Posted on 09/08/2022 2:07:00 PM PDT by marcusmaximus
Ukrainian forces surprised occupying Russians with a one-two punch Thursday, pushing deep into enemy territory to open a second front in Kyiv’s counterattack.
Ukrainian authorities announced the liberation of 20 villages in the northeast, outside Kharkiv, as the military pushed for the occupied city of Izyum — all while continuing a fierce fight for Kherson in the south.
Oleksiy Hromov, a deputy chief with the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine, said Thursday that his nation’s forces — pushing toward the Donbas from Kharkiv — had penetrated more than 30 miles beyond Russia’s defensive line.
“Since the beginning of the week, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in cooperation with units of the National Guard and other security forces, have been conducting active operations in certain directions,” he said, according to Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform. “In the course of active operations in the Kharkiv direction, more than 20 settlements were liberated.”
Videos circulating on social media Thursday claimed to show Ukrainian troops lowering a Russian flag in Nova Husarivka, halfway between the front line and the city of Izyum, a major Russian staging ground.
The video followed reports from Russian separatists Wednesday of enemy contact in Balakliya, just north of Nova Husarivka, and the downing of a Russian jet in Volkhiv Yar, even farther north — the speed and direction of the Ukrainian advance hinting at Izyum as a target.
Russian media did not confirm the loss of the villages — but did cite Chechen fighters loyal to Moscow who claimed to have repelled a Ukrainian attack on the other side of Izyum, near the Donbas cities of Soledar and Seversk
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — a Putin puppet prone to hyperbole — told Russian newswire TASS that his troops had routed a Ukrainian advance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Video:
One of the assaults on the positions of the Russian invaders by Ukraine’s forces.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine drove into a Humvee (an American army cargo van) and covered Russian positions with heavy machine gun fire, after which they disembarked and entered the battle.
https://twitter.com/uasupport999/status/1567969949301227522
And another video of the same move of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in an Humvee shooting at Russian positions.
https://twitter.com/uasupport999/status/1567970198640017410
“Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia”
The Ukrainians are highly motivated.
German planning, probably.
Finally the Ukes taking my advice and forcing the Russians to try to cover all areas of their overextended front. They can’t do it, so if the Ukes can keep it up, the front will collapse.
The Spirit of ‘76 motivated the patriots while the Torries never had the same jauntiness. Today, the Spirit of ‘76 can be seen in the Ukraine. The Russians and their Buryat, Chechen, and foreign (think Hessian) troops do not have the same type of motives.
what’s Russian for “quagmire”?
It appears that Ukraine has a political motive to attack to stop the fake referendum for the occupied territories to join Russia. Once this is done, Putin can send Russian military troops there without dealing with the technicality of sending troops to a foreign country. Smart Russian soldiers can object to that, but not to defending what Russia calls Russian lands, i.e., Crimea. Ukraine is looking for the soft spots and advancing there at the point of least resistance. Of course, liberating the nuclear power plant at Enerhodar is also important.
Stopping the referendums. Exactly. They have been pushed back to November 4th.
Putin is under time pressure because of his failing health.
He is planning to dissolve Russia’s government in December and call for an early presidential election to be held on March 23, 2023 to “elect” Patrushev as his successor.
The clock is ticking for Putin’s game plan for succession.
Болото
Another fundraiser!!
I want to re-emphasize some critical points: 1. Russia attacked Ukraine with a small force that was one-third the size of the defending Ukrainian force. Advantage Ukraine and yet, despite the fact that Russia was outnumbered, Russia steadily pushed Ukraine back, taking Mariupol, Kherson and Luhansk.
2. At no point did Russia declare any kind of timeline for accomplishing its stated mission of demilitarization and denazification.
3. The bulk of the fighting from the Russian side is being handled by the militias from the Donbas. Russia has committed only a small fraction of its troops.
4. Despite a massive influx of western military aid, Ukraine has been unable to force the Russians to retreat. Those who want to point to the current Ukrainian offensive as a stunning success are ignoring Ukraine’s massive losses in men and equipment during the past week. Capturing a couple of isolated, unihabited rural villages is not exactly a 21st Century version of Omar Bradley’s Operation Cobra, which was led by General Patton and broke out of hedge row country in Normandy.
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You know how worried the Russian Government is about the progress of the operation in Ukraine? Putin and his top Generals spent a week on Russia’s east coast, i.e. the Pacific, conducting a 50,000 man joint force military exercise with China and Vietnam.
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et me suggest an alternative explanation for Russia’s slow, methodical approach in Ukraine. Russia is committed to the demilitarization of Ukraine. Russia’s current campaign not only is destroying Ukraine’s army and the tanks, planes, helicopters and vehicles, but it also is forcing the United States and NATO to strip themselves of weapons that will not be quickly replaced in the near term. In other words, without risking a direct confrontation with NATO, Russia also is weakening NATO. And Putin does not have to turn Ukraine into a smoldering, nuclear wasteland with millions of dead Ukrainians. Seems like a reasonable approach to me.
The weakening of NATO also is being accelerated with economic weapons–i.e., cutting off the sale of gas and oil. Without gas and oil, Europe’s war industry is grinding to a halt. I do not know if this is part of the Russian plan for the Special Military Operation or just a happy serendipity that serves Russia’s interests. Regardless, the effect hurts NATO.
I do not pretend to know what plan Russia’s General Staff is following. What I do know is that none of the weapons supplied by the United States and NATO have changed the strategic goal of Russia to demilitarize Ukraine and eliminate a NATO threat on the western border. That means Russia’s ability to continue moving west is not eliminated and Ukraine’s prospects grow more bleak.
the speed and direction of the Ukrainian advance hinting at Izyum as a target.
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Izyum is not the target. It is surrounded by lots of Orc troops. Easier to open another salient just west of the Izyum eastern flank.
But really the goal is cutting the entire Orc supply chain at Kup’yars’k. Any supplies would have to come in from Russia by truck. A long slow process even if Russia had the trucks to do it, there is always something lurking in the background that only comes out at night looking for easy targets like a truck convoy to be fed cluster munitions.
The RGF is not set up to get supplies in bulk by truck, rather by rail, and Kup’yars’k is the hub they use.
Сдаться
Putin gamble has failed. Don’t be surprised if Putin “accidentally” falls out of a hospital window in the next couple of months courtesy of Patrushev and company.
stop making excuses
Russia’s military sucks, and is now stuck in a morass that it can’t get out of
meanwhile the sanctions are still in effect, Russia falls more and more behind technologically, and European countries are now actively planning to get their future resources from anywhere else except Russia
Russia is in a freaking death-spiral
Things moving so fast. I need to catch up over the weekend.
Word is the Ukes loss massive numbers of men, 3k killed, 7k wounded. Totally unsustainable.
Word is wrong.
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