Ukraine Blog 41 – “Blyat, we’re f****d”
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
This is the
blog I wanted to write since day one of this tragedy. Two blogs ago I wrote
that pretty soon I would return to daily updates and this time has finally
come. What we’re witnessing is nothing short of the complete disintegration of
the Russian army as an organized fighting forces. In the past four days Ukraine
has almost completely routed the Russian Kharkiv group of forces and the in the
city of Izyum, close to 10.000 Russian forces are close to being encircled. I
knew something would happen here, but even I’m surprised by the surprise and
efficiency of the regenerated Ukrainian army.
So what
happened here and why can Ukraine break through the Russian lines so easily?
1. First of all: the Russians took the
bait. For weeks the Ukrainians flooded social media and the news that Kherson
would be place of their long awaited offensive. The Russians brought their remaining
first line troops (airborne VDV) all to Kherson. After the Russians moved these
troops, the Ukrainians demolished the bridges over the Dnipro river. This means
that Russia’s best troops are now trapped on the West bank of the Dnipro river
with no way out other than swimming and leaving their equipment behind. That these
troops actually have some capabilities can be derived from the fact that the
Russian advance in Kherson is slow. Fighting will be hard here for Ukraine but
eventually those good quality troops will run out of supplies. What’s left
behind in Kharkiv oblast are Rosgvardia (national guard) troops, normal motorized
rifle battalions and Luhansk People’s Republic troops (the last category has a
fair share of forced conscription, which will now bite the Russians in the
tail).
2. Like I said in my previous blog,
there are strong signals and rumors, the Ukrainians rotated the territorial
defense forces that were used to slow down Russia’s advance in Donbass out in
exchange, for freshly equipped, NATO trained first line troops. I can now
confirm that this is one hundred percent the case. This is actual footage from
Ukraine’s lighting advance. What you see here is a NATO style combined arms assault.
Based on the Iraq and Israeli wars, armies with a Soviet doctrine doesn’t stand
a chance against this type of assault. If this is the norm for these newly
arrived troops, I would be very worried if I were the Russian ministry of
defense.
Where the Ukrainians
have now state of the art NATO trained troops and the territorial defense units
who delivered an incredible defense can now be rotated out, the Russian
soldiers are still the same as the ones who invaded 6,5 months ago. Morale is
at an absolute deep now.
According
to the first post battlefield reports, the Ukrainians started their assault west
of the town of Balakliia. The town was defended mostly by Rosgvardia units. The
only significant unit of them being two platoons of SOBR special forces. All
those forces were routed in less than two days by very accurate GMLRS fire and
155 NATO caliber artillery. You see the difference here: the Ukrainians don’t
have to level towns and cities with thousands of artillery shells and rockets
for weeks to take it. They strike high value targets with high precision and
the lines collapse. So what’s the aim of the offensive. This is nothing short
of complete annihilation of the Russian army in Ukraine. Let me tell you why.
There’s an important similarity with the much slower going Kherson offensive:
Ukraine goes for the Russian logistical hubs. Instead of slowly advancing, the
Ukrainians went straight for Kupyansk. This is the single most important logistical
hub for all Russian forces in the eastern theatre. All major roads and railways
are going through this town. At the moment of writing the Ukrainians army is
confirmed to be on the southern outskirts of Kupyansk.
This is catastrophic
for the Russians for three reasons:
1. In case the Ukrainians take Kupyansk
(and they will), all logistics for the army units fighting in Donbass will be
in jeopardy.
2. The remaining smaller supply routes coming
from the East in Luhansk will be under Ukrainian army fire control
3. The Russian army group in Izyum will
be completely surrounded and cut off. According to unconfirmed information this
is already the case. We are talking about the potential loss of 10.000 soldiers
in addition to the 25.000 on the West bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson. I
have been reading Russian Telegram groups for the past four days and the general
mood in those groups is like “Blyat, were’re fucked.” On Telegram the Russians are
no longer in the coping mode when discussing their losses. They are openly
discussing and admitting it. However, I doubt Putin is watching Telegram.
I suspect
that the four days lighting advance in Kharkiv oblast has cost the Russians
thousands of casualties (KIA, WIA and POW) and hundreds of pieces of equipment.
I know the blog of OryxSpioenkop is already busy with the tally. It’s already confirmed
the Russians lost entire batteries of Msta-S howitzers and captured huge
stockpiles of much needed ammunition in the town of Verbivka.
There are
signs that there are more holes in the Donbass frontline. Four days ago, the
Ukrainians also crossed the Siverskyi Donets river in Donetsk oblast and retook
the small town of Ozerne. What’s interesting is that when the Ukrainians crossed
the river there was not a single sign of Russian forces or fortifications.
The Russian
usually react to Ukrainian offensives in other areas by abruptly sending
reinforcements from other fronts to where the Ukrainians attack, not caring at
all about their flanks. The assault on Ozerne to place before the Kharkiv
offensive. I think we will see similar breakthroughs in northern Luhansk soon.
So what can
Russia do? Well not much to be honest. They post video’s about bringing in
their reinforcements, but they show the same vehicles three times in the video
and what’s being shown is old junk anyway.
Or they make
an “impressive” propaganda clip where reinforcements arrive via massive MI-26
helicopters.
The truth
can be found on the ground. Of the positions that the Ukrainian army took over,
I get the impression there’s no discipline from officers and there’re no
operational standards and procedures.
What I can’t
get my head around is that while their whole front is collapsing and any army
command would start thinking about evacuation/contingency options right now, Russia
keeps assaulting the town of Bahmut in Donetsk oblast. They have been assaulting
this town for months now, led by the Wagner mercenary group, resulting in only
a couple of hundred meters of gains in terrain. Russia in that sector should
focus on keeping the gains that it has made so far as opposed to sending more men
to the meatgrinder. I said it before, but every time I say it even more convincingly:
Russia is indeed f****d. Ukraine regained 2000 km2 in 6 days where it took
Russia 3 months to gain 750 km2 for the loss of tens of thousands of soldiers
and billions worth of equipment. But I still believe that Putin thinks he’s
making progress. This is illustrated by the fact that he set the completely
unrealistic goal of conquering all of Donbass by September 15.
So what’s
on the roadmap for Ukraine? Well, I’m even more convinced that the ultimate
target of this operation is the liberation of Crimea and the destruction of as
much of the Russian army as possible. I think the pre-february 24th
frontline is simply too heavily defended to spend resources on. But by striking
the logistical centers in Kherson and Kupyansk, two out of three targets on my
target list are under Ukrainian army attack. If the Ukrainians strike and conquer
the third target that’s on my list, the logistical centres of Melitopol and
Tokmak, Russia’s army in Ukraine will completely collapse. An assault on Crimea
will be very much do-able then.
I’m still
not convinced that Ukraine has sufficient resources on the Zaporizhzhia to
launch ground assaults on Melitopol and Tokmak, but they managed to surprise is
before. More and more I see that the end is coming closer. If Ukraine has
sufficient resources on the Zaporizhzhia front, I think it’s doable to conquer Crimea
by December. In case Russia still doesn’t give in, Q1 2023 seems realistic to
launch a final assault on what’s left of Russian occupied Donbass.
Слава
Україні!
Niels
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