Russian invasion of Ukraine

[dorlomin]

The 100 Days Offensive was the final phase of WW1. Its what happens when one side can no longer generate operational reserves to stem breakthroughs. The Germans had spent their manpower advantage over the allies in the Spring Offensive that while successful, was costly and never achieved the results needed (not unlike Russia's summer offensives). In August 1918, the British were conducted operations to clear up the front for a big offensive in 1919, but the Germans kept breaking hard. Ludendorf called one such day "the black day of the German Army". So the British, French and Americans began a series of bloody attacks that kept breaking through and pushing the Germans back. This steady beat of retreats led to the collapse of their army and the suing for peace. 

I do not know what will happen and have a very very unclear picture of what is happening. But I thought I would raise it for people following this to read up on how attritional  wars break into wars of movement. Certainly better than the 15th time someone says "This is like Stalingrad".

Edited September 10, 2022 by dorlomin

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

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

Quite possibly but one of the sources was a Russian war correspondent apparently:

 

[ICTChris]

There are now reports that Russian forces have withdrawn from Svatove.

That surely can't be true - if it is then something must be going on.  If they withdraw from someone that is 20-30km away from Ukrainian advances the Russians have decided to completely withdraw from most of the positions they took earlier in the war.

Edited September 10, 2022 by ICTChris

[Alert Mongoose]

Surely it's just the surfacing of the undercurrent of lack of motivation that's been there in a lot of them from the start.

[SlipperyP]

I take it we have stopped play for bad light?

https://www.bbc.com/news

Edited September 10, 2022 by SlipperyP

[ICTChris]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[jagfox]

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

There are now reports that Russian forces have withdrawn from Svatove.

That surely can't be true - if it is then something must be going on.  If they withdraw from someone that is 20-30km away from Ukrainian advances the Russians have decided to completely withdraw from most of the positions they took earlier in the war.

Russian soldiers in Svatove started posting the guy on telegram to tell him it wasn't true but time will tell I guess. Meanwhile further south in Luhansk oblast:

thought they gave that city up surprisingly easily after what preceded it with Severodonetsk, Hirske and Zolote but no doubt it made sense at the time and maybe they knew it was always going to be relatively easy to roll back in again from where they withdrew to when conditions improved.

[ICTChris]

Russian MoD has said that they are "regrouping troops stationed in the Izyum regions to step up efforts in Donetsk".

 

[LongTimeLurker]

...they better reach Svatove quickly if they are going to do that:

once you get this far east there is genuine pro-Russian sentiment among a lot of the population and many of these people will probably be viewed as collaborators by Zelensky & Co.

Edited September 10, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[welshbairn]

[Bairnardo]

I dont get what's happening here. Is the charade that Russia still had huge military strength falling apart here? Is this some sort of endgame? Can't claim to know enough but it all seems a bit mental out of nowhere.

[Bairnardo]

Also there are rumours flying aboht that Putin is being asked to resign.

Quite whether that's good or bad.... Who knows, but for all folk say the next guy could be worse, you can't really ever see Putin coming to the table can you.

[Newbornbairn]

Remember last week when the Queen was on the throne, Bojo was Prime Minister and Russia was a Superpower?

[ICTChris]

4 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

I dont get what's happening here. Is the charade that Russia still had huge military strength falling apart here? Is this some sort of endgame? Can't claim to know enough but it all seems a bit mental out of nowhere.

Ukraine initially started a counter offensive in the Kherson Oblast, attacking Russian troops on the West side of the Dnieper River in Kherson.  Most observers thought the plan would be a relatively slow fight, with Ukrainian efforts focusing on trying to stop supply to the large number of Russian troops in Kherson and eventually forcing them to leave because they couldn't be supplied or relieved.  That offensive was progressing as expected - some settlements taken, some advances moving relatively quickly, others not at all and reports of heavy casualties on both sides.  This offensive had been widely discussed, trailed and almost everyone knew it was coming.

After around a week of this offensive, the Ukrainians began another offensive, which had been completely untrailed and discussed, in the North East, Kharkiv Oblast.  They attacked with mecahnised infantry and tanks and quickly broke through lines manned by lightly armed LNR/DNR (the Russian controlled sepratist groups) troops.  They have continued to advance in this offensive because there was no fallback positions and the attacks appear to have caught the regular Russian army by surprise.  The Ukrainians have recaptured several towns in the area, including strategically important rail and logisitc hubs like Izyum.  Russian forces appear to have abandoned these very quickly - as someone posted earlier it's reported that the Army left so quickly that National Guard and police units had to fight themselves.  Russians have not retreated in an orderly way, they have left significant ammounts of equipment, they've left their most modern tanks, vehicles and comms equipment.  A reference point is that Izyum was captured by Russia after a battle that lasted a month in May.  Ukraine have taken it back in about a day with almost no fighting.  

