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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
Well, they’ll have to walk on their hands.
Down there in Rand McNally?
Not an answer.
Why do Russia’s actions invalidate the people in Donbas’ rights? I don’t see the logic.
You don’t get that Putin – and others before him – would send out Russians to go live in various places and then later they claim they have to invade to “save” the Russians they sent there in the first place?
Oh! Like the settlements!I’m not sure that’s the case in Donbas. I mean they were mostly all born there. Why would a bunch of Banderites in Lviv have the right to disenfranchise them? Especially as the borders of Ukraine were set in the not too distant past by….the Russians. Why are these borders now so inviolable?You mean the borders that Russia agreed to even regarding Crimea etc, and then invaded anyway?
I guess they then disagreed. But not really to the point wrt the wishes of the people and self determination.
If Russia agreed with the borders of Ukraine, then they had no business even going in and setting up “polls” trying to claim that parts of Ukraine wanted to be Russia instead. Much less invading as they did.
But the Donbas did want to be Russia. What Russia did or didn’t do is off topic when it comes to that. Address that.
As I think others have already pointed out, once the borders were agreed to including by Russia, anyone in Ukraine who wanted to be in Russia, could freely go to Russia.
Is it written in Ukraine’s constitution that they have a right to secede?
Not an answer.
Donbas isn’t recognized as a sovereign state.
Why not?
Who decides what the border lines of Donbas are?
Any proof the Donbas people actually want to join Russia? The only free election on the matter was 1991 and 83% voted for an independent Ukraine. The last election (2019) in the occupied regions was beset by widespread fraud (election fraud is a Russia national pastime) as was the recent “referendum”- no one actually believes the results. The DPR & LPR are fictions created by Putin to justify intervention- no more real than the Gleiwitz incident-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
What about the referendum to preserve a Union of states less than six months previously? And did they vote to disempower Russian speakers in Ukraine?
Which referendum was this?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum
In that reference it says: “Ukraine later held its own referendum on 1 December, in which 92 percent voted for independence.”
Perhaps the latter referendum better represents the attitudes of the Ukrainians?
Really? Several problems:
1st, The vote you wish to enforce was 1990 & was a vote administered by the communist party apparatchiks of the USSR.
2nd, the vote was earlier- the 1991 vote obviously superceeds that vote. Or do you think the last presidential is permanent.
3rd- the referendum you wish to abide with in Ukraine stated: “Do you agree that Ukraine should be part of a Union of Soviet sovereign states on the basis on the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine?”. That declaration stated: “that Ukrainian SSR laws took precedence over the laws of the USSR, and declared that the Ukrainian SSR would maintain its own army and its own nation”. In other words, Ukraine would be an a sovereign and independent state. Furthermore, “The Declaration established the principles of Self-Determination of the Ukrainian Nation, Rule of the People, State Power, Citizenship of the Ukrainian SSR, Territorial Supremacy, Economic Independence, Environmental Safety, Cultural Development, External and Internal Security, and International Relations”. While it also envisioned a nonnuclear & non aligned nation- Putin has made those goals to perilous to pursue.
Both elections (the 1990 you purport to back & the 1991) envisioned a independent Ukraine and both got over 80% of the votes. Neither sought union with a Russian dominated entity.
addendum- additionally the election you like is null & void b/c the entity it involved (ie the USSR) no longer exists.it would be like trying to enforce Confederate law in Alabama today. Or pay bills in confederate money. Or trying to cash in stock from previously bankrupt firms
The Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, was asked if there was a way out of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Marin responded: “The way out of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine.”
This is interesting. The proportion of Dems in favor is larger.
To a conservative, this might be an indication that the more sensible people are opposed. Breaking the Hold of Neocon ideology over conservatives is difficult. It took many years for me to change my mind.
Breaking the Colonel Douglas MacGregor ideology over conservatives is difficult.
Zelenskyy is now demanding that NATO attack Russia on his behalf.
He can go pound sand.
Support for Ukraine in the United States is strong among both Republicans and Democrats, as it should be.
Well, you have to admit Ukraine’s propaganda game has been strong.
What do you think of Zelenskyy’s demands that NATO bomb Russia? Are you okay with that? Is there any limiting factor? Or is your vision unrestrained by the approaching hoofbeats of World War III?
Zelensky did not say, “NATO should bomb Russia.”
You continue to consume propaganda and thus you reach incorrect conclusions.
LOL! I know who’s consuming (and spreading) propaganda, guy!
Victory over Putin.