Ukraine Advances, Russia Flees

With all of the nonstop media coverage of Queen Elizabeth's funeral kind of drowning out all the other news, we need to pay attention to the change of fortunes going on in Ukraine as the defenders are earning major gains in their counteroffensive to retake the eastern half from Russia. Brief report from Digby first: 

Ukrainian forces pushed deep into Russian-controlled territory Saturday, handing Kyiv some of the most strategically important towns and cities in the northeast of the country and delivering retreating Russian forces one of their biggest setbacks since the start of the war.

In a matter of days, Ukraine retook swaths of its Kharkiv region, where Russians had fought ferociously for months, spending lives and ammunition to take over cities, sometimes a building at a time.

In the weeks leading up to the offensive that Ukraine launched earlier this week, Kyiv’s forces used Western-made weapons, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or Himars, against Russian supply lines and front-line positions.

The growing success of Ukraine’s advance signals to Western backers the effectiveness of weapons the U.S. and Europe has given to Kyiv. It comes at a particularly critical time for Western powers, days after Moscow indefinitely suspended natural-gas flows to Europe, raising the prospect of energy rationing this winter.

Russia’s retreat from key cities is likely aimed at avoiding encirclement after Ukraine captured the town of Kupyansk, which sits on a rail and road hub, and severed the last artery that connected Russia with thousands of its front-line troops.

“It’s a complete collapse,” Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said about the Russian pullout of forces between Kupyansk and Izyum. “In the battle of Donbas, they probably had more troops deployed there than anywhere and now they seem to be unable to hold anything.”

Essentially, all of Kharkiv region is under Ukrainian control. Reports swirl that some troops have reached the Russia border.

If we can refer to my guy in the sky at Balloon Juice, what Adam L Silverman has to say:

The Ukrainian military was incredibly busy today...

Also, the Russian military was busy too; running from the Ukrainian military...

Here’s the British MOD’s assessment for today. They did not post an updated map.

"Russian forces were likely taken by surprise... Ukrainian units are now threatening the town of Kupiansk; it's capture would be a significant blow to Russia because it sits on supply routes to the Donbas front line..."

Silverman's update was yesterday. Checking on Kupiansk today is that Ukrainians are fighting in the city. Control is not secure but they have to be disrupting Russia's efforts to keep their troops alive.

Speaking of those troops, nearly every report coming out this weekend was that Russia's ground forces surrendered or fled in a rout of epic proportions. The official statement coming out of Moscow is that their forces are "regrouping" but all the other reports are saying "running for their lives."

Social media is flush with frontline video clips of Ukrainians finding abandoned tanks and personnel carriers still in working condition. Troop morale was reportedly low before this counterattack: By all evidence Russian morale is flat out gone.

There is just trash everywhere, no policing of debris, etc. Yes, war is hell and all that, but if you are in a set position for a while you maintain your AO for a variety of reasons, including just maintaining basic discipline.

— John Cole (@Johngcole) September 11, 2022

Anyone who's been a solider, like Cole, will tell you discipline matters: It keeps you focused and on your game. It's a reality of war since the days of Sparta all the way through the Romans to the Revolutionary Army drilled by Von Steuben to the World Wars to today. Without that discipline, you're not an army.

From what I've read about the modern Russia army, it seems to have been lax about discipline because they relied on overwhelming numbers, advanced armor, artillery barrages out the wazoo, and bad weather to get them out of jams. They were riding on their reputations post-World War and on the fact they had relatively decent heavy armor to match the strength of Western (European/US) armor.

Their more recent invasions and incursions - including their seizing of Crimea back in 2014 when Ukraine rose up to overthrow their corrupt pro-Putin regime - focused on limited gains and minor bits of territory. This time around it was a massive nation-sized invasion... and all of their flaws - over-reliance on shock and awe, lack of logistics, poor leadership in charge of poor troops - got exposed in real time. Advancements in anti-tank weaponry turned dreaded Russian tanks into death traps and scrap bounty for Ukrainian farmers. As soon as Ukraine got upgraded artillery weapons from the West - HIMARs in particular - they were able to strike deeper into Russian-occupied locations to disrupt their supply chains. Everything built up to this past week's counterattack using Kershon as one front and opening up Kharkiv for a rout on a scale that hasn't been seen in decades.

