Summary/Overview
- Ukrainian forces to the eastern and southeast of Kharkiv retain the offensive initiative.
- Russian forces are withdrawing through the strategic hub associated with Izium and regrouping along a straight north-south line running just east from Kupiansk down to Izium.
- In the South, company-level fighting continues northeast of Kherson; neither side has made any kind of significant gains considering that early last week.
- According to the Kharkiv area offensive, Russian air flow and missile factors have attacked energy and water facilities throughout Eastern Ukraine and caused massive blackouts in main cities.
- On the basis of documented large-scale US cleverness and added advanced weapons systems assistance, Russia has concluded that it is now de facto at war using the US. This is no more a local affair.
- On similar insight, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) Valery Zaluzhny warns that will Russian use of tactical nukes cannot be ruled out.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet up with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Samarkand at the Shanghai Assistance Organization (SCO) summit on September 15–16.
East/Center
Ukrainian allows have continued their own advance south/southeast throughout the M03 roadway and also have reached Izium. Several fighting continues as the majority of forces dealing with the Ukrainian advance were light-armored DPR units.
Ruskies counterattacks have been limited to air and artillery strikes. Some normal Russian reserves and reinforcements have reportedly been moved into Oskil (10 kilometers east of Izium) to assist in the retreat.
The loss of Izium is critical to Russian operations in the Donbas prominent. With it, Russian functions between Izium and Sloviansk, and those about Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Barvinkove now must end and those causes must fall back towards the eastern part of the salient.
But the fallback also offers the advantage of straightened front side lines and concentration of forces round the principal Russian focus on of Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian General Staff in its newest report estimates there are between 27 plus 32 Russian battalion task groups (BTGs) in the area between Siversk and Izium. Another push down the M-03 could trap a minimum of some of those BTGs – unless, of course , they are reinforced from the section of Oskil.
Further south, western of the city of Donetsk, Russian forces continued to probe straight into Pervomaiske (15 kms northwest of Donetsk City) and Novomykhailivka (about 20 kms southwest of the city. )
Evaluation
Several related aspects of the shock and surprisingly quick move of Ukrainian forces from the area of the city of Kharkiv in a south-easterly path toward Izium are usually of note.
The New York Occasions reports (and onc we have no quarrel with the paper’s reporting) that the Ukrainian makes had large amounts of detailed US cleverness available in preparing for the particular straight drive southeast and flanking activity toward Kupiansk.
Defenses were documented to be light, mainly DPR light armored units and militia. The entire operation, especially as attention has been drawn toward the much advertised the southern part of offensive, represented an excellent target of opportunity – and a high-value one at that with the capture of Izium, the anchor point of the Ruskies Donbas offensive following the withdrawal from the Kiev Oblast.
What’s astonishing is the apparent utter insufficient Russian tactical cleverness that might have notified the regional Russian military leadership of what was about to reduced the pike. Precisely how debilitating and pricey this Russian intel failure will confirm still remains to be seen.
However , what it portends is not yet another shooting of some military intelligence analysts or military commanders. That could happen – completely up to Minister associated with Defense Sergei Shoigu as some Russian bloggers are demanding.
What the immediate Russian response to the military setback indicates is a different matter completely. There was some encouragement of the Donbas front side.
But most significantly, there was a first-ever series of massed surroundings and missile attacks on major cities in eastern Ukraine that have caused large-scale blackouts, water systems failures and other facilities failures.
The ussr has concluded that it is now in a direct battle with the US, that this is now an American war. The boundaries have been pushed all together. But the mass shipping of US heavy artillery has pushed the problem into the grey zone. But the Kharkiv unpleasant directly involved ALL OF US military personnel within critical line features.
The one person to see this immediately was Ukrainian C-in-C Zaluzhny, who has starkly warned from the possibility of the use of tactical nuclear weapons simply by Russian forces. Russian federation has repeatedly denied such intent. Alas, it had frequently denied the intent of sending troops into Ukraine.
Simply by directly involving by itself not only in the planning but also in the delivery of Ukrainian unpleasant action, the US offers crossed what certainly may be seen by Russian leadership as a red line announced at the very beginning of the Russian actions in Ukraine.
This does not indicate going nuclear. However it likely means increasing from local typical military action in order to economic and economic targeting of civilian infrastructure, industrial capability and energy resources.
The head of the German armed forces General Eberhard Zorn warned of this last week within an interview with the everyday Die Welt simply by noting that Russia has not yet utilized most of its atmosphere force and navy blue potential.
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