The Ukrainian army reportedly has gone on the offensive in the country’s war torn east. For the faltering Russian war effort, this is very, very bad news.
Ukrainian formations apparently including the battle hardened 92nd and 93rd Mechanized Brigades in recent days began pushing north and east from Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine just 25 miles from the Russia Ukraine border.
Russian troops retreated east across the Donets River, blowing up bridges behind them as they fled toward the border.
The Russian army is advancing, too—seizing a few villages along the axis running southwest through Izium, 60 miles south of Kharkiv.
But the Izium offensive might be a prelude to disaster for the Russians.
IsiderNotes
Ten weeks into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, the Russian army is exhausted. Its best battalions are shattered.
A dozen of its top commanders are claimed by the Ukrainians to be dead.
Tens of thousands of Russian and allied troops have been killed, wounded or captured.
All that is to say, the Russian advance is fragile.
And it might get more fragile as the Russians keep pushing past Izium, thinning out their forces and stretching their supply lines.
For the Ukrainians, that’s an opportunity. A potentially war-winning one.
There’s no guarantee that might happen, of course. The Russians clearly aren’t winning the war in Ukraine but it’s not yet apparent they’re actively losing it.
The Ukrainians have suffered steep losses, too and might struggle to mobilize and equip reservists in time to take advantage of shifts in the war’s momentum.
The Ukrainian advance north and east of Kharkiv was apparent days earlier.
Russian engineers blew up the main road bridge across the Donets River around Tuesday, hoping to slow the Ukrainians.
The withdrawing Russians lost at least one of their best T-90M tanks.
Aljezira
Zaluzhny announced a Ukrainian counterattack around Izium, too, but it’s unclear whether he was referring to an effort by the Kharkiv units or a more localized offensive by units south of Izium.
In any event, Ukrainian moves around Izium take place at the same time Russian forces continue to push south and west past Izium, seizing a few settlements.
The Donets River, threading around the southern edge of Kharkiv, again is a barrier for Ukrainian units moving from north to south but some Ukrainian troops reportedly crossed the river on or before Thursday.
Just how far south Ukrainian troops might push is an open question.
The Russians control the air over eastern Ukraine and, despite losses to Ukrainian missiles, continue to send Su-24 and Su-25 attack planes on treetop-level bombing runs targeting Ukrainian positions.
- Russian artillery, including the heaviest 2S7 guns, pounds away.
But the Ukrainians have 2S7s and other big guns of their own—and more artillery is on the way from foreign donors.
- The Ukrainians skillfully have deployed small octocopter drones carrying tiny anti-tank bombs.
Sometimes leveraging intelligence from the Americans, Ukrainian gunners have targeted Russian command posts across the war zone.
Ukrainian artillery on April 30 bombarded a Russian headquarters near Izium around the time Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top army officer, was visiting. The attack killed a senior Russian electronic-warfare coordinator.
LTA Work Of Art 