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Ukraine Invasion Day 202: the frontline moves back like the betrayal myth,"Dolchstosslegende" [1]
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Date: 2022-09-12
In the last five days, Ukraine has recaptured more territory than Russia has taken since April, according to the Institute for the Study of War, which closely tracks the conflict.
https://t.co/BFIwJmmaDs pic.twitter.com/FrEk1o80L2
Do the claims of Russian ‘milibloggers’, those frontline social media informants, resemble the German Dolchstoßlegende , the stab-in-the-back myth, a widespread historical myth in right-wing circles in Germany after 1918, that Germany's armies did not lose World War I on the battlefield but were betrayed by civilian leaders [coined c. 1918-1921]. The search for scapegoats could be starting.
Russian soldiers 'literally running' for their lives as chain of command collapses. Ukraine intelligence unit fighters tell @Telegraph they are struggling to deal with the mountains of equipment left behind after rout. A thread
https://t.co/l2tdQ3fTVx
“I heard them asking what were the white crosses on the vehicles. Then I heard them die in real time, while I was listening,” he said
He said that Russian soldiers and fighters from the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions had fled in a rout
“I saw small units of up to five of our guys on foot who were destroying huge numbers or Russian vehicles – three tanks at one time,” he added.
“It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said
Having slept little since the operation, and with blue tape still tied around the sleeves of his uniform to identify him as a Ukrainian soldier, Birdie was upbeat describing the counter-offensive.
This gives it greater flexibility than other military units to discuss an ongoing counter-offensive that remains under a media blackout
A volunteer unit formed on the day of Russia’s invasion on February 24, Kraken operates in a grey zone separate from Ukraine's armed forces but answering to their defence ministry
In one intercepted communication, a commander with the callsign Birdie described hearing a Russian tank unit desperately asking what had happened to their command.
A drone operator returning from the front line on Sunday also told The Telegraph that the speed of the offensive had even taken their own army by surprise, with troops struggling to recover the mountains of Russian ammunition and armoured vehicles left behind
They report that many of the soldiers have changed into civilian clothes to avoid detection
A Ukrainian intelligence unit on the front line said the Russian chain of command was broken and soldiers were fleeing without putting up a fight
Still, Russian state media are putting a brave face on things. Officially, what happened in Kharkiv region isn't being referred to here as a "retreat".
For "liberated", read "seized". Moscow had occupied those areas months ago, but after a lightning counter-offensive by the Ukrainian army, the Russian military has lost considerable territory in north-east Ukraine.
"It was particularly tough along the Kharkiv front, where following an onslaught by enemy forces that outnumbered ours, [Russian] troops were forced to leave towns they had previously liberated."
"On the frontlines of the special operation [in Ukraine], this has been the toughest week so far," declared sombre-looking anchor Dmitry Kiselev.
Russian forces are failing to reinforce the new frontline following Ukrainian gains in eastern Kharkiv Oblast and are actively fleeing the area or redeploying to other axes. Ukrainian sources claimed that all Russian forces have left Svatove, Luhansk Oblast (about 45km east of current Ukrainian positions along the Oskil River), and that only militia elements of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR)—possibly locals—remain in Svatove. [xi] Social media footage shows lines of cars stretching for kilometers near Schastia and Stanysia Luhanska, which are both along the border of long-held LNR territory and close to the Russian border. [xii] Russian forces and pro-Russian collaborators are likely experiencing the psychological pressure of rapid Ukrainian gains and seek to remove themselves from settlements near the new frontline that they perceive as vulnerable to Ukrainian advances. Certain proxy forces are also reportedly already redeploying from Kharkiv Oblast to southwestern Donetsk Oblast, indicating that the Russian command is not prioritizing reinforcing vulnerable positions east of the Oskil River. [xiii]
Russian sources claimed that the front has largely stabilized at the Oskil River, which runs just west of the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border. [viii] Russian milbloggers reported that Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting around Lyman, but that Lyman remains under the control of Russian and proxy forces. [ix] Some Russian sources also voiced concerns that Ukrainian troops are trying to cross the Siverskyi Donets River around Zakitne (about 15km southeast of Lyman) to take back Yampil. [x] Russian sources are seemingly focused on the Lyman-Yampil line as the next potential target for Ukrainian advances.
