Russia Routed in Kharkiv Counteroffensive

Big developments overnight in Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, and the only way to describe it is: A rout.

One Russian-held city after another has fallen and Ukraine has recaptured a reported 3,000 square kilometers of occupied territory in the last week, most of it in the last 72 hours.

With last night’s capture of Kupyansk, what started as a series of bearable defeats for Russia almost inevitably became a rout. Kupyansk was Moscow’s big logistical hub in the Kharkiv region, sitting across vital road and rail lines. The city fell with remarkable speed.

More:

A local Moscow-backed official and pro-Russian military bloggers said Saturday that Moscow’s forces had pulled out of Izyum, a staging post for the campaign in Donbas, to avoid being encircled.

The claims are difficult to verify and the situation is moving quickly, but information from both sides point to rapid advances by Kyiv’s troops.

Had the troops in Izyum waited much longer, they’d have been cut off and captured as Ukraine’s armored spearheads moved around and behind the city — some ever further east, towards Lyman.

P.S. I told you that missiles hadn’t made tanks obsolete.

Multiple sources, including 🇷🇺military bloggers, report that the #UkrainianArmy has already liberated two 🇷🇺strongholds on the occupied territories of eastern #Ukraine, namely #Izyum (#Kharkiv region) and Lyman (Donets'k region).

Waiting for the official confirmation. pic.twitter.com/KBgYB8gJ4I

— BREAKING NEWS: UKRAINE (@MrFukkew) September 10, 2022

There are a few reports that Lyman is already back in Ukrainian hands. If so, that means Kyiv has for the first time recaptured a major town in the strategic Donbas region. I’ve said for months that whether Kyiv could retake Russia’s stiffly held positions in Donbas would likely determine the outcome of this war. We might — might — be seeing that develop now.

But for the moment, the real action remains in Kharkiv.

The Kharkiv Counteroffensive started with a series of small, seemingly opportunistic attacks while the “real” counteroffensive continued to develop down south, towards Kherson.

Kyiv was somehow able to achieve operational-level surprise, sucker-punching Russia in the north (and even the east) while feinting to the south. The historical masters of deception were completely deceived. Books will be written about how Ukraine managed to pull that off.

Let’s talk a little about what it means to abandon so much territory so quickly: Chaos.

MORALE IS A FACTOR: The fast moving UKR Kharkiv offensive has routed RU troops– leaving the spoils to the victors. Here, a state of the art Russian 1L261 radar associated w/ a 1L260 Zoopark-1M counter-battery complex was captured after being abandoned intact by it’s RU crew. https://t.co/1LrLN9cYlz pic.twitter.com/3yBk5js127

— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) September 10, 2022

A swift advance like the one Ukraine just imposed on Russian forces will be very difficult for Moscow to recover from, in no small part because of the chaotic aftereffects.

There are fleeing civilians (Russian speakers and Ukrainian-speaking Russian sympathizers, mostly) clogging the roads that Russian troops would need to advance along. There are abandoned stores of ammunition, fuel, and spares that will need to be replenished — somewhere safer, further back in the rear. There are incoming reinforcements that have to be redirected, now that the units they were supposed to reinforce have been either surrounded, retreated, or are no longer fit for combat.

Ukrainians have reportedly captured large quantities of Russian materiel due to the speed of collapse of Russian defenses: artillery, tanks, IFVs, APCs, ammo dumps. And apparently thousands of POWs

Russia can ill afford to lose them https://t.co/wTPH1aNADn

— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) September 10, 2022

Everything in the Russia’s new forward area is just a hot mess, and it will take time to untangle.

That’s time Kyiv can use to consolidate their gains.

Or, Kyiv might decide to press their gains, to try and force a more complete disintegration of Russian military cohesion in Kharkiv and even Donbas. But offensive momentum can be difficult to maintain as rapidly-moving troops get ahead of their supplies and forward of friendly artillery fire.

Then again, sometimes you just have to follow CSA Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s advice and “Get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em.”

It’s been an exciting 48 hours. It’s going to be an exciting 48 more, I suspect.

Everything is fluid. Things might change quickly. I have the feeling I’ll be at my desk a lot the next couple of days — despite my lovely bride’s permanent injunction against me working weekends.

Already, Russia has apparently “decided” to abandon whatever they might still hold in Kharkiv and concentrate on Donbas.

Russian Ministry of Defense now states that Russian military grouping withdraw from Izyum-Balakliya direction to reenforce Donetsk direction

😅😅

— NOËL (@Noel_dotsol) September 10, 2022

This mini thread from Ian Bremmer provides some additional military and political perspective:

One last thought…

Don’t get too giddy. A sudden rout can cause even serious minds to ponder the once-unthinkable. There must be serious discussion right now in the Kremlin and in Russia’s various field headquarters over whether and how to use tactical nuclear weapons.

They’re in the frying pan right now. We might all end up in the fire.

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