It took an elaborate deception for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to liberate most of the Kharkiv
region in a matter of days, something that took Russians “months” to capture in the
first place.
While NATO-supplied weapons combined with Ukrainians strong will to fight certainly
contributed to this massive success, it was also the Russian army’s stunning incompetence
that led to a humiliating defeat that was ironically celebrated with fireworks in Moscow.
Instead of building trenches, Russians were building Saunas.
Instead of fighting, they were fleeing.
Nobody was ready for this outcome.
Not even Ukrainians or NATO allies expected the Kharkiv front line to collapse so quickly.
Retreating from arguably their biggest loss in this war, they were agonized.
Acting out of spite, Russians resorted to a tactic that they had avoided up to this
point, which created one of the darkest moments for Ukrainians, but it’s Not What You Think
…
For months Ukrainian officials were talking about liberating the occupied southern region
which lies on the western bank of the Dnipro river.
The logic was simple.
Destroying the only three bridges across the Dnipro river, would entrap roughly 20,000
Russian soldiers on the west bank.
Once Ukrainians received sufficient numbers of American HIMARS artillery systems, they
started destroying the bridges.
Which by the way is no easy task.
Each time Russians would try to repair the bridges, HIMARS would hit them again.
Eventually, Russians gave up.
They started building pontoon bridges and using barges to transfer equipment across
the river.
Of course Ukrainians started targeting those too as HIMARS rockets have an accuracy of
about 6 feet.
Additionally Ukrainians kept adding pressure by constantly locating and destroying Russian
ammunition depots, command and control centers and front line positions throughout the region.
Currently, it is estimated that Russian forces can only transfer up to 20% of the supplies
needed to the western bank of Dnipro compared to what they could prior to the destruction
of the bridge.
All this mayhem made Russians very worried.
It is pivotal for them to hold on to the west bank of Dnipro because it serves as an important
bridgehead for any future westward offensive.
On August 29th, 2022, Ukrainians began their campaign of recapturing their lost territory
in the south.
As the fighting intensified for about a week, Russians didn't want to take any chances and
started sending reinforcements, which included the most elite airborne forces, known as “VDV”.
Of course this meant that by reinforcing the west side of Dnipro, other areas were weakened,
including the frontlines in the Kharkiv region.
Keep in mind that redeploying forces is no easy task.
It can take days.
Units must pack up first, travel hundreds of miles, cross the river and redeploy.
In an ingenious move, Ukrainians managed to lure the most mobile and capable Russian forces
into a trap, because once the Russian reinforcements crossed the Dnipro river to the other side,
they would never be able to redeploy in time to Kharkiv, where Ukrainians were planning
a devastating blow.
The thing is, Russians knew that something was brewing up near Kharkiv.
For weeks prior, information about massive Ukrainian military build-ups near Kharkiv
was circulated even by Russian telegram channels and military bloggers like Igor Strelkov.
But for one reason or another, nothing was done to prepare for a potential Ukrainian
counteroffensive near Kharkiv.
If anything, quite the opposite.
You see, some of the most capable Russian troops and equipment from the Kharkiv and
Izum-occupied territories were actually sent to attend the week-long Vostok 2022 military
exercise that kicked off at the beginning of September in Russia's far east and the
sea of Japan.
Normally tens of thousands of Russian troops would participate in joint exercises with
China, Mongolia and India.
But this year, according to British Defense Intelligence, only 15,000 Russian troops were
taking part in the exercises due to the war in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, it was quite a performance.
As the Russian army was putting on a show in front of President Putin and Defense Minister
Shoigu with Russian tanks demonstrating their abilities to cross rivers while submerged,
thousands of miles away, Russian soldiers were abandoning their tanks that had got stuck
in Ukrainian rivers!
With the highly capable and mobile infantry units of the VDV being sent to the southern
front, and other capable troops attending military exercises, the Russian forces in
the Kharkiv frontlines were spread very thin.
In fact they mostly consisted of “mobiki”.
“Mobiki” refers to soldiers who were mobilized in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic.
Both voluntarily and randomly pulled off the streets.
They are not a regular Russian army, and are extremely undertrained and under armed.
“Mobiki” are known to have tense relationships with the Russian Army that supplies them and
often view themselves as cannon fodder.
So not only are they inadequate, but also not the most motivated group of soldiers to
fight, although some of them are.
As it should be, nobody knew when the Kharkiv counteroffensive would begin besides top Ukrainian
and NATO officials.
All of a sudden, on September 6th, 2022, Russian telegram channels started exploding with messages
like “Balakliya is in hell” and that Ukrainians took over Verbivka, northwest of Balakliya.
But Ukrainian media and officials were still pretty quiet about all this, even though everyone
knew something was up.
What Ukrainian forces were trying to do was encircling Izum the same way Nazi Germany
did back in 1942 . The key was to rush in with speed and cause panic among Russian soldiers.
Instead of storming cities like Balakliya, which would dramatically slow down Ukrainian
forces dealing with Russian resistance, they bypassed them and encircled them, in many
cases by blowing bridges around these settlements.
Following Balakiya, Ukrainians moved north east to Volokhiv Yar, then Shevchenkove and
then Kupyansk.
Again, Ukrainians would encircle the settlements, then wait for reinforcements to arrive before
moving in.
The key was to not take cities, but to take over the supply routes.
As we know from early days of the war, Russian logistics is “crap”.
