Russian invasion of Ukraine

[doulikefish]

Unconfirmed reports of Putin attending an emergency defense summit as reports of Russians chucking it all over the shop in Ukraine 

[LongTimeLurker]

This would have been viewed as entering the realm of fantasy a week ago:

but that's one of the most mainstream Ukrainian sources.

[Salvo Montalbano]

32 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Now the Ukrainians are reported to be going after Lyman

Thought that was the Battle for Lynam there.

 

[dorlomin]

Kharkiv Oblast has turned into a complete rout. There are stories of OMON and SOBR trying to hold towns, literally police units. Clearly the Russians have not fallen back in good order to the next prepared line of resistance. For the next day or two, Ukraines gains are going to be constrained by what they can logistically support until someone pulls the Russians shit together and starts fighting like an army again. 

Oh the irony of Russia needing a Walter Model. 

[Bairnardo]

Who can blame the Russian troops for chucking their hand in. Long may it continue. 

 

Not that its going to happen, but as an exercise in thought, I wonder how the West would respond if Vlad chose this moment to try and come to the table and Zelensky told him to f**k off?

[jagfox]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

The Ukrainians do appear to have taken the western half of Kupyansk yesterday because this is the city's main municipal building:

 

will be interesting to see if this is really what's happening around Izium:

 

 

[ICTChris]

Apparently there are reports coming out on Russian channels that both Kupyansk and Izyum are being abandoned.

[LongTimeLurker]

Also talk of the Ukrainians moving further north from Kupyansk today towards the Russian border:

 

 

Guess if your enemy is in complete disarray you keep going if you have the capacity to do so rather than giving them time to regroup and resupply?

[Billy Jean King]

Who can blame the Russian troops for chucking their hand in. Long may it continue. 
 
Not that its going to happen, but as an exercise in thought, I wonder how the West would respond if Vlad chose this moment to try and come to the table and Zelensky told him to f**k off?

Imagine the heads gone from our resident would be RT correspondents on here if that came to pass.

[Newbornbairn]

1 minute ago, Billy Jean King said:

12 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

Who can blame the Russian troops for chucking their hand in. Long may it continue. 
 
Not that its going to happen, but as an exercise in thought, I wonder how the West would respond if Vlad chose this moment to try and come to the table and Zelensky told him to f**k off?

Imagine the heads gone from our resident would be RT correspondents on here if that came to pass.

Aye, the Greenock Guderian's gone awfy quiet.

[Hillonearth]

21 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Also talk of the Ukrainians moving further north from Kupyansk today towards the Russian border:

 

 

Guess if your enemy is in complete disarray you keep going if you have the capacity to do so rather than giving them time to regroup and resupply?

Suppose so in this case - the only dangers are that you advance too far too fast for your logistics and supply chains to keep up with you or that you're advancing into some elaborately planned Russian trap to encircle you.

In this case, the second seems unlikely...Russian command and control has been uniformly lousy since the start of this. It's likely to be panicked junior officers requesting instructions - they don't seem to value initiative on the ground much - and not receiving anything coherent back.

It's beginning to seem like a real rout...some will no doubt stand their ground and be encircled, while others will probably right now be trying to hotwire civilian cars and make for the Rodina...

[ICTChris]

The whole Kharkiv offensive is going to have long running consequences for the war and beyond.  For the war there are military and political consequences.  Militarily, it completely changes the locus in the East of Ukraine and makes a lot of Russian controlled areas very vulnerable.  If people recall, a few months ago Izyum was seen as the main focus of a potential Russian attack on the Ukrainian held Donbas, with the initial idea for the Battle of Donbas being an envelopment from Izyum.  Now we'll see what the Ukrainians can do while in possession of this area and what pressure they can put on other Russian held areas in the East.  

