UKRAINE SURPRISES RUSSIA - UPDATED

There’s new and important news out of Ukraine. It appears that the Mighty Soviet Armies, er, I mean Vladimir Putin’s Tin Soldiers, have been surprised again.

The early news has accumulating evidence that Ukraine may be on the verge of its biggest breakthrough in months in its fight to liberate the territory seized by Russia.

While everyone was expecting the Ukraine offensive to come in the south against Kherson, it appears that its happening in Ukraine’s northeast. This is where Russia achieved its biggest gains in the opening days and weeks of the war. It had the element of surprise and its forces managed to sweep southwards from Ukraine’s border with Russia.

The new area of combat extends eastwards from Kharkiv, located 30 miles from the Russian border. This part of Ukraine contains roads that lead southwards towards the Donbas. It was used as a route of advance at the outset of the Russian offensive, but the offensive in this region stalled out in early April. Russian forces were left in control of a line that extended from Kharkiv towards the city of Izyum directly north of Donetsk province, one of the two Donbas regions whose full capture appears to have been a Russian war aim from the invasion’s beginning.

Russian forces created what they call the “Izyum group” a force arrayed south of the city, poised, but stuck, in a failed effort to push south deeper towards the Donbas. Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian general staff visited the city in late April and made it his local headquarters from which to direct operations.

Now Ukraine is launching offensives to retake territory it lost in the beginning.

Last week, it began an attack to retake Kherson, a region in the south that observers had long expected would be the place where Ukraine would launch a counterstrike. That has proceeded with some success, but there are sobering reports of Ukrainian troop casualties.

Surprising many observers, Ukraine now appears to have launched another attack this week, north of Izyum, aimed at cutting off Russian forces from their supply lines and encircling them.

Early reports suggested that the city of Balakliya had been surrounded, with Ukrainian forces suddenly penetrating through Russian lines by kilometers.

More reports have now trickled through. Much of the information is hard to verify, but what is there suggests the Ukrainian assault has been launched toward the East, with multiple towns and villages either being liberated by Ukrainian forces or being left in their rear during the advance.

The potential is big, and has excited many observers of the war. Lawrence Freedman, whose “Content is Freed” blog is an excellent source of war information, tweeted: “A big question now is how Russia responds to Ukraine’s Kharkiv offensive, which appears to have gained substantial momentum. With the focus on Kherson, Russian commanders were caught badly by surprise and now risk finding a lot of their troops trapped.”

The size of the group of Russian forces in Izyum is unclear, but multiple Russian accounts keep referring to it as their army.

The extent and detail of the Ukrainian advance is nearly completely unknown.

However, much of the available information about this offensive has not come from the Ukrainian side but, rather, from the Russians. Limited video released from the fighting appears to back up some of the Ukrainian claims that their troops appear to have taken villages along the offensive line.

Recently the pro-Russian bloggers, several of whom are war correspondents or soldiers embedded in various divisions have hit an increasingly angry and panicked tone.

Starshe Eddy, a pro-Russian Telegram account that has spread propaganda and posted photos of Ukrainian casualties, wrote in a widely shared post Wednesday evening that Ukrainian forces were not just attacking from the West, but were massing towards the South as well.

The post reads “It’s possible to contend that in this operation, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have currently clearly outplayed our command. Izyum is preparing for battle.”

The Russian forces around Kherson are also in danger of being cut off, as Ukrainian attacks have destroyed bridges east of the frontline Russian forces, leaving only one bridge connecting these forces with their supply sources on the east side of the Dnieper River.

Losing his frontline forces in both Kherson and Izyum would be catastrophic for Putin. His army does not have forces sufficient to make up these potential losses, and even if he were to declare war and institute conscription, such a replacement force would be at least months away if not closer to a year before it would be capable of entering battle.

So long as the West doesn’t lose its nerve this winter in the face of Putin’s creation of an energy crisis in Europe by cutting off Russian gas supplies, and continues providing the Ukrainian armed forces with the equipment they need in sufficient numbers to be effective, there is a good chance that spring will see the war in a completely different place.

So far, European leaders seem to be standing up to this, but there are elections in Italy where pro-Russian far right parties have a chance of taking power, which could fracture the coalition. The European far right is uniformly pro-Putin, and ready to take advantage of anything that happens over the winter, but the German government has announced they believe their stockpiling of gas and getting other sources of supply, and their decision not to deactivate their last nuclear power plants for the time being, will get them through the crisis. The German and French governments have already announced financial support for consumers, and the new British Prime Minister was due to make a similar announcement today that has been delayed by the death of Queen Elizabeth.

UPDATE - 9/9/22: here’s a top-line overview from the Institute for the Study of War:

• Ukrainian successes on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line are creating fissures within the Russian information space and eroding confidence in Russian command to a degree not seen since a failed Russian river crossing in mid-May.

• Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv Oblast counteroffensives advanced to within 20 kilometers of Russia’s key logistical node in Kupyansk on September 8.

• Ukrainian forces will likely capture Kupyansk in the next 72 hours, severely degrading but not completely severing Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum.

• Ukrainian forces are continuing to target Russian GLOCs, command-and-control points, and ammunition depots in Kherson Oblast.

Also: German public opinion poll finds German public support for continued assistance to Ukraine despite energy prices at 70%. Support runs as follows: Greens - 97%; SPD - 82%; CDU/CSU - 73%; Free Dems - 74%; Linke (communists) - 59%; AfD (neo-Nazis) - 30%. Overall Support 70%, don’t support 30%. Note the greens are highest and the Nazis are lowest (Aren’t the Ukrainians supposed to be Nazis? and they can’t get their fellow Nazis to support them? /snark)

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