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Ukraine: Thunder Run to Kupyansk

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Ukraine: Thunder Run to Kupyansk

Stabbing at Russian Logistics

Matt Osborne
Sep 7, 2022
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Ukraine: Thunder Run to Kupyansk

www.polemology.net
Ukrainians surrounding Balakliya

With the core of Russian combat power squeezed into the Kherson fire sack, Russian forces have been spread thin, and Ukraine has taken advantage, achieving surprise with a deep offensive against Russian logistics. If successful, Bakhmut and Izyum will be cut off from supply by railroad. If that happens, the Russian front in the east of Ukraine could collapse, reducing all their gains in that region of the country since April.

Russian Telegram channels admit to the extent of Ukrainian victory over the last 48 hours. Shock and demoralization are evident. Most of their artillery has been destroyed by counterbattery fire and much of their armor has been destroyed or captured. Russian pilots refuse to loiter over the battlefield for fear of Ukrainian tactical air defense, or else cannot do so because they are operating from airfields beyond HIMARS range.

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Balakliya was surrounded yesterday. Since then, social media channels have filled up with videos of Russian prisoners. Poorly-dug trenches, soldiers who appear to have been sleeping when they were shot in their holes by Ukrainian infantry, the abandonment of gear and vehicles — all of this imagery speaks to the indiscipline and lack of training in Russian formations.

Ukrainians, by contrast, are showing remarkable discipline and they have clearly trained rigorously for an aggressive mission. As of this writing, they are already reported to be outside of Kupyansk, having advanced along the P07 highway. If true, the Ukrainian pincer has moved 76 kilometers, or about 47 miles, in just three days, an impressive advance in any war, let alone this one, which has been so characterized by immobility.

Map of North Eastern Ukraine. The town of Kupyansk sits at the center of a web of rail networks which feed the Russian forces marked on the map; a single line runs from Kupyansk to the Russian border. It is the bottleneck of all rail traffic in Eastern Ukraine.
Source

More to the point, if Ukraine surrounds Kupyansk, the most important logistical artery in Russian-held east Ukraine will be cut. As we have seen, the Russian Army lacks enough truck support to replace railroads as a means of getting all that artilery ammunition to the front. At the very least, if this offensive succeeds, sham referenda for Russian annexation in Donetsk and Luhansk will be impossible.

Early reports of Russian soldiers surrendering in large numbers, or crossing the Dnipro on makeshift rafts to escape encirclement, suggest that the Kherson fire sack is being reduced. Steady pressure and a relentless Ukrainian dominance of the tactical air and artillery dimensions are squeezing key cadres. So many elite units are caught in the Kherson trap that it will take years for Russia to rebuild them, should they be annihilated.

A Russian crossing the Dnipro on a barge to relieve Kherson is stunned after a Ukrainian artillery strike. Still image from video. Source

Simultaneous defeats in the east and south would leave Russia without any spare combat power left to throw into battle, anywhere. Clearly, the assumption in Kyiv is that Vladimir Putin will continue to refrain from invoking full wartime mobilization powers, so Ukraine’s path to winning back Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, and the shores of Azov lies through a systematic reduction of the Russian Army.

So far, that plan appears to be working. Perhaps most ominous from the Russian perspective, however, is the appearance of partisans in the east. Areas that had seemed under their control for eight years are increasingly unsafe to be Russian.

Polemology Positions
Ukraine Advances in the East, Spoiling Russian Annexation Plans
Ukraine is winning a war of attrition. Despite their motto that Russian-occupied territories “are Ukraine,” however, the attrition strategy in Kyiv is not designed to win back territorial objectives. Instead, it is aimed at breaking the Russian Army. There are signs that this may be working, that the operational effects of entrapment and reduction…
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7 months ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

For more than a week now, officials in Ukraine have signalled that the Kerch Strait Bridge is being left intact so that Russians can leave the Crimean peninsula. “Crimea is Ukraine” has become more than a slogan, it is now a genuine possibility, one that Russians apparently believe, since they are leaving in droves over that bridge.

Residents of the occupied territories have reportedly been subject ot brutal treatment, forced conscription, and much else for the last eight years, which is a recipe for resentments. These flyers not only communicate the imminence of liberation, they create a hostile psychological space for Russian military personnel. A blooming thornbush, Ukraine is becoming difficult to occupy.

Twitter avatar for @OlenaHalushka
Olena Halushka @OlenaHalushka
Popular resistance in Crimea is growing too. Take a look at these leaflets "Yalta is Ukraine"; "Get prepared, Crimea is Ukraine". These brave people are the source of inspiration. Ukraine will prevail! #ArmUkraineNow Photos by the Yellow Ribbon movement
Image
Image
3:50 PM ∙ Sep 7, 2022
513Likes121Retweets

Residents in “liberated villages” do in fact seem to be welcoming liberators, so far. That is consistent with the recent rise of partisan activity and suggestive that Ukraine may have developed those capabilities further to the east as well. So many Russian-appointed administrators of occupied territories are either dying of car bombs now, or else safe in Russia, that governance from Moscow is just about impossible.

Twitter avatar for @Gerashchenko_en
Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en
"Glory to Ukraine! Thank you!", - residents of Vysokopillya town that was liberated yesterday, happily greet Ukrainian Defenders. 🇺🇦 🎥: TSN
2:54 PM ∙ Sep 5, 2022
6,331Likes586Retweets

To be clear, unrestricted celebration is still unwarranted. There is a great deal of fighting ahead. The Russian Army has not collapsed quite like 1917, at least not yet. Nevertheless, the Army of Ukraine seems to have the upper hand, and it is not clear just how Russia could regain the initiative through conventional arms at this point, or improve their strategic position, except by withdrawal.

Polemology Positions is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, please subscribe for just $5 a month.

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Ukraine: Thunder Run to Kupyansk

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