The collapse of Russian forces here is an important indicator of the state of the Russian military as well.  When the Russian withdrew from Kyiv they were defeated but the retreat was carried out in good order, they did it in an organised way, they took their salvagable equipment, they didn't leave anything behind that they didn't have to leave.  Quite a lot of the hardware they didn't lose in the march on Kyiv they refitted and used in the Donbas offensive.  In this offensive the Russians are abandoning everything, they are running away.  There are ammunition dumps, tanks, IFVs, BMDs, anti aircraft systems, electronic warfare systems being abandoned for Ukrainians to capture.  These systems aren't given to mobilised LNR/DNR troops, who might be expected to break quickly, they are operated by trained professional Russian soldiers who appear to have fled at speed.  It seems like the command and discipline of their troops has collapsed - it remains to be seen how big the losses are from this, in terms of equipment, in casualties and in POWs.  Russia can't afford to lose equipment and, most of all, troops.  The potential for counter attack once they manage to regroup is hugely impacted by this.

It's hard to speculate about morale but fleeing while leaving your best gear and half your mates dead isn't going to fill the Russian troops with the desire to fight.  As this isn't a war and mobilisation hasn't been declared, once these units are back in Russia they can walk off their base and resign with no legal penalties, I can't see many people who survived this being keen to reenlist.

Politically this is huge as well.    Kupyansk was the seat of the Russian occuption admnisatration in Kharkiv Oblast, the leader of which has already fled across the border and which probably doesn't exist now.  There were rumours htis week that Russia were planning to stage votes in occupied territories on annexation on November 4th but that surely can't happen now.  The recapture of significant territory also means that any Ukrainians who were minded to collobrate, will be far less likely to do so.  While there will be people who are true believers or collaborators there will be others who think "well the Russians are here forever, no sense fighting on we'll just have to live with them and make the best of it" and then help Russian administrations in smaller ways.  Those people are highly unlikely to now think that the Russians are there permanently.  Some of the places taken back in this offensive had been occupied since the first days of the war, it's a demonstration from Ukraine that they can take back territory and they have the will to do it.

In terms of the overall situation, I think it's very important as well.  Western aid to Ukraine has been constant but one of the potential pinch points would be if the war fell into ongoing brutal attirtion with both sounds pounding each others established lines with shells and little movement.  In that circumstance you could see some politicians in the West thinking that they should push Ukraine to settle.  That is less likely now as Ukraine has shown it can use the aid provided not just to hold back Russian forces but to take back land.

Trying to work out what the impact will be within Russia is hard and falls into the realm of Kremlinology.  I do wonder if some senior people in the military might be fired due to this - the early failures could be put down to poor intelligence provided by the FSB which lead to the planning of an overambitious and ulimately failed operation.  They don't really have that excuse for this but the question is what difference would changing the commanders make?  As to the political impact within Russia, it's impossible to say.  Probably most likely that there could be removals of political appointees as well as military ones.

Edited September 10, 2022 by ICTChris

[ICTChris]

The other question is how well can Ukraine sustain this pace of operations.  They need to balance achieving as much success as possible with not overextending themselves.  They will also have sustained casualties and losses in the operation, probably lighter than they might have thought given the speed of the advance and of Russian collapse, but nevertheless they will need to make sure they don't give up too much chasing furhter success.

Russian Telegram channels now reporting Izyum has surrendered, not sure if they mean abandoned or if the units there have chucked it.  

[Newbornbairn]

Seen some pointing out the similarities in the Croatians smacking the Serbs in 95. The Serbs on paper were impressive with loads of Soviet tech and an army drilled in Soviet doctrine but they got absolutely walloped by the Croats who were trained and supported by the West.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm

Edited September 10, 2022 by Newbornbairn

[LongTimeLurker]

Found this snippet from the real Igor Girkin about the Oskil river mildly amusing:

If Izium and Lyman have really been surrendered/abandoned the next big logistical hub the Ukrainians would probably go after if they really go for broke is Svatove in northern Luhansk oblast:

[LongTimeLurker]

Reports that Donetsk airport has been liberated seem a bit farfetched after all that happened there with the so called cyborgs post-2014:

 

but maybe many DNR forced recruits have simply had enough at this point in an ARVN after the Americans left South Vietnam sort of way.

[ICTChris]

I think someone is pulling someone's leg with that.

[ICTChris]

The Grey Zone, which is a Wagner linked Russian Telegram channel, reporting Russian forces have left Lyman.  This is a city in the Donbas that was taken by Russian troops in May in one of the initial engagements in the Donbas offensive by Russia.