14 Dec: Fire From The Shadows: Ukrainians Show Marksmen Masterclass. - Reporting from Ukraine

Today, there are a lot of important updates from the Toretsk direction.

Here, the battle for Toretsk has taken a new turn as Russian forces attempted to encircle the town by penetrating the northern flank, believing they had found a weak spot. Instead, they were met with devastating sniper fire from concealed Ukrainian positions, turning their advance into a lethal venture.

After enduring months of costly and largely unsuccessful assaults in Toretsk's urban center, Russian generals shifted their focus to the town's flanks. The brutal urban battles had yielded minimal territorial gains at the cost of over a hundred soldiers daily—losses that could no longer be justified. By concentrating on flanking maneuvers, Russian commanders sought to reduce casualties and achieve control over Toretsk with less intense combat. The primary axis of this flanking operation targeted the northern outskirts of the town.

The Russian objective on Toretsk's northern flank is to seize the village of Dyiilivka by advancing along the railway embankment, while simultaneously leveraging the tree lines east of the railways to support their assault. Capturing and consolidating control over Dyiilivka would enable Russian forces to bypass Toretsk's main defenses and attack the town from the north. Such a maneuver would allow the Russians to push across open fields toward Toretsk's primary supply road, jeopardizing Ukrainian logistics and potentially forcing a withdrawal from the town. However, despite repeated assaults, Russian forces have thus far failed to breach the Ukrainian defenses or achieve any progress along the railway embankment.

This is because the Russian advance along the railway embankment from their staging ground in Druzhba has become highly predictable. Ukrainian commanders anticipated that Russian forces would rely on the treelines and grooves near the railway embankment as their primary avenues of attack. These paths were the most logical choices for the Russians, as attempting to traverse the open fields would leave their assault units dangerously exposed to concentrated Ukrainian fire, rendering such an approach unviable for sustained offensive operations.

Ukrainian control over Dyiilivka and Dachne has been pivotal in countering Russian advances along the railway embankment. These villages have been fortified into robust defensive strongholds, facilitating seamless troop rotations, the stockpiling of ammunition, and the establishment of strategic firing positions. With Ukrainian drone surveillance providing real-time intelligence, Russian assault forces are consistently detected and neutralized well before they can approach Ukrainian defensive lines, ensuring the continued resilience of these key positions.

Russian assaults typically begin with sabotage and reconnaissance groups probing Ukrainian defenses to gather critical intelligence for the main attack force. Without this preliminary reconnaissance, the main Russian units would face significant risks of advancing blindly into fortified Ukrainian positions, resulting in devastating losses. The predictability of Russian scouting and assault routes has allowed Ukrainian forces to strategically deploy snipers along the eastern flanks of Dyiilivka and Dachne, effectively neutralizing these probing elements and disrupting subsequent attack plans.

The terrain in front of Dachne is characterized by open fields spanning half a kilometer to a full kilometer, interspersed with narrow treelines that Russian troops use for movement. These open expanses create ideal conditions for Ukrainian sniper teams, who excel against small infantry groups attempting to traverse such exposed areas. The Ukrainian snipers, expertly concealed within a small forest near Dachne, employ advanced camouflage techniques to blend seamlessly with the terrain, rendering them nearly invisible even at close range. These snipers maintain control over large swaths of the battlefield, their precision fire eliminating Russian reconnaissance units that lack the range or capability to retaliate effectively. Combat footage from the area showcases the lethal effectiveness of these snipers, who have systematically neutralized Russian scouts attempting to cross the fields and treelines, thereby preventing any follow-up assaults from gaining momentum.

Overall, the Russian offensive north of Toretsk ultimately faltered due to the constrained attack routes, which severely limited maneuverability and allowed Ukrainian forces to swiftly detect and eliminate Russian scout units before the main assaults could gain traction. These failures repeatedly stalled Russian advances, demonstrating to their commanders that achieving meaningful progress in this sector was unattainable without diverting significant manpower and equipment from the main offensive effort within Toretsk itself...