two mobiks from Novosibirsk who say they are called murderers back in Russia
•  Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov hasn’t been seen for three weeks after calling the 2024 Russian elections a waste of resources because the reelection of President Vladimir Putin is a foregone conclusion
•  Ukraine is working on providing insurance for commercial ships carrying Ukrainian grain out of Odesa’s ports
•  Russian oil-based exports continue to plummet

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