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Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Sept 7, 2022
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)

War in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2QApi8G2TKc8NZmeDWSUg/videos

Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).

(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)

••denotes transcribed dialogue.

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Extra:
Ukraine Situation Report: Russian Forces Being ‘Chipped Away’ Along Multiple Fronts
Ukrainian and U.S. officials report “good news” from Ukrainian forces’ actions against Russian occupiers along multiple fronts.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-russian-forces-being-chipped-away-along-multiple-fronts

How The U.S. Rushed Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles To Ukraine (Updated)
A Pentagon official explained how the U.S. helped turn ship-based Harpoons into truck-based weapons used by Ukraine to sink two Russian ships.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/how-the-u-s-rushed-harpoon-anti-ship-missiles-to-ukraine

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••Economic Update:
There is economic paralysis, economic heart attack that’s spreading through European industry.

What’s being stopped are steel plants affected by high energy prices and natural gas prices; the the most affected company is ArcelorMital with 7 plants shut, plus 6 other steel companies in Europe.

This will trickle down through the supply chain, and will turn into shortage or steel. Then it will effect the car industry and so on.

There is no policy change in Europe, things are getting worse. There is no light at the end of the tunnel in Europe; and in addition, we have some information on food security situation.

••Food Supply:
The Canadian stocks of grains are down 38% relative to where they were year ago this time. Canada is one of the biggest exporter of wheat and all of the grains; so there’s again another major problem brewing in terms of another supplier doesn’t have enough. There is also reports that yields in the US are down significantly also.

The situation is really deteriorating further and as the situation in Ukraine and Russia become more and more economically unfavorable for the farmers. For some farmers it is too generic of a name, because in Ukraine and Russia they are an industrial operation run by by companies.

If they don’t have an economic incentive to produce, they will reduce investment, because they need to invest for the next year. Probably in a month’s time or less even when they they will need to start planting seeds for winter crops for the next year, and given this whole situation, most of them probably will opt out from investing money into the seeds and planting and just will try to do bare minimum.

Unless there are drastic changes in relatively soon, we probably will see pretty acute food shortages.

••Military Update:
Balakliya area:
Russian perspective:

first of all the Russian command is facing two crises at the same time, and while Kherson was pretty bad, it was a slow motion disaster in development; we estimate its probably going to take another few months before Russian troops will be forced to evacuate Kherson bridgehead.

The crisis near Balakliya and more related actually coupons can assume that’s probably a better way to describe; it is developing pretty quickly. If things will go the way they are going, we will see crisis in a day or two where Russian troops will be in an extremely difficult position.

It’s very clear there is not enough not enough Russian troops on the front line, specifically infantry, and Russian leadership and most of political leadership, not military leadership,, because we’re pretty sure that they they realize the situation, but they limited by the political situation, the political leadership. They are facing critical point where they either need to double down and do some kind of mobilization, or they will need to seek negotiation and and peace.

The problem with the peace part of it is that means Russia needs to return all of the Ukrainian territories including Crimea; and that will be probably very humiliating and may destabilize internal power structure in Russia. So that option probably is unacceptable for rational political leadership at least for now, unless until things get even more worse.

The remaining option is doubling down.
Maybe temporarily what Russian side can do is to attack the bridges across the Dnipro River, destroying those bridges and mass everywhere a long entire river. We don’t know at this point if they have enough rockets, if they have capability to do that all of these bridges. But that’s really the only option that’s available that we can see that’s not mobilization, not using some tactical nuclear weapons, and not going into peace negotiations.

That’s the only option because that will really create huge challenges for Ukrainian command, Ukrainian economy. This will really kick it down to like new level of downward spiral for Ukraine, and that probably will stop the advance from the Balakliya area.

Ukrainian command will hold everything there and probably will even make it possible to capture the remaining parts part of the of the Donets region; we still think that Russian troops regardless, will lose Kherson bridgehead no matter what.

The Russians cannot do anything unless they use nuclear weapons. This is the the moment where they need the Russian leadership; they need to do something because otherwise, if they continue “put hat into the ground”. Things will simply start to fall apart, which looks like they are already near Balakliya where there is a serious crisis. It looks like a disorderly disorganized retreat by Russian troops there.

Ukrainian Perspective:
The situation is okay for now, as long as Ukraine receives HIMARS rockets this will continue and this there is no problem from the long-term perspective.

Ukraine has a big problem because the way it fights is a super inefficient, maybe with exception of this attack near Balakliya. It simply cannot afford to lose as many people as it has been losing, until this Balakliya attack which definitely is much better carried out, much better organized and things are done in many ways much more intelligently.

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Summary:
Major Ukrainian offensive on Kherson bridgehead
Day 10 of the offensive
Ukrainian advances on the Kherson bridgehead stalled
Ukrainian command launched offensive with ultimate objective - Kupyansk (Kup’yars’k)
Day 2 of the offensive

Key areas:
- Balakliya area:
Ukrainian troops advanced past Sheychenkove on the P-30 road to Kup’yars’k.
The change in the Ukrainian troops strategy is to by-pass Russian strongholds (Balakliya and Shevchenkove) and continue moving to the end objective.

