Posted on 09/13/2022 10:00:41 AM PDT by dennisw
Ukraine's stunning counteroffensive in its northeast likely marks a turning point in the war and has profound consequences for Russia's position going forward, according to military analysts.
The counteroffensive has seen Russia's frontline in the Kharkiv region collapse in less than a week, forcing thousands of its troops to retreat as Ukrainian troops have recaptured hundreds of square miles of territory, officials said.
The defeat not only removes Russia's ability to threaten Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, but also likely ends Russia's ability to mount any major offensives in Ukraine again, the analysts said. It also will have a major knock-on effect on Russia's capacity to hold its positions on the other fronts around the country. It means in the long-run, the war now favors Ukraine, they said.
MORE: Ukraine recaptures swath of land in 'breakthrough' offensive "Ukraine has turned the tide of this war in its favor," the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington D.C.-based think tank that tracks the war closely, wrote in an analysis. "Kyiv will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting, and Russia will find itself increasingly responding inadequately to growing Ukrainian physical and psychological pressure in successive military campaigns unless Moscow finds some way to regain the initiative."
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
MORE>>>>>>>
That does not mean the war will end soon, the ISW wrote—Russia still occupies around a fifth of Ukraine’s territory— and is likely to continue into 2023, experts said.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive routed a Russian force that had been one pincer in an attempt to seize the whole of the Donbas region, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s minimum declared objective for the war. Ukraine retook the strategic city of Izyum, which had been the headquarters for the Russian effort to advance in Donbas from the north.
MORE: Exclusive: Zelenskyy hints to David Muir of ‘plural’ Ukrainian counteroffensives against Russian forces
Izyum’s seizure means an end to the Russia’s hopes of taking Donbas, the ISW and other analysts said. A second Russian offensive group trying to advance from the south onto the city of Bakhmut has now “lost any real operational significance,” the ISW wrote.
Russian forces were already overstretched as they tried to seize the Donbas region, which made them unable to significantly advance for months, and painfully defending against a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south, the experts said.
Russia has been unable to replenish its forces because Putin has balked at ordering a full mobilization or putting the country on a war footing, fearing that could lead to domestic unrest that could threaten his rule, officials said. As a result, Russian forces are increasingly numerically inferior to Ukrainian in some areas.
The Russian-appointed head of the Kharkiv region claimed Monday that Russian troops had been outnumbered 8-to-1 during the Ukrainian offensive.
MORE: Exclusive: Zelenskyy tells David Muir ‘Russians using Zaporizhzhia as nuclear weapon’
The rout of Russia’s troops in the northeast—that saw them abandon dozens of tanks and vehicles—means it now must redeploy reserves that it does not have to stabilize the front there, experts said.
But moving some of Russia’s troops already deployed on other areas of the front risks giving Ukraine a chance to repeat its Kharkiv offensive elsewhere, hitting places where Russia has thinned its lines, according to the ISW. One potentially vulnerable area is the city of Kherson and the area around it west of the Dniepr river where Ukraine has already made it extremely difficult for Russia to re-supply its forces.
Russia is reeling from the rout in the northeast, its troops’ moral will be badly shaken. The risk for Moscow now is that the failure in the northeast could snowball elsewhere, triggering a domino effect as its forces panic and loses the will to fight, Konrad Muzyka, director of Rochan Consulting, told ABC News.
Without a mass mobilization, that is fraught with huge political risks at home, Russia has no hope of reversing the direction of the war, Muzyka said.
“It’s a horrible position to be in and actually there are no good choices,” he said. “They have to decide. The alternative is losing the war.”
“As a consequence of the north eastern rout of their forces, the Russians now have very few (if any) good choices. Their positions in the east are compromised and require a substantial realignment of defensive lines and logistics,” Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general and fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote on Twitter:
The grim outlook for Russia is shared by Russian nationalist military bloggers, who have large followings on social media and are often embedded with their forces there. The bloggers are the most vehement supporters of the war, but recently have written highly critical posts about the Russian leadership, furious at how the invasion has been conducted.
They have demanded the Kremlin call a full mobilization and put Russia on a war footing, warning it is the only way to reverse the direction of the war.
“Not to recognise that Russia is waging a war is the greatest stupidity,” Yury Kotyenok, who posts under the account Voenkor Kotenok Z, wrote following the retreat in the northeast.
Recriminations over the disaster in northeast Ukraine also erupted unusually on a pro-Kremlin talk show on the channel NTV. Boris Nadezhdin, a politician, told his fellow guests Russia now faced a choice: “Either mobilization and full-scale war, or we get out.”
ASBMIL Telegram 9/12/22
Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure - What it could mean:
According to our research, as well as opinions of analysts from the West and from Russia, all of us agree that this is the first time in what Russia calls the “special military operation” when the Russian leadership violated its own framework (or rule set) of the war (or the “special military operation”)
From day one of the operation, Russia has made it clear that they will not target civilian infrastructure and that the operation is purely aimed at Ukrainian military targets. However, that changed last night as Russia struck objects that are the very definition of civilian infrastructure; power plants.
Members of the Russia Duma have called for designating the Ukrainian military as a terrorist organization. This comes amid Russia’s deviation from the initial framework/rule set of the SMO.
