🇷🇺🇺🇦 In the Lyman direction, Russian forces continue to advance east of the Nitrius River and have entered the outskirts of Shandrygolovo.

Russian forces advanced in two areas. In the southeast, they continued to push southwest down the forest plantations in the low-lying ground, seizing new positions there and in the forested areas. Using the cover provided, they were able to enter the outskirts of Shandrygolovo and captured some of the agricultural buildings there. Battles are ongoing for the other buildings, with Ukrainian forces holding their main presence in the residential part of the village.

Russian forces also advanced to the east, capturing the rest of the gulley from Zelena Dolnya, before advancing to and clearing positions on the adjacent tactical heights.

In the northwest, Russian forces made additional progress down the eastern bank of the Nitrius River, advancing south to the next two forests, capturing them and two nearby treelines.

📝 To the east, Russian troops made incremental gains in the village of Torskoe, nearly pushing out all remaining Ukrainian defenders.

Further to east, the Serebryansky/Krements Forest is being abandoned by Ukrainian troops to avoid being encircled. This will weaken the defense of Seversk greatly.

🔗 AMK Mapping

🇷🇺🇺🇦 In the Kostantinovka direction, Russian forces continued to advance and completed the capture of Toretsk City.

Russian forces advanced in two areas. In the southwest, they continued their operations to clear the village of Shcherbinovka. After they captured the southern and main part of the village, they entered the northern part and began clearing the area of the railway line. Russian forces captured most of the rest of the village, including the local school. They were also able to clear the rest of the positions in the pocket west of Shcherbinovka due to the progress inside the settlement.

Further east, Russian forces cleared the remaining positions in western Toretsk after the last Ukrainian soldiers withdrew from the city and captured the rest of the adjacent Toretsk Forest.

In the northeast, Russian forces resumed their assault operations northwest of Dylovka, and established control over positions on four different treelines on the tactical heights.

Additionally, in the west, Russian soldiers managed to enter the western part of Katerynovka, although it is unclear if any positions were established.

Russian forces were able to break through from the heavily fortified terykon at the St. Matrona Mine, cut the railway line to Shcherbynovka, and come within 800 metres of cutting off all Ukrainian soldiers in the area to the south of the Kleban-Bykskoe reservoir.

All Ukrainian reinforcements to the villages of Shcherbynovka, Katerynovka and Kleban Byk are running down one road along the dam on the eastern edge of the reservoir, which the Russians are constantly targeting. This road is covered by a large trench strongpoint, which is also being constantly targeted by FPV drones and artillery.

Russian forces are also pressuring the edges of the salient, where they have infiltrated Katerynovka, almost captured Shcherbynovka, and pushed the Ukrainians away from the northern outskirts of Toretsk.

If this road is cut, large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers will be encircled against the reservoir.

🔗 AMK Mapping

🇪🇺🇺🇸 European consumers pay on average 158% more than American consumers for electric energy and 345% more for natural gas despite being a lot poorer.

For the monthly electricity bill paid in the EU, 20% of the bill's price is inflated by taxes.

An EU-funded German think tank, in a December 2024 analysis, presented the "only" solution available: wait until renewables become cheap something which may or may not happen.

Their graphs show how renewables will change the future electricity bill, which by their own admission, will remain unchanged as whatever surges in electricity generation may appear from renewables will be offset by other taxes imposed by the EU in order to maintain auxiliary infrastructure such as batteries to stock up on surplus energy and replacing older infrastructure.

The think tank admits the future where Europe regains access to cheap energy without resorting to importing natural gas from Russia is "overtly optimistic" because the renewable infrastructure is manufactured almost exclusively by China with which the EU recently ruined its ties with to please the U.S.

Although the think tank found the key flaw in its thinking that renewables will save Europe, the think tank says at the end that paying for more expensive energy is a viable alternative than "volatile imports from global markets" and even said that in the future, the EU may bridge the energy cost gap with the US.

@CIG_telegram