Ukrainian forces continued to consolidate gains in eastern Kharkiv Oblast on September 12. The Kharkiv Oblast detachment of Ukrainian Azov Regiment Special Forces stated that Ukrainian troops have taken control of the entire northeastern part of Kharkiv Oblast along the Vesele-Vovchansk line. [iv] Ukrainian sources confirmed that Ukrainian troops have retaken Dvorchina (100km east of Kharkiv City) and Ternova (30km northeast of Kharkiv City), demonstrating the range of the Ukrainian advance in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast. [v] Ukraine’s Airborne Assault Command also claimed that Ukrainian paratroopers took control of Bohorodychne, a small settlement in northwestern Donetsk Oblast directly along the southeastern Kharkiv Oblast border. [vi] Geolocated imagery additionally shows that Ukrainian troops have taken full control of Sviatohirsk, 3km due east of Bohorodychne. [vii]
The rashists shelled military and civilian infrastructure in the areas of Vesele, Mykolayivka Druha, Zaytseve, Soledar, Bakhmuts'ke, Bakhmut and Rozdolivka. –General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operational information at 18:00 on 12 September 2022 pic.twitter.com/6cHkyAWV4O
But the situation has other dynamics, too. As Ukrainian forces simultaneously ran offensives in the southern Kherson region and up north around Kharkiv, Russian forces were forced to make choices about where to expend resources, the senior U.S. military official said.
“The Russian military was riven with all kinds of weaknesses that were not apparent to the leadership, and probably should have been,” the senior U.S. defense official said.
Why did Russian forces fail so quickly in northeastern Ukraine? A senior U.S. defense official said it was “a matter of time” before well-documented Russian failures to organize, equip and sustain its forces also showed up there. They were consequential in the Battle of Kyiv.
“Speculating on how far they will go, or what their plans are, that’s really something for them to talk about,” a senior U.S. military official said today of the offensive Ukrainian forces have planned.
“Speculating on how far they will go, or what their plans are, that’s really something for them to talk about,” a senior U.S. military official said today of the offensive Ukrainian forces have planned.
Up front: Pentagon officials acknowledge that Ukrainian forces have pushed deep into the Kharkiv region in recent days. But they are being very vague about it, citing operational security.
The Pentagon held another backgrounder today about the war in Ukraine. Given the quick-changing dynamics and array of Ukrainian success in recent days, a thread today on what is Day 201 since Russian’s invasion:
The liberation of the north of Luhansk region has begun. Ukrainian defenders retook Bilohorivka and crossed the Siverskyi Donets River. An offensive is developing to flank Russian forces. The undefended P-66 highway is key. Most Russian forces abandoned Svatove and Starobil's'k. pic.twitter.com/ZYBOZ5fRhQ
The success of recent Ukrainian counteroffensive operations may be impacting the will or ability of the Russian military command to use newly formed volunteer units in Ukraine in a timely fashion. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian military command has suspended sending new, already-formed units to Ukraine due to recent Russian losses and widespread distrust of the Russian military command, factors which have caused a large number of volunteers to categorically refuse to participate in combat. [iii] This assessment is still unconfirmed, but low morale due to Ukrainian counteroffensive success may prove devastating to the Kremlin’s already-poor ability to generate meaningful combat capability. The deployment of these newly formed units to reinforce defensive lines against Ukrainian counteroffensives would be an operationally-sound decision on the part of Russian military leadership; and the delay or potential suspension of these deployments will afford Ukrainian troops time to consolidate and then resume the offensive, should they choose to do so, without having to face newly arrived and fresh (albeit undertrained and understrength) units.
“The Ukrainians’ war effort is obvious, it’s understandable, whereas on the Russian side, it was always a question of: What is Russia doing?” Mr. Lee said in a phone interview. “The goals aren’t clear, and how they achieve those goals isn’t clear. If you’re fighting a war and you’re not sure what the ultimate goal is, you’re going to be quite frustrated about that.”
