Time in Kyiv: 9am, Tues, Sep 13th.
Kharkiv Oblast is free.
Zelenksy announced about 6 weeks ago that a major counter-offensive in the South would take place. After a month of attacking bridges, rail depots, ammunition depots, C&C, bases, etc etc etc, the offensive started in earnest. 2 weeks in, they haven’t gotten a ton of territory back.
But, as all of us paying attention know, the Southern offensive may have been the greatest diversion in warfare since WWII itself.
Over the last week, Ukraine launched the most dazzling counter-blitzkrieg I can think of. We’re going to go over all of that in its glorious detail here.
There’s so, so, so much we don’t know. Lots of opsec, lots intentionally hidden from the public. What I can say with certainty is there will be many a movie made about this in Hollywood — this is one of the great moments in military and geopolitical history, period. It is very, very likely the tide of the war has turned, and for good. David is now on top of Goliath, pummeling him.
Please excuse the sound. I wasn’t planning to record while on break here but I just couldn’t help it. I don’t have my mic!
Strongly suggest you go to the website to follow along. Lots of visuals, maps.
A weirdly long lead-up with a highly telegraphed offensive…
(It had gotten to the point that I was literally saying “something fishy is going on” to my fiance — this conversation happened to happen one day before the Kharkiv offensive)
The Russians took the bait, and took it line and sinker
They sent perhaps 25,000 troops to the wrong side of the Dnipro river. Which is wild, given the Ukrainian possession of HIMARS, and the fact that there are only 2 serious bridges. It feels almost like they’re the NPC in a video game — just seems they walked blindly into a trap that was very obviously set.
But that might be Russia’s problem: they don’t think they can politically afford to lose any territory. So if there’s an offensive, they have to defend.
The Kherson Offensive is indeed doing its job… in pinning down, isolating, and removing from play a whole pile of Russian troops
But it’s probably not just a feint
It is a feint–it drew tons of Russian troops. And the Ukrainians don’t seem to have the Blitzkrieg ability that they do in Kharkiv, so they likely have less armor, close air support, etc. But the “feint” got those Russian troops into an area where they’re completely cut off and isolated. They have no way to get reserves or supplies. What supplies they have are being picked off by HIMARS’s. SInce they’re trapped on the wrong side of a very wide river, the Ukrainians can now deal with them at their leisure.
Kherson is not where you want to be right now, unless you’re wearing Blue and Yellow. Give it time and the Ukrainians are likely to capture most of those Russian troops, which is the goal. So we see the ambition and guts of the Ukrainians on display here: they wanted to strike and take territory quickly in the north, while also more slowly and methodically neutralizing a bunch of Russian troops in the south. Truly incredible.
The Russians left the north relatively lightly guarded, thinking the Ukrainians couldn’t handle two offensives at once
Certainly the Russians can’t manage it
The months of grind, shitty supplies, and other morale issues have taken their toll on the Russian Army…
“The Russian Air Force was noticeably absent in Kharkiv Oblast over the last week.”
…and the months of winning and the arrival of more and more support from the West have boosted the Morale of the Ukrainians
Ukrainian Air Force is back — well-trained, and sporting multirole weapons that allow them to attack a ton of stuff in different situations:
Nobody had any idea the Kharkiv offensive was coming, clearly
Expert in opsec and misdirection. Incredible. All the HIMARs’s were down south, so of course that’s where the action would be, right?
The lightning offensive, in all the awesome detail we have so far
Don’t know what the true original objective was, but it seemed that a key one was Kupiansk (very important as it’s a major rail junction for all of northeast Ukraine) and Izium (where for months, a very large concentration of Russian forces were trying to break out and encircle the Ukrainian defenders in the Donbass).
The assault started from Kharkiv city, against a somewhat unpopulated line. It broke through and split both north and south, going after Kupiansk and trying to cut off Izium at the same time. Seems to have been specially-designed, highly-mobile units, using MRAAPs, tanks, AFVs, and towing equipment to bring artillery and air defense to bear. Tanks/armor seem to have played a large part here:
‘Twas a delight to watch. Over a period of just 5 days, that offensive — supported by conventional artillery, anti-air missiles (HAARMs), and some air support, absolutely crashed through the front lines and the seemingly very sparse back lines of the Russian presence in Kharkiv, isolated a ton of Russian troops, and scared others so much that they abandoned towns before the Ukrainians even showed up.
Honestly as we were watching it unfold, we kept being in disbelief. We simply couldn’t believe such a lopsided and rapid assault was taking place. It was absolutely stunning, every single day.
A few quick gifs:
Russians retreated in absolute panic from everywhere — that panic is hella contagious. Good defense requires buddies at your sides — if they’re fleeing, you get out, too. They left behind gobs and gobs of material in Izium.