- Izyum bridgehead: no changes
- North Donbass area: no changes
- Donetsk West: no changes.
- Kherson bridgehead:
Ukrainian troops liberated village Novovoznesenske on the northern section of the Kherson bridgehead.

1. Kharkiv:
Situation east of Kharkiv is more or less stable; some small Russian pressure, but as we mentioned many times before these attacks are less than company size; this is trying to to preserve the buffer here.

Balakliya - Izyum -Kup’yars’k area
This attack is is really similar to is to German defeat in Stalingrad in November of 1942: points out and explains what happened at that time in the batle between the Soviets and the Germans. Today, it’s very similar situation but slightly diffrent geographically. The idea is the same.

Russian command pooled all of all of its most capable troops and created the same tip of the iceberg here on the Izyum bridgehead. Many of those troops are actually used up there, so they were in weakened condition as well as were the German troops at Stalingrad.

There are like two flanks: Ukraine command did not touch the southwestern flank on the Donets front, because there are strong Russian troops there. The attack was essentially directed towards Kup’yars’k which is a large logistical hub to supply all of the Izyum group. If this falls, there is going to be a disorderly collapse.

Pretty sure that some of the Russian troops will escape, there is no question about it. There are 3 bridges there’s bridge here. Some of them will probably will be destroyed by HIMARS, especially the ones at either end of the nearby artificial lake. It’s not that easy to cross; if Ukraine troops approach or even they close, they don’t even need to really capture Kup’yars’k is as long as they are within let’s say 10 kilometers of it, that’s good enough to completely paralyze.

The relatively large number of troops on the south side of the Silverski Donets River will have an exit too small to for all of them to exit successfully; so some of them will get lost here and more. What will happen is the infantry somehow will be able to escape, let’s say most of it majority of it, let’s say 80%, but pretty much all of the heavy equipment will be abandoned: specifically cannons, tanks or all of the most valuable equipment will be abandoned.

This is exactly what happened on the small breachhead north of Husarivka on the south side of the river, because Ukrainian troops didn’t really attack the bridgehead. The Russian troops fled leaving all of the heavy equipment: 152mm howitzers; all of that was literally left there, literally everything. Something might happen here and the exit door over the Oskil River is open.

Hopefully, this explains a little bit of what’s going on in similarity, and maybe I want to highlight the similarities but all of this flank was basically manned with screening troops with 3rd-rated troops; mostly conscripts from Luhansk, militarized police - turns out that a lot of the military police didn’t even have anti-tank weapons. A lot of them actually don’t even know how to use automatic grenade launchers. They are truly not militarized police.

This is this paper thin flank where Ukrainian command hit and Ukrainian troops are actually moving mostly to towards Kup’yars’k because a lot of Russian sources say: Balakliya is still being held by Russian troops which is probably true, but the whole point is there nothing there.

•••The whole point is Kup’yars’k is the logistical center supplying the Russian Izyum group, and because that’s the biggest prize; to destroy it, really puts Russian army out of action, and we cannot say the war is over, but for the most part Russian troops probably will need to retreat from Ukraine.•••

Maybe they will stay in Crimea and will try to defend it. But for the most part, what was gained since February 24th will be lost, if this succeeds here because the next point where from which Russian troops can’t supply themselves on Izyum is Starobil’s’k. Which is a much, much longer road, and because the road needs to go back to Russia, you have a much, much longer logistical lag which will require more trucks, more everything, essentially. That’s going to be much more expensive. Also very interesting to observe inside of this Russian community they start blaming this General A or General B or C looking for scapegoats.

Another analogy with the German-Soviet WWII situation and the similarity.

Tactical and Immediate Perspective:
There is a very high probability that the UA 92th, 25th, and 80th Bs are attacking: this is the main attacking force here; could be other brigades joining later because it’s very clear that Ukrainian command will need more resources to to finish the objective of Kup’yars’k.

The objective is not Balakliya. For that reason, Ukrainian troops are not assaulting Balakliya. They blocked it, from our understanding, the northern part, from the western, from south. The only escape route is towards the southeast here. We hear reports that this is also been cut off, so this situation is somewhat still unclear.

But the whole point is not to kept not to liberate Balakliya but actually hit here towards Kup’yars’k, and there are some relatively intelligent moves that being done by Ukrainian command here, where for once they do they try not to assault and and capture strongholds like Balakliya is good example - a similar situation is happening in Sheychenkove.

Russian command managed to scramble something, we don’t even know what it is, and threw them at Sheychenkove to stem the tide of advancing Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian forces blocked Sheychenkove and started bypassing it; started moving east. They are somewhere, we don’t know exactly where, somewhere east of Sheychenkove, not terribly far away because they spent time blocking it and and figuring out bypasses.

This is what’s happening and this is absolutely the right move; there’s no need to to capture this channel. The whole point is to quickly move as soon as possible to Kup’yars’k. It doesn’t look Russian command has many reserves. This was the only something that they scrambled here to throw in Sheychenkove, but they don’t even have enough reserves to relieve their troops in Balakliya which is still holding on there, thinking that they are doing great job defending in the world.