Russia clearly has military strength but it is leaving it behind as it retreats.  It is short on men and doesn't seem able to properly organise it's forces to defend the territory it has previously controlled.  I honestly don't know if the Ukrainians planned Kherson as a feint or if they just got lucky but it's exposed the real difficulties that Russia has in doing what it has set out to do in this war.  I don't think it's an endgame as eventually the Ukrainian advance in Kharkiv will need to stop and eventually Russia will muster up some defences but then a day ago I'd have said that Ukraine taking back places that they'd lost in May was unlikely but here we are.  I think Ukraine will try to get as far as it can and then reinforce to attack again in the East.  As for the Kherson offensive, they continue it.  It seems Russia had created sufficient defensive lines to allow them to retreat to deeper lines so that will take time.  The difficulty they have is that they may need to divert resources they had planned to use in Kherson to Kharkiv.  The same goes for Ukraine as well of course.

[ICTChris]

19 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Also there are rumours flying aboht that Putin is being asked to resign.

Quite whether that's good or bad.... Who knows, but for all folk say the next guy could be worse, you can't really ever see Putin coming to the table can you.

I think any rumours about Putin having brain cancer or being about to resign or anything else are just made up.  No-one knows.

What I do think might happen is that Putin could order a full withdrawal of Russian troops back to pre-February lines and say "we have achieved our aims of destroying the Ukrainian war machine, their industiry is destroyed and they can no longer threaten Russia but we couldn't advance further because the West united against us" and try and leave it there.  But as above, I don't know, no-one knows.

[LongTimeLurker]

23 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

I dont get what's happening here. Is the charade that Russia still had huge military strength falling apart here? Is this some sort of endgame? Can't claim to know enough but it all seems a bit mental out of nowhere.

The conspiracy theory is they are retreating to try to get to a point where a deal can be made but I think it's probably just a case of their press-ganged soldiers from the DNR and LNR breakaway states and also some of the less eager troops from Russia proper no longer wanting to fight and calling it a day.

[dorlomin]

43 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

I dont get what's happening here. Is the charade that Russia still had huge military strength falling apart here? Is this some sort of endgame? Can't claim to know enough but it all seems a bit mental out of nowhere.

Russia is a major land power. But its troops are nowhere near as well trained as western troops, they have what we consider a huge problem with very weak NCOs and no culture of initiative in junior officers. They also have a very outdated logistics system. 

Ukraine got its arses handed to them in 2014, so they began to really retrain their army and restructure it to be more western in style. But they lacked equipment. So in early 2022 they got pushed back hard in the initial days of the war, but Russia over ran its supply system and local Ukrainian initiative was able to blunt the advances. After a month they pulled back from Kyiv and refocussed on the Donbas region. Meanwhile Ukraine called up 10 000s of very willing volunteers and strated enlarging its army. They also started to get western artillery systems. Russia relies on old school mass artillery. The west's artillery is much more accurate and much more able to use things like drones to hit valuable targets, so they began to fight a war of attrition, that is with the small number of western rockets and guns burn through Russia's artillery and troops. 

Russia launched and offensive to try to recapture the Donbas but Ukraine was now able to slow it and make it bloody, all the while getting more modern equipment and turning a bunch of xbox playing 20somethings into fit and trained soldiers. They then launched a very heavy assault in Kherson. This is to the south of the Dnieper river, one of the largest in Europe. Russia pulled all its available troops to stop this attack. This may be where more troops are dying than in Kharkiv Oblast (oblast means something like province or county). After that was all kicking off they used very accurate American rockets to blow the bridges on the Dniper. 

Then the launched an attack in Khakiv. This was able to smash through the Russian lines in a narrow spot on Wednesday. But all the reserves are in Kherson, so the Ukrainians were able to capture a railway hub 70kms behind the lines while thousands  to tens of thousands or Russians were sill in trenches and positions along the front but not able to pull out and respond. Now without that railway logistics line, huge swathes of Russians lines are falling apart and being pulled back. 

Russia is still a very large powerful army. But poor leadership, poor junior leadership culture, 1950s era logistics and yacht loads of corruption has weakened what it should be on paper. Six month of hard fighting has left Ukraine is a reasonable position vis a vis the invaders. 

 

(large file but it shows the thrust into the railway system. )

 

Edited, others have answered but there might still be something of worth in this post. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by dorlomin