Russians abandoned 100% of Kharkiv Oblast after getting their asses handed to them, and tried to consolidate defensive positions on the eastern bank of the Oskil river. They seem to have failed to do even that. So, Kharkiv is completely liberated, the city is finally safe, and the Ukrainians may be flanking key Russian positions in Luhansk. It’s wild.
As of the afternoon of Sept 12th, my man Chuck here had to update his map/assessment. This is how confusing things are on the ground. Looks like Lyman wasn’t taken. He might be a bit optimistic at this point; it’s possible things have slowed down.
Here’s a great thread with ISW’s summary of it all:
What’s the total ground effect of winning Kharkiv/Izium?
It’s likely thousands of Russian troops destroyed or taken prisoner
Thousands of pieces of heavy equipment, etc, left behind
Russian army substantially weaker
Their position in Donbass now pretty terrible — very hard to drive a real offensive without that support from the north
Logistics situation in Lysychanks and Severodonetsk now really sucks
Not sure how many POWs, vs. how many Russian units escaped intact, vs how many disintegrated. Likely won’t know for a long time.
The morale impact has to be extremely dramatic at this point.
Likely more management shake-ups up top.
This stuff is really, really, really hard — very rarely you see anyone pull off an offensive like this
Russia tried to achieve a breakthrough like this for 7 months now and summarily failed every single time. EVERY. TIME. Despite massive superiority in artillery, armor, air support. Just absolutely failed. The Ukrainians just did it to stunning effect.
The morale difference is absolutely critical. But the Ukrainians needed to NAIL a number of things continuously: not just a great plan, but incredible command & control & communication/coordination. High degree of flexibility and initiative, because no plan survives contact with the enemy. Amazing deception, intelligence, operational security — because the Russians couldn’t see it coming, and didn’t. All of this stuff is A+ military kind of stuff. Yes, obviously the US is involved, but Ukrainians are the ones doing it. My admiration for the Ukrainians just found a new gear that I didn’t know was there.
(in fact, now explicit that US is involved throughout offensive, including planning: https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1569143761396965376)
An impressive piece of deception:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/politics/ukraine-us-wargames-counteroffensive/index.html
“US war-gamed with Ukraine ahead of counteroffensive and encouraged more limited mission” – came out Sept 1, just before the Kharkiv offensive. Very likely intentional.
Also need to make sure you don’t get too far ahead of yourselves! If you’re too far ahead of artillery, logistics, reserves, air support, etc, you can get cut off and destroyed. You could walk into a counter-attack which becomes a trap. Don’t want any of this.
But UKR did an amazing job, and brought artillery, anti-air, etc, with them to re-establish a front line. To reach across the river. And possibly keep going. Amazing stuff.
The northern Offensive might not be over yet.
This is a sortof “rolling rout,” maybe. When you break a flank, it flees, the new flank break and flees, etc.
Very hard to see what’s going on, but could be what’s going on in the direction of Lysychansk and Severdonetsk right now — listeners of the show will know these names well. It looks like right now the Ukrainians did NOT stop at the Oskil river, but just hopped right over and kept going. Which amazes everyone once again. But it also means that the Russians, who may have a really weak back-line in northern Luhansk, might also be fleeing.
Sense that “they’re coming” at this point. One thing we’re seeing, for example, is lots of Luhansk/Donetsk Russian loyalists trying to flee into Russia right now. There is a sense of inevitability at this point. If that’s there, the game is over — very few throw their lives away for lost causes, especially invaders who don’t understand why they’re there.
This whole situation is so dynamic, that it’ll be way, way out of date by the time it’s published. But that makes it all the more impressive.
That said, all good things come to an end at some point. UKR’s success was bigger (or at least faster) than they originally prepared for, or that senior officials felt confident they could even keep track of, and at some point you need to slow folks down and consolidate. It looks like they’ve crossed the Oskil river and are supporting a slightly slower advance through or around Lyman (which, rumors had thought a few days back they’d blown right through, which is just wild).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukraine-maps.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
OR NOT?!
It’s possible (Chuck might be wrong, this is super hot off the presses) UKR has taken the E side of the river and are now surrounding Lysychansk from north and south!?!?!?!?!
ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!??!??!
Just in case this is true — and it really might not be at all — but if it’s true, and they take those cities…. That’ll be what causes the real rout. (And if they take them even in a week or two, note it took Russia 4 months of grind to take them)
But we’re in radical speculation land at this point
Also attacking Donetsk city because… why not, I guess
Kherson is going well
And, just to tease you: I hear rumor the Russian defenders at Kherson are negotiating surrender. If that’s true… well, hoo boy, this war’s over.
Multiple sources now, including UKR General Staff, say they’re negotiating for the surrender of some-or-all of the Russian Kherson troops. It’s the kind of thing where, if you get a big chunk of them to surrender, it’s likely the rest aren’t far behind, as they are indeed cut off.
RU Kherson forces retreated toward the river to be better supported by artillery on the south side of the river.
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