They could be sitting in the much larger pocket very soon.

Then there was some move towards southeast along the road towards Izyum, but this one is, in our opinion, more like a move to protect the flanks of the group that’s going through Sheychenkove and it’s directed towards Kup’yars’k. There is no need to south as this is not the goal. The objective is Kup’yars’k, and once this is cut off, this creates a domino effect.

The only escape routes is the bridges at Sen’kove, Brova, and Otskil. We don’t even know if those bridges are still operational, because when Ukrainian troops were retreating, they probably blew up some of them.

We don’t know if Russian troops actually managed to repair them, but regardless, this will be a big bottleneck to escape as that is the only escape route for those Russian troops here is Izyum and then the closest ones through a Otskil and the Brova bridge which is probably destroyed or it will be destroyed by HIMARS.

here and here so so that’s what we mean is the only realistic escape route is here and near a skill because the river here it’s much shallower that’s a skill river because it’s smaller river than civilization and severe schedule by itself is not really deep and wide river in the first place the the only negative it’s getting it’s starting to be cold so getting across the cold river will create another pose with another challenges and as we said this is too small of a door to smaller exit to for the all of the troops to be able to escape so this is the situation

The only potentially negative scenario for Ukrainian troops would be if they get stopped somewhere and this supply area functions and Russian troops can create the frontline facing north; then they can fight there and slowly move back. Another one is that Russian command will find some reserves that are fresh and they have some aces that they can throw on the battlefield.

In that case, it’s very dangerous for Ukrainian troops because this can easily turn into into potential disaster, if they are counter-attacked in a skillful way and by strong troops, fresh troops. They themselves can be become a trapped in this whole area - so far everything is going in a favorable direction for Ukrainian troops.

The Ukrainian troops hit an empty area where Russian command doesn’t have much anything. That’s why on the 2nd day there is nothing, no meaningful reserves, no meaningful counter attacks, no nothing. This is essentially a forward move of Ukrainian troops and pretty quick one.

So far it looks pretty pretty dangerous for the Russian side; Ukraine troops captured a column now there are POWs and this this really means that there is quite a bit of disorganization borderline panic on the Russian side. So remains to be seen if they managed to regain control of the south, but so far chances are not great.

2. Izyum bridgehead: No changes.

3. North Donbas: No changes.

4. West of Donetsk: No changes.

5. Vugledar - Velyka Novosilka, Gulyapole: No changes.

6. Kherson bridgehead:
The high level Ukrainian command continues attacks using HIMARS; all of the bridges are at this point not usable - they’re not fully destroyed, but they are in condition where they are not usable. Russian troops are trying to use fairies whic hastoo little throughput; it’s like a bottleneck creating an creating artificial bottleneck.

Then there are problems: there was video floating around clearly showing that even those ferries are being destroyed and attacked by the HIMARS so even that is being destroyed. This situation of the Russian troops on the Kherson bridgeheand is, I would say, disastrous - but it’s gonna be a drawn out disaster that will be happening over next let’s say 30 days.

I just want to mention and compare and contrast situation of Balakliya and here in the Kherson bridgehead.

The difference here is that Ukrainian troops attacked one of the more motivated Russian unit, an airborne unit. They having hard time advancing, but they still do and the casualties are high. In general during attack offensive, you have high level of casualties - this is how it is.

If we compare the attack here with the Balakliya area, casualties are extremely low to almost non-existent. This goes back to the idea that the area of attack was was skillfully picked. It also leads to low extremely low casualties so far.

Ukrainian troops essentially not losing anything there, and the continued fighting power os like a snowball: not getting smaller, and it can continue moving forward, hitting the next areas with the same strength, versus here on Kherson bridgehead, where the Ukrainian brigades ran out of steam. That doesn’t mean that this whole offensive stops, its is gonna be very slow, slow motion train wreck for Russian troops.

Ukrainian troops managed to build the bridgehead between Davydiv Brid and Sneharivka. They will simply, once they get refreshed, probably will take another whatever five days a week, they will continue putting pressure on Russian troops.

This is always a no-brainer, at the same time they are still trying to put pressure in the north. The situation on their western section is more or less stable, and it makes sense because these troops here are even more trapped.

Nova Kahovka:
The platoon bridges are functioning. This is supplying the northern and eastern Russian groups as opposed to this western group. so so this one is several like we’ll be taking care of by actually destroying this Russian group.

The bridgehead around the village of Sukhistawak:
Ukrainian troops still holding on. Russian troops just simply don’t have enough artillery ammunition to basically destroy this bridgehead. At this point they definitely don’t have enough infantry, they never had it in the first place. What they were relying on is artillery, and now that’s being taken away from them.

The situation in the north, here Ukraine troops continue slowly moving; there are reports that they captured the village Nova Voshen’ski.

Little by little, they will be slowly pushing out Russian troops, but as we mentioned before, there is no decisive penetration, no decisive momentum that was created on the Kherson Bridgehead relative as opposed to Balakliya situation where there is a very clear breach, deep penetration, deep breach of Russian defensive positions, and really your traditional offensive that potentially could lead to a very big results.