Ukraine War, 9–10 September 2022
…’just a few bits and pieces for the end of the day’….(I’m sorry, but really too busy to offer more, these days….that said, think it’s obvious that my attempt to ‘stay away’ from monitoring this war for a few days, was as big a failure as this Ukrainian counteroffensive….🤭)
Essentially, yesterday in the morning, the Ukrainians have reached the Oskil River on a wide front: from Kupyansk in the north to Izyum and Oskil in the south.
Meanwhile, part of Ukrainian forces is busy mopping up the western side of Kupyansk; another is doing the same in the _eastern_ side of Izyum (and ‘slightly further south-east’). Foremost, Ukrainians didn’t ‘stop’ at Kupyansk, nor at Izyum…
Russians spent the day either surrendering en masse or swimming over the Oskil River (Kupyansk area), or fleeing in eastern direction (Izyum)… those not busy that way, were faking ‘Mi-26s bringing reinforcements to the frontline’ or ‘long convoys of supply vehicles marching towards the front’ for PR-purposes. Word is that yet others were trying to concentrate their forces north-east and east of Kupyansk for an expected counterattack, but impression is that these are, actually, still very far away…
That said, I’m curious to see if the VSRF, its PMCs, and the Separatists might manage to launch any kind of a counter-attack at all — and then for two reasons.
1.) The Russians have blown up a number of bridges over the Oskil River on their retreat, but not all. Ukrainians promptly exploited the opportunity to cross to the eastern side and thus…. well… Let me express it this way; don’t be surprised if you wake up tomorrow to hear about Ukrainians in places like, say,
- Velikly Burluk… or
- Svatove…
(….yes, I know: when one checks the map, that’s ‘nothing else but insane’. But, that’s something like ‘news of the day’, if I’m to ask. And yes, I know, if I’m explaining things of this kind, I owe you an ‘explanation for how’, so you could understand. But, sorry, think this might not be the best idea to do at this point in time. Plus, I’m really, extremely short on time, these days.)
2.) Ukrainians seem to have launched an additional offensive from the Slovyansk area over the Siversky Donets. Except for Ozerne, liberated nearly a week ago, they should meanwhile have liberated Raihorodok and Staryi Karavan…. today, RUMINT had it that they were actually attacking Lyman — and that from three directions.
Point is: if Ukrainians can take Lyman and then push from this side into the Russian rear in northern direction… well, I think the VSRF — which is already in deep, deep trouble — is going to have a problem alone with trying to counterattack at Kupyansk, because it’s going to need troops to secure the Kremina-Severodonetsk- perhaps even the Starobilsk areas…
Of course, most of us can’t do more but wait and see comes out of this…
