Operational data group “Information Resistance”

Despite the announcement of a truce, the intensity of enemy strikes at the positions of the Ukrainian troops and settlements in the territory controlled by Ukraine increased in the period from January 9 to January 15 of this year. In total, during this period, units of 1^st and 2^nd Army Corps of operational group of the Russian occupation forces carried out about 35 fire raids (up to 30 in the previous week) by 82 mm mortars, 122 mm portable Grad-P launchers, heavy machine guns, small arms, BMP and tanks. In addition, the enemy’s advanced units were reinforced by snipers and anti-tank missile systems squads, which were most active in the Severodonetsk and Mariupol sectors.

The most intense fire strikes were inflicted by the enemy on the positions of the Ukrainian troops in the area of next settlements: Stanitsa Luganskaya, Volniy, Luganskoe, Kryakovka, Novotoshkovskoe, Zheltoe, Svetlodarsk, Avdeevka, Novomikhaylovka, Pavlopol, Gnutovo and Vodyanoe.

The main features of the military activity of the occupiers were the emergence of certain heavy weapons (mainly tanks and self-propelled guns) outside certain areas and places of detention and the frequent cases of obstruction of the work of the OSCE SMM observers by the occupation forces (mainly in the nearest tactical zone adjacent to the line of demarcation). These two tendencies allow us to conclude: the occupiers carry out large-scale hidden regroupings of forces and equipment, or they are secretly trying to significantly strengthen their units, including heavy weapons, in certain areas and directions.

In the northern outskirts of Pervomaisk, in an area where the IR group had previously noted active engineering work by the occupants, the appearance of armored vehicles is recorded (in the forest area north-east of this settlement up to 5 units of MT-LB with 23-2 AD systems, as well as the trenched BMP-1 and the BTR-70/ 80, totaling up to 10 units).  There is also information on the presence of disguised and equipped parking equipment in this area. In the same area, south of Pervomaika, a group of armored vehicles up to 15 units was fixed, of which at least 6 T-72 tanks, making movement towards Kalinovo. And in the area of ​​the railway station Teplogorsk, also in the stowed position – 4-gun battery of 122-mm gun-howitzers of type D-30/30A along the landing.

These cases, associated with a clear violation of the provisions of the agreement on the withdrawal of heavy weapons to the established distances, may indicate significant changes in the composition of the forward echelon of the Stakhanov group of occupation forces in terms of reinforcement with additional forces and means.

The intensity of conducting enemy’s air reconnaissance of the combat forces of the Joint forces with the use of UAVs remained at the same level. In the period from January 8 to January 14 of this year, 6 reconnaissance flights of the UAV with the entry into the operational-tactical depth of the defense of the combined forces are recorded. The enemy focused particular attention on clarifying the operational situation, identifying changes in the combat formations and location of reserves, as well as opening the JF control system. In addition, the enemy continued to use shock-type UAVs against the Joint Forces.

The enemy’s on-duty artillery crews were in a state of constant combat readiness for conducting fire strikes against the combat formations of the Joint forces. They train every day to practice deployment and advance to firing positions for conducting fire strikes against the Joint Forces, as well as false artillery positions were equipped.

The active activity of enemy’s sniper and maneuver EW groups continue along the entire contact line.

According to the unified plan of the Southern Military District of the RF Armed Forces, a week of combat and mobilization training was conducted in units and subunits of 1^st and 2^nd  “LDPR” Army Corps, within which various exercises on firing with mortar and artillery crews were worked out at the “Tsentralniy”, “Peredovoy”, “Primorskiy” and “Slavniy” training sites.

At 11^th January of this year, Russian occupation forces conducted classes with drivers of infantry fighting vehicles and intelligence units at the “Tsentralniy” and “Primorskiy” training sites ranges, as part of the winter training period.

The training shooting was conducted at the “Vostochniy” training range with “cadets” of so called “Donetsk Higher Combined Arms Command School”.

Occupants carried out training with the commanding staff of 1^st and 2^nd “LDPR” Army Corps at January 12 of this year on the “Primorskiy” and “Tsentralniy” training sites. The shooting training was conducted with the personnel of units and subunits of Army Corps.

On January 12 of this year, the transfer of units and subunits of 1^st “DPR” Army Corps to the “Yuzhniy” training ground was completed in order to prepare training places and deployment of control points for conducting a joint staff training session, which is scheduled on January 16 of this year.

In order to test the skills of personnel of 1^st and 2^nd Army Corps on the treatment of in-service communication means, radio training was conducted in various radio networks and radio communication lines of the tactical level of the control system, and a planned change of radio data was carried out in the radio networks of 1^st and 2^nd Army Corps of the Russian occupation forces.

Technical measures are being taken to create a single computer local area network in the control bodies of units and subunits of 1^st and 2^nd Army Corps.

Due to a significant increase in the number of gunshot wounds among military personnel of 1^st and 2^nd Army Corps due to their use of alcohol and drugs, as well as a significant increase in the number of suicide, the Russian occupational command decided to classify such cases as “military casualties” in order to conceal the real situation in subordinate units and subunits.

After information about the next substantial increase in the salary of the Armed Forces of Ukraine military personnel since the beginning of 2019, the command and “personnel agencies” of the occupation forces are trying to neutralize the negative impact of this news on the moral and psychological state of their personnel. Since the militants are actively interested in the size of the salaries of the Ukrainian military and compare it with their own (the comparison is not in favor of the latter), the command of the occupants came up with a number of “explanations” that the alleged increase in the Armed Forces of Ukraine would be “temporary”, and also that the salary of servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly increased solely through payments from a certain “American military fund”, because “there are no funds for these purposes in the Ukrainian budget”.

In order to counter the broadcasting of Ukraine in the occupied territories due to the commissioning of the radio tower in the settlement Gornyak of the Donetsk region, “DPR” authorities decided to increase the capacity of the radio transmitting center in the settlement Donetsk. In particular, the broadcasting capacity of the 57^th TV channel (the propaganda channel of the Russian Federation “Zvezda”) has been increased to 3 kW.

At the beginning of 2019, the arrears of salary of the “LPR” coal mining enterprises amounts to 1.9 billion rubles; taxes – 1.3 billion rubles; electricity – 2.8 billion rubles.

The leaders of the “DPR / LPR” received instructions from the Russian “curators” to consider the merger of the SE “Lugansk Railway” and the SE “Donetsk Railway” into a single enterprise – LLC “United Railways”. In the occupational administrations of the “DPR” and “LPR”, this indication caused a negative reaction, because, according to preliminary information, the Russian side will take over the management of the created single enterprise through a structure like “Vneshtorgservis”. Accordingly, the leaders of “LDPR” will have no influence on it and, as a result, revenues.

IR