Daniel Michaels and James Marson
Real Clear Defense, Sept. 12, 2022
“The breakthrough is being hailed by Western military analysts as a great tactical maneuver. On social media, scenes abounded of ecstatic liberated Ukrainians greeting their troops, who ripped down the trappings of Russia’s monthslong occupation including flags and propaganda posters.”
Ukraine seized the initiative in its war against Russia, claiming to have recaptured more than 1,000 square miles in the northeastern Kharkiv region over recent days as it handed Moscow one of its biggest setbacks since Russian troops invaded more than six months ago.
Ukraine’s military said Sunday it was recapturing villages in the area around Kupyansk and Izyum, two cities that Russian forces fled Saturday as Ukrainian troops advanced on them. Those two cities had been central to a key war goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin: to seize full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, together known as Donbas. Russian forces have used Izyum as a base to strike other towns in the area.
Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said the military had pushed Russian forces from around 1,150 square miles of territory—around the size of Rhode Island—to the east of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, since the start of September.
Now, Ukrainian commanders must decide how to exploit their battlefield success and prepare for Russia’s response.
Russia’s military said on Saturday that it was withdrawing from Kupyansk and Izyum, saying it was regrouping forces to defend Donetsk, which Moscow sent a covert proxy force to seize in 2014.
Even as Russian forces retrenched, they shelled parts of the Donetsk region they don’t control, killing 10 people in the city of Pokrovsk on Saturday, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.
North of Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces also appeared to be pushing toward the border with Russia. Vsevolod Kozhemiako, one of Ukraine’s leading businessmen turned commander, posted a video of himself near the border.
A battlefield map released by Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday appeared to indicate that Russian forces had vacated all northern parts of the Kharkiv region where Ukraine is continuing to press its counteroffensive and hasn’t claimed to have recaptured.
“These days, the Russian army is showing its best side—its back,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a statement on his Telegram channel.
The reversal came suddenly, following months of sputtering and ultimately stalled advances by the Russians behind withering artillery fire. After punching through a thinly defended Russian front line last week, Kyiv’s forces have raced forward, routing soldiers caught unprepared to fight. As panic spread in Russian-controlled settlements nearby, troops and occupants sympathetic to Moscow fled, in turn clearing a bigger path for advancing Ukrainian tanks and infantry.
The breakthrough is being hailed by Western military analysts as a great tactical maneuver. On social media, scenes abounded of ecstatic liberated Ukrainians greeting their troops, who ripped down the trappings of Russia’s monthslong occupation including flags and propaganda posters.
Ukraine’s speedy advance helps its cause on many fronts, starting with a morale swing in its favor. Energized, motivated advancing troops tend to fight better than demoralized, retreating defenders. The high-speed maneuver encircled potentially tens of thousands of Russian troops over recent days, Western analysts said.
The attack also appears to be bolstering Ukraine’s armories. Russian troops caught off guard abandoned ammunition and weapons from rifles to tanks and artillery pieces, according to images and reports on social media. They may also have left maps and documents that Ukrainian and Western intelligence analysts will mine for insights into Russia’s plans, tactics and weaknesses. After Russian forces retreated from around Kyiv earlier this year, abandoning camps and equipment, they left behind materials that proved valuable to Ukrainian analysts.
As Kyiv’s forces push east, more Russian targets will fall within range of Ukraine’s advanced Western rocket launchers, such as highly mobile Himars systems, which Kyiv didn’t have as it retreated earlier this year from the regions it is now retaking. Ukraine has used the precision munitions to destroy Russian supplies and air-defense systems, and the recent ground advances put more Russian-controlled territory within their range.
Outside Ukraine, its success in retaking within days territory that Russian forces spent weeks struggling to gain will strengthen Kyiv’s argument that it deserves armaments, funding and moral support from the West. Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly said his country can defeat and evict Russian forces, and now that idea appears less aspirational.
While Ukraine remains a long way from winning, its improved battlefield position strengthens its hand in any eventual peace negotiations with Russia.
Mr. Putin has yet to respond to Russia’s losses. Whether the defeats make him more or less threatening to Ukraine and the West remains an open question.
Over recent weeks he has increased economic pressure on Europe by cutting off already dwindling natural-gas flows through the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany and threatened to curtail grain exports from Ukraine.
“Western leaders in Europe have got to be able to say to their people: This is a miserable winter, but after this it gets easier,” said Michael Clarke, a professor of war studies at the University of Exeter in the U.K. “This is Putin’s last best shot, so if we can last out this winter and the Ukrainians look like they can kick the Russians out, things will turn against Putin.”
Ukrainian commanders now need to assess how hard to push ahead. Military history is littered with examples of armies that raced forward only to be blocked or repulsed. …Source