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Ukraine: What’s Happening, What Might Be Next
This post is intended to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, as for instance BDB’s poll on support for weapons/troops for Ukraine.
What’s Happened
The MSM has been saturated with news of a hurricane that might be blamed on Republicans somehow, and a pipeline explosion that might be blamed on anyone, or sheer incompetence, depending on your favorite theory. So the operational details of what’s been happening in Ukraine after the big breakthrough East of Kharkiv may have disappeared unless you’ve been specifically tracking them (I have). So, a quick recap of the last couple of weeks:
Ukraine went into a short operational pause in the Kharkiv / north Luhansk area, presumably to resupply and reorganize.
Russia kept banging away on the Donetsk front, making little progress and continuing to lose troops and equipment.
Ukraine kept banging away in the Kherson area west of Dnipro, also making little apparent progress and expending a lot of HIMARS and other ammo blowing up bridges and Russian supply dumps and headquarters.
Things started moving quickly again last week. In the northeast, the Ukrainians managed to surround the town of Lyman, a rail and road hub. There were between 500 and 5,000 Russians and proxy troops trapped there, depending on who you believe. Some or most of the Russians may have made it out, losing a lot of equipment. The final retreat, mostly by LPR proxy troops, apparently became a slaughter by Ukrainian artillery, mines, and light recon forces. There’s plenty of video evidence of the latter out there, don’t go looking unless you’re ready for it. I’ll drop a link to a text-only report by an American volunteer in one of the recon teams, but you still don’t want to read it near meal or bedtime.
After the Lyman episode, the Russian front north of there is being pushed back daily. Some of this may be planned/controlled withdrawal, some seems to be a collapse. The Ukrainians now appear to control the important road between the towns of Svatove and Kreminna in Luhansk oblast.
Over the weekend, the Kherson front suddenly erupted. The Ukrainians punched in between several towns in the northeast of the oblast, west of a large reservoir on Dnipro, and have pushed the Russians back some tens of kilometers. The advance appears to be continuing. As of today, the Russians abandoned another portion of that front (Davydiv Brid) to avoid a possible envelopment. Again, this appears to be some combination of collapse and planned withdrawal.
Both of these fronts are moving daily, best followed in real time. A sampling of reporting sites: Most speculative, kinda conservative, really conservative. These are all more-or-less the Ukrainian view. For Russian side reports, try here.
Some of the ‘mobiks’ from the chaotic Russian mobilization have appeared at the front. Mobik prisoners have been taken, and the dead recovered. There are video reports and call intercepts reporting mobiks being dropped off along the front with little or no supplies or communications.
What Might Happen
A pattern of Ukrainian operations is emerging. They are pushing recon/sabotage teams in between Russian-occupied towns and strongpoints, followed by light mechanized forces heavily armed with anti-armor weapons and backed with artillery and rocket fire. These threaten to envelop a major position, leading the Russians to fall back to protect their flanks, or potentially become surrounded. For what it looks like from the POV of the scouts, this series of reports from the same volunteer I linked above gives a sample.
The UA is managing this because the Russians can no longer man a continuous line at the front. This implies that the larger numbers of casualty reports for Russia are credible. It’s also visible that some of Russia’s most elite formations have been shredded (‘heavily degraded’ is apparently the term of art) in the process. It also makes some ‘sense’ of the reports of untrained mobiks being dropped off with little support along the front. These poor [CoC] are being used as human trip wires to slow down the penetration by Ukrainian scouts and light forces.
The Russians left the mobilization too late to assemble a credible, trained, and equipped reserve force. They are being used as cannon fodder to delay Ukraine. Local Russian reserves have apparently been committed and defeated in Kharkiv/Luhansk and Kherson. This suggests Ukraine can continue to advance.
On the other hand, the fall mud season (rasputitsa) is beginning, which will slow everything down. Recent videos have shown muddy but still firm secondary roads in the north (Kharkiv/Luhansk), but there’s been enough rain that it’s likely armor would now bog down off-road. Roads in the south (Kherson) appear to be dry still.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Ukrainian attempt to punch much deeper into Luhansk, probably towards the key logistics center of Starobilsk, before the mud really sets in.
There are recurrent rumors of Ukraine preparing a third offensive, this one to punch South towards Melitopol and then Crimea. I haven’t seen any actual evidence of such, including from those who are buying up satellite photos. And it’s just what I’d spread around if I were the Ukrainians, to convince the Russians to keep reserves there while the other fronts collapse. But I could be wrong…
Published in Foreign Policy
Putin invaded Ukraine and stole Donbas and Crimea.
It is you that is supporting Putin’s actions, which resemble the actions of the Nazis.
Is a country’s status as an “invadee” render invalid ANY analyses of the circumstances/dynamics that preceded its attainment of said status, or just the analyses that bring up any possible role that the “invadee” itself might have played?
Or is Ukraine a really special case, because … PUTIN!!!->REMEMBER STALIN 80 YEARS AGO!!!/RUSSIA->REMEMBER THE SOVIET UNION AS RECENTLY AS … 30 YEARS AGO!!! …?