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops retook a wide swath of territory from Russia on Monday, pushing all the way back to the northeastern border in some places, and claimed to have captured many Russian soldiers as part of a lightning advance that forced Moscow to make a hasty retreat.
A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian troops were surrendering en masse as “they understand the hopelessness of their situation.” A Ukrainian presidential adviser said there were so many POWs that the country was running out of space to accommodate them.
As blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags fluttered over newly liberated towns, the Ukrainian military said it had freed more than 20 settlements in 24 hours. In recent days, Kyiv’s forces have captured territory at least twice the size of greater London, according to the British Defense Ministry.
After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, the momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked rare public criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.
“In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation,” said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region. Over the weekend, the Russian Defense Ministry said troops would be pulled from two areas in that region to regroup in the eastern region of Donetsk.
apnews.com/...
x Newest piece for @TheAtlantic, how the Ukrainian triumph in Kharkiv was anything but sudden and what it means about how Ukraine is waging this war (very intelligently).
https://t.co/hheJGLN7xq — Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) September 12, 2022
Only a week ago, the most important engagement for Ukraine appeared to be the battle for Kherson. For months, President Volodymyr Zelensky, his senior aides, and other Ukrainian sources had publicly proclaimed the goal of liberating the politically and strategically important southern city and the rest of the Russian-controlled territory on the west bank of the Dnipro River. Not only did the Ukrainians discuss the upcoming campaign, but they took all the necessary preparatory steps. They used their most effective long-range weaponry, including the American-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, to destroy bridges, ammunition depots, and other targets up and down the Russian lines near Kherson. These logistical attacks suggested that the Ukrainians would focus on this area for the rest of the summer.
[...]
Ukraine’s restraint in Kherson now looks like a tactical decision. As Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov admitted Saturday, Ukraine’s generals had been planning to launch two campaigns simultaneously. If the Kherson offensive was designed to grind down Russian forces by drawing them in and then confronting them head-on, the Kharkiv Oblast offensive had greater territorial ambitions. Ukraine hoped to retake the city of Kupyansk. The Russians were using this road-and-rail hub to get supplies to Izium, a base for their operations in the Donbas.
In retrospect, both offensives were possible only because of a ghastly summer of attritional warfare in that region. Since April the Ukrainians have suffered horrifying losses in that region but have inflicted even larger ones on the enemy. So the Russian army has been trying to hold a large and geographically unwieldy slice of Ukraine even as its own numbers decline. Ukraine, which has been conscripting soldiers since Putin started this war, has amassed an army larger than the Russian invasion force. Russian officials, meanwhile, are terrified of upsetting their populace and have avoided conscription—to the point of deploying mercenaries and sourcing soldiers from prisons and mental hospitals. So when Putin took the Ukrainians’ bait in Kherson, a shrinking Russian army moved forces away from the area that Ukraine wanted to attack and toward an area where Ukraine was waging a war of attrition.
The Ukrainians wrote a script, and the Russians played their assigned role. Unlike Kherson, where the invaders had massed forces and set up a multilayered defense, Kharkiv Oblast was thinly protected by the Russian forces. The Ukrainians were thus easily able to break Russian lines, which seem to have been held by poorly motivated and trained forces, and streak deep behind them. To give their forces the best chance to succeed, the Ukrainians also seem to have built up a substantial, fast-moving strike force. Without allowing details of their preparations to leak out—Ukrainian sources have disclosed little if any information valuable to Russia—they seem to have constructed a number of specialized combat brigades with lighter, faster wheeled vehicles. This has allowed them a crucial mobility advantage over their enemy.