There’s just no other way of "Putin"g it!
There were two important steps that helped the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
First, a small reconnaissance team would scout the area for pockets of Russian resistance,
and relay the coordinates to artillery units which would immediately fire upon them.
And second, before Russians were able to re-organize themselves, Ukrainians threw all the reserves
from behind, somewhere between 3 to 8 times more troops than Russia had in the area, which
completely overwhelmed them, that's according to Russia.
Because Ukrainian officials claim that Ukrainian forces were outnumbered 2 to 1 by the Russian
defending forces.
Meanwhile Russian media was proclaiming that this was all a massive strategic plan to lure
Ukrainians in, to attack and destroy them!
Who knows, maybe it really was, but man did it backfire!
The next move was the highly mobile Ukrainian mechanized forces spreading to the south of
Kupyansk and taking over two key areas: Senkove and Horokhovatka.
Capturing these villages allowed Ukrainian forces to block two important supply routes
to Izum, which was left with one remaining supply route through Oskil.
Although the bridge in Oskil was already under constant Ukrainian artillery fire.
The encirclement of Izum was imminent.
Izum itself was a highly fortified stronghold with large stockpiles of ammunition, artillery
and command and control equipment.
Thousands of Russian soldiers were stationed at the city, including the Russian 1st Guards
Tank Regiment.
By the morning of September 9th, it became clear that Ukrainians had won Kupyansk and
there was no strategic plan to counter attack and destroy Ukrainian forces.
Panic set in throughout the Russian military, and you know it’s true because Russian media
was broadcasting that there was no panic!
Russian reserves arrived at Kupyansk just as quickly as they were destroyed, because
the reserves were thrown into the fight without much strategic thinking.
It was reported that at least part of the Russian forces already stationed in Kupyansk
refused to defend the city and simply fled.
Meanwhile in Izum, Russian forces were in grave danger.
There was only one supply route left through the town of Oskil.
If Izum was to be encircled, it would be a devastating blow to Russia.
As Ukrainian Armed Forces started advancing toward Izum, Oskil and Lyman from the south,
the Russians made the decision to withdraw.
There were fireworks as the Russian forces retreated from Izum … but that wasn't the
only fireworks!
Around the same time, President Putin was in Moscow, opening a new ferris wheel during
Moscow’s Annual city day celebration.
But let’s be real, canceling fireworks in Moscow would have been an admission of defeat.
Afterall, it took one month for Russians to capture Izum, and Ukrainians took it back
in three days.
As a result of the counteroffensive, Russia withdrew its forces from almost the entire
Kharkiv region due to the unexpected collapse of their entire Kharkiv front.
Ukrainians were able to liberate cities and villages in the region, some with, and some
without fighting.
In most places like Izum and Vovchansk, Russians simply left.
Ukrainians report that in the period of September 6th to 11th, Russians lost 2,850 troops and
590 pieces of equipment, with over 200 military vehicles being captured.
This is in addition to thousands of Russian soldiers who were captured.
Despite heavy losses, the Russian 1st Guards Tank Regiment stationed in Izum was able to
escape the encirclement.
This is partly because Ukrainians focused primarily on the City of Kupyansk in the north,
and didn’t transfer the forces needed to destroy the Russian forces leaving Izum, in
time.
Another reason was that Ukrainian forces south of Izum were unable to breach the front.
Currently there are two versions for the reason behind the defeat of the Russian Army in eastern
Ukraine.
Treason or incompetence.
Some say that someone “up high” in the military ranks decided to do nothing on purpose,
because they knew Ukrainians were building a big force near Kharkiv.
And by nothing, I mean, all they had to do was transfer some of the 1st Guards Tank Regiment
from Izum to Balakliya to defend against the counteroffensive, while realistically, that
transfer would not have been sufficient to stop the Ukrainian forces.
It would have just bought the Russians some time until reinforcements arrived.
Arguably, by not risking the 1st Guards Tank regiment to fight the counteroffensive, Russians
lost an entire area.
So what did the Russians do after this massive defeat?
They fired over $100 million dollars in the form of 12 missiles at 3 different power plants
in eastern Ukraine, causing a huge blackout that was experienced by half of the country.
By the morning, the power had been restored in some regions, but a few hours later, Russians
fired upon key electrical infrastructure again, causing more blackouts.
Russian telegram channels exploded with messages such as, “finally” and “keep going”.
The infamous Igor Strelkov, who among other crimes, was responsible for shooting down
the Malaysia Airlines flight 17, which killed all 298 people on board, responded by saying
that Russians should have attacked Ukrainian civil infrastructure from day one, and that
they should do it daily from now on.
Who knows, maybe they will.
Ukrainian officials are reporting that Russia has stopped sending any new units into Ukraine
since retreating from the Kharkiv region.
Reportedly, the units in Russia are refusing to join the war for three major reasons: They
don't trust their commanders, they have a large number of casualties, and they don't
understand the direction that this war is going.
This was probably the biggest Ukrainian victory in this war, so far.
Even bigger than when Russian forces fled Kiev, because in that instance, it was still
a Russian initiative.
President Putin decided to relocate his troops to fight somewhere else.
But this time, Ukrainian forces took the initiative, forcing Russians to retreat.
It seems like the Russian army is past its culmination.
They are demoralized, under-equipped and exhausted.
The question is, at this very point, if there is any real path to victory for Russia.