‘Bavovna’ In Moscow, Fleeing Ships: Russia’s Main War Failures 2023

The Kremlin has not achieved any of its goals in Ukraine.

In 2023, the Russian war against Ukraine came close to the aggressor country itself, when the Defense Forces began striking enemy military targets in the temporarily occupied territories of the Crimea and the Donbas, as well as in Russia. Numerous “bavovnas” on the peninsula pushed the invaders’ launch vehicles further away, and raids by “unknown” drones brought panic virtually to the Kremlin.

At the same time, the enemy was defeated in its tactics of “meat” assaults — the deliberate throwing into battle of newly mobilized soldiers recruited from prisons only provoked an increase in their losses. OBOZ.UA decided to recall Russia’s main failures in military operations against Ukraine in 2023.

“Bavovna” in Moscow and other regions

On the night of July 24, drones attacked the building of the Russian Ministry of Defense in Moscow, another UAV fell near an institution engaged in cyber offensive. An explosion was also recorded in the very center of the city — near the Kremlin. Subsequently, confirmation appeared that all this was the result of an operation by the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

The night of July 30 was also “explosive” for the Russian capital, which was attacked by another wave of drones. Although the Kremlin claimed that its “vaunted” air defense had “repelled” the attack, the damage told a different story. In particular, then the tower of the Moscow City office center was significantly damaged, where windows in many offices of this and a neighboring building were broken, and the cladding of the IQ Quarter was torn off.

Then there were numerous UAV raids on areas near Moscow, on Kursk, Belgorod, Tula, Rostov, Tambov and a number of other regions of Russia. The Russian authorities each time assured that “all the drones were shot down,” but the Russians themselves in local public pages gave out the truth about explosions and fires in or near electrical substations, airfields, military units and factories, railway tunnels and other objects somehow connected with Russian military aggression against the Ukrainian state.

The Defense Intelligence and the Security Service of Ukraine admitted involvement in only a part of such “bavovnas” on Russian territory. The other day, the head of the SSU Vasyl Malyuk emphasized that Ukraine carefully considers its goals before launching attacks on enemy targets both in temporarily occupied territories and in the Russian Federation. In contrast to the aggressor country, which launches missiles, drones and artillery shells at military and civilian Ukrainian targets. He added that SSU fighters act within the rules of war, which they move as close to the Kremlin as possible.

Explosions in the Crimea and the “flight” of the Russian fleet to Novorossiysk

Monitoring channels have calculated that since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, about 100 significant attacks have occurred in the territory of the captured Crimea and in the Black Sea near the peninsula. At least half of them resulted in serious damage, and another 15 resulted in destruction and casualties. Ukraine took responsibility for implementing some of them.

The most memorable of the “bavovnas” in the Crimea in 2023 were:

— explosions in Dzhankoy on March 20, when Russian Kalibr cruise missiles were destroyed while being transported by rail;

— On June 22, the main Chonhar highway bridge between the Kherson region and the Crimea was damaged, the attacks were carried out by Storm Shadow air-to-ground missiles;

— On July 29, the same missiles from the Defense Forces hit the Chonhar railway bridge, and on August 6, the Chonhar and Henichesk bridges were hit;

— On September 21, the SSU and the Ukrainian Navy attacked the Saki military airfield in Crimea, where there were at least 12 Russian combat aircraft;

— On September 22, Storm Shadow missiles destroyed the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy in Sevastopol. At that time, Russian occupiers-officers sat there, dozens of whom were killed and injured;

— On November 6, after an attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with two SCALP-EG cruise missiles, the Russian small missile ship “Askold” of Project 22800 “Karakurt” was seriously damaged;

— On November 10, GUR reconnaissance drones hit two Russian small landing boats — “Akula” of project 1176 and “Serna” of project 11770. The ships were stationed in Uzkaya Bay (Chornomorsk) and sank to the bottom along with the crew and armored vehicles, which the invaders had literally just loaded on board;

— On December 26, the Defense Forces completely destroyed the Project 775 large landing ship Novocherkassk with a missile strike in the port of temporarily occupied Feodosia. This ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet suffered a second and fatal defeat (on March 24, 2022, it was shot down in the port of Berdyansk).

After a series of such explosive events, Russia decided to withdraw all its warships from the Crimea to Novorossiysk, including ten carriers of Kalibr missiles.

Thus, according to satellite images from OSINT researcher MT-Anderson on December 17, it is known that there were 20 Russian ships in the port of Novorossiysk. Of these, ten are launch vehicles: two of two frigates of the Admiral Grigorovich type, three of three naval launch vehicles of Project 21631 Buyan-M, four of four submarines of Project 636.3 Varshavyanka and one of three naval launch vehicles of Project 22800 Karakurt.

Speaker of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Dmytro Pletenchuk explained that Russia has not been able to completely solve the problems with logistics in the Crimea, and now the occupiers are forced to change the mooring location of ships, thus responding to the dangers at sea that the Ukrainian Defense Forces created for them.

“Meat” assaults did not give the desired result

In the second half of 2023, the Russian army was even more noted for such attack tactics as “meat” assaults: in a number of directions to cities that the Kremlin gave the task of “capturing at any cost,” the command first abandoned the occupiers’ infantry, followed by tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Russian troops operated according to this scheme in the Bakhmut direction, where they tried to regain lost positions, recapture dominant heights and form a bridgehead for subsequent attacks.

The commander of the Achilles company, Yuri Fedorenko, said that there the enemy uses both mobilized Storm Z units, which go into direct assaults and suffer heavy losses, and various special units, in particular paratroopers and Kadyrovites, who act more professionally and look for gaps in Ukrainian defense. According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroy 80% of Russian equipment in this direction that falls within the range of artillery and UAVs. Therefore, a very small percentage of both manpower and equipment of the enemy has the opportunity to return back.

From the beginning of October, the enemy moved towards Avdiivka with “meat” assaults, and since then the third wave of their attacks has choked there. For example, during the confrontation alone, the Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed 200 invaders and more than 60 pieces of equipment near Avdiivka. Despite the losses, the aggressor does not abandon attempts to cordon off the town, but has changed their suicidal tactics.

According to military expert Roman Svitan, the reason for this was the weather: on the Avdiivka front the soil began to become wet, swamps formed, and the Donetsk black soil is the death of any equipment. Most likely, the Russians will continue their “meat” assaults there with the onset of frost.

But the enemy still resorts to such tactics on the left bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to gain a foothold. In particular, the occupiers began to become more active in foot assaults in order to protect their equipment. Roman Svitan noted that the Ukrainian Defense Forces are conducting very successful military operations on the left bank of the Kherson region — in his opinion, now this is the only promising direction of the front of all.

Overall, Russia has not achieved any of its goals in Ukraine during this year, as the Ukrainian military stands courageously in defense of their land.

“The goals were clear — occupation of our state, then access to the administrative borders of the Ukrainian Donbas. They didn't achieve it. Russia did not achieve any victory. What three days? It’s been two years already... Our fighters are great. “People are great,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.