If you remember correctly, the operations in Chechnya and Syria were officially labelled “anti-terrorist operations” — which changes the rules of engagement for Russian forces.
Branding the Ukrainian military a terrorist organization on the political level gives Russian Armed Forces a lot more power than what they’re currently limited to under the “Special military operation” framework. Russian Armed Forces are very limited in terms of their power due to this framework Putin has came up with in February. If the Ukrainian Armed Forces are designated as a terrorist organization, this makes their commanders and the whole Ukrainian leadership targets of the Russian military.
In order for Russia to strike Ukrainian decision making centres — AKA government targets, the “SMO” needs to be rebranded and bureaucratically restructured.
In our opinion, Russia striking what is unmistakably civilian infrastructure — all points to Putin rebranding the Russian Armed Forces mission in Ukraine in coming days — then, and only then, all hell will break lose on the battlefield from the Russian side.
Russia is an incredibly bureaucratic country, not a banana republic where decisions are made overnight and need no government backing. Everything is done under structure. Support and input is needed from people concerned with the economy, military and international relations — in the background. The fact that civilian infrastructure was struck, if our opinion is correct — points to the aforementioned restructuring of the SMO already being decided and now being in the process of becoming official in coming days.
t.me/asbmil
Looks bad for Putin. Mr Dead Man walking. His Ukraine war is an utter failure. Leave it to the old decrepit degenerates, Putin and his Kremlin gangsters, to send the young men off to war for their idiotic Tsarist dreams.
Putin, dead by March 2023, one way or another. From cancer or killed by his Kremlin friends.
Who replaces him is the question.
A lot of people were probably thrilled when Lenin died, then they got Stalin.
Is this a legacy of Russia going back centuries? Schizo country. Too many killed for what? Is it the Slav mentality? Europe came together in ‘92. Now Montenegro is in NATO. Sweden/Finland perhaps later. Everyone’s going to the party and they’re not invited for a good reason.
They’re like blacks. Can’t see a good thing when it’s staring them in the face. Ask Kapernick.
“Looks bad for Putin. Mr Dead Man walking. His Ukraine war is an utter failure.”
I’d caution against calling the game after only so many innings. I agree Russia has been gobsmacked by how tough and costly the invasion of Ukraine has been. It *could* be that the current status (and just to clarify, I believe virtually NOTHING reported coming out of that part of the world) is *A* turning point, but that does not mean it is *THE* turning point nor that there could be other turning points.
I don’t think this is the turning point like Midway was for World War 2. However, I believe this is a lesser turning point in the sense that Putin has to admit to the Russian people that this is more significant than a “special military operation” and closer to an invasion. He has to ramp up recruitment of soldiers and a massive buildup of weapons to replace those Russia has lost. This “turning point” will lead to Putin admitting this is an “invasion.”
I agree. Putin has tried to run this operation on the cheap, so to speak, but now he has to make a decision. If he wants to avoid humiliating defeat he has to pull out the stops, and risk being deposed at home. Too bad Vlad. You asked for it.
For an historical analogy one can look at the Winter War with Finland. Thoroughly humiliated in his first effort to gain Finnish territory like the Karelian Peninsula, Stalin went whole hog and would have destroyed the Finnish forces but for having to deal with Hitler. Problem now is that Putin does not have the force available. Russian ground forces are about 225K, not the millions available to Stalin. Mobilization means a draft and training. Both take time and Russian youth have not been eager to join the military. An alternative is to redeploy existing units from other services, Border Constabulary, FSB units, even naval crews. These at least have the experience of military discipline. Otherwise his other option is unleashing his air forces.
Nobody goes to war thinking it will turn big.
Hitler figured after he smashed Poland, England and France would come begging for a Peace Treaty.
Why would any respectful freeper believe ABC News about anything? Confirmation bias I guess.
I am beginning to understand a majority this is spin so the media compete General Joe Patton Biden the genius wartime general that he is.
and a lot of people who never got their chance to fight the russians and never will, therefore they live vicariously through those who do so that they can feel like they were part of something bigger than they are
I think that’s a very decent analogy. But, should Putin decide to ramp up on offense, I tend to doubt (consistent with your view) that it would be with bodies, but with missile weapons; maybe even a neutron weapon or two in a worst case scenario. He has to be impressed with the exploits achieved by the HIMARS (or so I am told) we have brought into the theater. And while I doubt he could develop such a system quickly, he could build a crapload of heavier dumb missiles in a hurry a la the final Soviet siege on Berlin and just scorch the earth. While those kinds of efforts generally do not result in “wins” they could blunt whatever Ukr gains are being touted at the moment.
I’m a highly experienced real estate developer and NOT an experienced ground combat GENERAL. But, even I could see in recent months that if you could not protect your ground troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers from drone/artillery attacks and ammunition/headquarters from HIMARS you could not win this war.
Add to this that your fighting on other peoples home territory making them HIGHLY motivated against your “boys” and that should be enough for you to return quickly to your homeland despite what Putin had to say about it.
Seems ol Putin had fooled a lot of people. He developed quite a following here but that seems to have faded out. The war crime trials are coming.
Yes, it ain’t over till it’s over.
Good point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.