Though the war is far from over and Russia can find new ways to punish Ukraine, collapsing Russian forces have not only been pushed back; in abandoning their former headquarters in Izium, they also left behind large stores of equipment and ammunition that the Ukrainians can now use against them. Even if the Russians stabilize the line in the coming days, they will be in a far worse position than they were on September 1. Building on months of careful efforts to both prepare Ukrainian forces and waste Russian ones, Ukraine has achieved a strategic masterstroke that military scholars will study for decades to come.
www.theatlantic.com/...
x I mean, Russian telegram channels were warning about a buildup in Kharkiv for over a month, including several who specifically warned about Ukrainian forces in Balakliya a week prior.
https://t.co/NUrUUaEG2G — Rob Lee (@RALee85) September 12, 2022
x Ukraine drove Russian forces back with a stunning offensive. What now for Putin's war?
https://t.co/uLBpSkplTz — LeRoy Rozell (@LeRoyRozell) September 12, 2022
x Ukraine Claims Russian Military Has Stopped Sending New Units
https://t.co/6NZ7q7bPwP via @thedailybeast — Tom Williams (@tommyboy0690) September 12, 2022
x Ukraine’s rapid offensive in the northeast has recaptured far more territory than it had expected and it needs to consolidate those gains, the country’s defense minister said.
https://t.co/5t89BY7pMy — New York Times World (@nytimesworld) September 12, 2022
x IZIUM/1430 UT 12 SEP/ Updated reports indicate that disorganized RU units are attempting to regroup around the village of Oskil. The bridge at that place has been interdicted. UKR maneuver elements will likely encircle these RU remnants by seizing the 0-211437 road behind them. pic.twitter.com/HiorFwb4mV — Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) September 12, 2022
x #Ukraine Keeps Up Blitz In #Kharkiv Region >> Ukraine gained more ground in the past 24 hours, advancing into 20 more towns and villages that #Russia had occupied, and setting a new frontline farther east
https://t.co/bEbOVCPt2f — 🇺🇦Paula Chertok🗽🇺🇦 (@PaulaChertok) September 12, 2022
Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive is continuing to have significant impacts on Russian morale and military capabilities in southern Ukraine. Satellite imagery of known Russian positions in Kyselivka, 15km northwest of Kherson City, shows that all but four Russian vehicles have departed from previous forward positions, consistent with rumors that Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) troops have abandoned Kyselivka and moved back towards the Dnipro River.[i] Kyselivka is an operationally significant location for Russian forces around Kherson City because it is the last major settlement along both the E58 highway and a railway line between current Ukrainian positions and Chornobaivka, the outermost part of Kherson City. The apparent withdrawal of Russian troops from this position may compromise the Russians’ ability to defend the northwestern outskirts of Kherson City and suggests that Russian troops in this area perceive an imminent threat to their positions. Spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command, Natalya Humenyuk, stated on September 12 that Russian forces located along the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast are attempting to negotiate for surrender under the auspices of international law.[ii] Ukrainian operations in Kharkiv Oblast are unlikely to have had such a dramatic psychological effect on Russian troops this far south, and both the withdrawal of troops from forward positions in Kyselivka and reports of surrender negotiations are indicators that Ukrainian counteroffensives in the south are progressing in a significant way, even if visibility on this axis is limited by the shift in focus to Kharkiv.
www.criticalthreats.org/...
x The Ukrainian air force struck two enemy forces in the Novopetrivka area of Kherson region.
To dispel rashist propaganda about restoring the river crossings, Ukrainian artillery fired on the bridge at Antonivka again.
–Operational Command "South", UA Armed Forces, Sep 12
2/2 pic.twitter.com/eOkPpKwnww — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) September 12, 2022
x Spokesperson of Operation Command South confirmed 5 settlements and 500 km2 liberated in Kherson region in last 2 weeks: Vysokopillia, Novovoznesenske, Bilohirka, Myrolyubivka and Sukhyi Stavok
https://t.co/1q2EpValoz #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/vfr7HVenFY — Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) September 12, 2022
x Meanwhile on Russian state TV: top propagandists urge a total blackout of Ukraine, with no electricity or running water. They argue that those whom they consider "their people" can be fed and warmed up later and the rest are "serving the U.S." to bring about Russia's destruction. pic.twitter.com/v0Ay6LBuCq — Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 12, 2022
x "...by creating a fantasy world in which a supposedly all-powerful Russian army is being defeated by domestic enemies...the movement has potentially disturbing implications for a postwar and possibly post-Putin Russia."--> — Wintermute (@Dr_Wintermute) September 12, 2022
x The Biden administration has reportedly declined to provide such weapons to Ukraine over concerns they could be used to strike Russian territory. — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 12, 2022
[END]
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