PS:
As Zafar put it, … there’s a lot of “Argle Bargle” goin’ on.
You believe western propaganda put out by the CIA criminals all you want. These are the same WMD liars. They lie constantly, commit murder and should be in prison.
https://www.newsweek.com/neocons-woke-left-are-joining-hands-leading-us-woke-war-iii-opinion-1748947
Pure Russian propaganda- How many Jews are presidents of Nazi states?Wagner group mercenaries have more Nazis than the Ukrainian armed forces- just google it- there are many photos showing them with Nazi insignias.
Headline:
One of the worst ways Putin is gaslighting the world on Ukraine
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/putin-nazi-pretext-russia-war-ukraine-belied-white-supremacy-ties-rcna23043
It’s important to understand that this war between Russia and Ukraine is 100 percent Putin’s fault.
We shouldn’t put any of the blame on Ukraine or Zelensky.
Putin is acting a lot like Stalin and Hitler. That’s a good reason to oppose his murderous plans for Ukraine.
Zafar is the one who’s doing a ton of Argle Bargle.
A poll released today and reported in Reuters shows that 73 percent of Americans believe that the United States should continue to support Ukraine.
Broken down by party affiliation, 66 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats believe that the United States should continue to support Ukraine.
68 percent of Americans said they were more likely to support a candidate for Congress who supported continued military aid.
The poll was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 4th and 5th of 2022.
That federal structure would be the end of Ukraine. Ukraine having to fund a Donbas government that could negotiate its own foreign alliances, under conditions of Russian intimidation, is not a situation a sovereign state could survive.
Who here has said the Ukrainians are all good, or that the Russians were all bad? I had a nuanced view until Putin tried to take Keeeeev. Elections have consequences — so do invasions.
When the last Russian soldier departs or invests Ukrainian soil, I’ll become nuanced again. Until then, any Russian soldiers who want to live or Ukrainians wishing to live as Russians are all free to screw off to the Motherland.
A Special Agent?
A)Putin refused a peace deal that precluded Ukraine from joining NATO and provided guarantees to the Russian minority. He rejected it.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/putin-rejected-ukraine-peace-deal-struck-by-aide-as-war-began/
B) Now to point out the obvious-he just annexed pieces of Ukraine- that is the kind of piece deal he wants.
No need. Most people understood the point.
Russian infest Ukraine because your wonderful, great Stalinist Nazi friends slaughtered millions of Ukrainians, and replaced them with transplanted Russians. Why are you on the side of such mass murderers and thugs?
And unlike the Ukrainians who were “reduced” in a famine trap, every single one of those “Russophone” “Ukrainians” is free to walk right on over to Russia.
Maybe. Winter makes the ground hard — winter makes everything hard. @hangon‘s source says that this will be difficult for the Ukrainians but a boon to the Russians. I don’t think so.
I could be wrong.
Actual people, or just purported-by-YOU ones?
If the former, please provide evidence of them.
If the latter, no need to, obviously.
Actual people, I assure you. You pretend to misunderstand the point and then get all pedantic about evidence for your chosen misunderstanding. You’re not smarter, or funnier, or better-equipped to exist online for your hostile pedantry. I just envy those who have already learned to ignore you.
My mistake.
16 years ago, Putin critic and journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was murdered. She was one of many journalists murdered by the Kremlin’s corrupt, blood-thirsty system.
Anna Politkovskaya was the author of the book, “A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya.”
Agreed – winter combat is harder for everyone. Maybe it helps the defense more. But Ukraine is not as far north as Moscow or St. Petersburg, so winter is not as bitter cold. And don’t forget that Russia chose to launch its invasion in late February, when it was still freezing every night and some days and with snow on the ground. That was good weather for armor.
That just proves how thoroughly Nazism controls Ukraine – even the Jewish president has become a Nazi. :-)
Oy Vey!
Er…ithinkitwasajoke
Yes, but why are Ukraine’s borders more important than self determination in Donbas?
The incompetence of the Russian military has been staggering. The Russian overmatch in both troops and equipment is not supposed to have made this close. Yeah, the Ukrainians are on home turf and fighting a defensive war, but they are now turning it around and pushing back the Russians. They are on the offense. The question is, I think, can Putin survive? Will the Russian people just have had enough. Of course I’m not living in Ukraine, but I see no reason for the Ukrainians to compromise.
I don’t care ever since Russia invaded.
And I’ll just leap ahead here in the teachers’ edition — if California votes to join Mexico, I say we bomb Sacramento. And rename it. In English.
Why not?
Because Russia invaded. Seems obvious to me.
Doesn’t “Argle Bargle” refer to any statements made during waterboarding?
Wouldn’t that assume that Russia wants “their troops” to survive? And doesn’t giving them obsolete tanks and rusty rifles, argue against that?
Love it!
Seems to me more likely the uniforms never existed, and the funds to buy/make them instead bought/built mansions on the Black Sea etc.
Hm, let’s try an experiment. Send a few people to Zafar’s house, and then when the majority of everyone in that house votes to kick out Zafar, he can’t complain because they just wanted self-determination.