The last time Russia felt a loss this bad, they were the Soviets and getting driven out of Afghanistan. But that was a loss that carried across nine years of bloody quagmire. This is a loss dragged along for five months - ever since they bogged down in April - and enacted over five days. We're talking hundreds of thousands of losses to KIA or POW. Half their armored might blown up or abandoned. Even if Putin panics and makes a call to conscript more cannon fodder to his war, it will take months to plan out another attack: Any hasty push and he's merely repeating the same mistakes to lose even more bodies and armor he can't afford to lose.

If we can go back to Silverman for some concluding thoughts about how Russia is going to handle this shocking turn of (mis)fortunes:

There’s RUMINT that Putin is preparing to order a general mobilization. And the sealing of of the center of Moscow is related to that. I doubt it. First, we haven’t seen any information come out that would indicate that anything is being done to prepare for a general mobilization. Secondly, I think it is more likely this was done preemptively to try to prevent mass protests as the news from Kharkiv and Kherson filters back into Russia despite Putin’s best efforts to completely control the Russian information space.

Frankly, ordering a general mobilization isn’t going to help Putin remove his tuchas from the the crack he’s wedged it in. A crack of his own making. Unless Putin has a fully equipped and properly trained army stashed somewhere that no one knows about, it’s only a matter of time. The question is what does he do at that point? Does he cause a meltdown at ZNPP? Does he use lower yield nukes and just wipes out Ukraine and every Ukrainian he can because he can’t have it? Does he decide that a world without Russia as a great power isn’t worth surviving and he fires all his nukes...?

It's a good question, and the big reason why NATO (especially Poland) hasn't escalated matters by sending in their own troops to give Ukraine more than enough trained personnel to beat Russia back to their border. The fear of nuclear retaliation is pretty much the only reason why a nation that's barely in the top 20 economies and clearly now with the worst ground army in the world - seriously, Iraqi troops in 2003 were better trained than this - can still command any fear.

However, unlike Silverman I can't imagine Putin or Russia getting angry or desperate enough to go nuclear on Ukraine. If Putin gives the order and drops a "Sore Loser" warhead on Kyiv, he becomes a global pariah for the rest of his short life. Instead of making opposing nations cower, it will terrify them into quarantining Russia with absolute sanctions and complete cutoff of travel, anything and everything to starve the oligarchs of their wealth and power. Every Russian embassy will be shut down and sent home. The United Nations would rebel at the broken nature of having Russia as a permanent member of the Security Council. And that's just the political fallout: LITERAL FALLOUT from even one nuke can very well cover Russia and cause backlash from Putin's own people. 

Even with low-yield nukes - read up on Davy Crocketts sometime, that might scare you a little, and yes Russia has that type of yield on hand - you will see a backlash of global proportions. No other nation has used nukes since 1945: Ever since we've learned the consequences of such weapons, even the U.S. has refused to use them again. For Putin to be dangerous enough to use a nuke, it will be the last weapon he uses. The rest of the world would do everything in their power to make sure he doesn't use another.

What matters now is if Ukraine and solidify their defenses in Kharkiv, and bring in more troops to circle around and cut off Kershon and Crimea to regain all of that before winter sets in. It may be September now but even in this age of climate change the likelihood of bad weather swirling in fast is pretty high, and it won't favor either side when it does.

But right now, all the advantages favor Ukraine. Their troops are spirited and disciplined and winning. Russia is retreating in a way they haven't done since 1917.

Here's hoping Ukraine reclaims so much of their homeland that Putin can't lie to his own people anymore.

Also, I REALLY need to find out where to order Ukrainian "Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself" Stamps for Christmas time. I got a relative who's into stamp collecting...