00:38
A couple of days ago I wrote about the port in Mariupol but it seems to have been lost today…
The Russians have not exploded in triumphant tirades about captured Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol, so one must assume they managed to retreat to Azovstal somewhat more discreetly than the marine brigade?
Prepare for overjoyed pro-Russians tomorrow.
01:15
What’s happening at Izyum will be tonight’s last post?
It seems like Ukraine is about to encircle the 22 BTGs that are supposed to be there according to the latest open OSINT, but that’s probably a few days away.
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Regardless, it seems the Russian attack itself is going so-so, they got the bridge blown up and it’s generally chaotic south of Izyum, and now it seems Ukraine is launching some kind of counterattack against the Izyum advance from the southeast hitting towards Izyum.
I’m a bit shaky on place names but it seems to be around Oskil so they want to get at Izyum, it seems?
Here they really set the tone for how the Russians’ spring offensive will go 🙂
01:15
What’s happening at Izyum will be tonight’s last post?
It seems like Ukraine is about to encircle the 22 BTGs that are supposed to be there according to the latest open OSINT, but that’s probably a few days away.
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Regardless, it seems the Russian attack itself is going so-so, they got the bridge blown up and it’s generally chaotic south of Izyum, and now it seems Ukraine is launching some kind of counterattack against the Izyum advance from the southeast hitting towards Izyum.
I’m a bit shaky on place names but it seems to be around Oskil so they want to get at Izyum, it seems?
Here they really set the tone for how the Russians’ spring offensive will go 🙂
10:54
I understand why the Russians reported as they did, the barge is floating and that was probably the first thing they got reported up the chain in a tailored description?
I also understand the Ukrainians since the ship is probably sitting low in the water and the superstructure looks blown off so the radar echo was probably smaller?
There’s talk of two Bayraktar drones but maybe they were shot down instead of the Neptune missiles?
13:20
Yes, looking at the map it’s Belgorod – Kupiansk – Izyum that applies for the Russian Izyum offensive.
The shortest distance is artillery range and Ukraine has just received long-range artillery from the USA and Slovakia?
Borova is east of the river and the counteroffensive east of Kharkiv straight east probably aims to cut the supply routes west of the river between Kupiansk – Izyum.
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If Ukraine takes Schechenkove it’s probably game over because then they are within artillery range of the last fairly narrow road between Izyum – Kupiansk. The Russians then have two choices: try to push Ukraine back towards Kharkiv by attacking from the north southwards but north of the advance there are natural obstacles in the form of rivers and one must guess that Ukraine is protecting its northern flank very carefully with infantry and assigned tanks.
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Choice two is to try to retreat north with their encircled BTGs (I thought I saw 22 yesterday but as the blogger writes it’s uncertain) but then they will be severely clipped by the 17th Tank Brigade and 25th Airborne who are waiting on their western flank.
The other way out is via Oskil and to break north and that will end in chaos.
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Simply put, Ukraine is currently closing off all escape routes for the Izyum offensive and the Russians probably haven’t quite realized how exposed they are yet, they are preparing for an offensive here, not another panicked retreat and the command chains are too slow.
13:21
The above wasn’t very clear now that I read it again, hope you understand 🙂
13:23
An addition here is that Ukraine can also take Kupiansk itself and then it’s a complete stop but here one must guess that even the Russians understand that and have prepared the city’s defense.
13:27
There will also be a Russian offensive from the southern front that will go north along the provincial border for Donbass because the Russian plan is not more advanced than that. The worse it goes at Izyum the more they will try from the south. They will probably also attempt something against Zaporizhzhia.
13:30
I’m starting to wonder if the Russian offensive hasn’t started yet but Russian-style?
They start with whatever units they have in an unorganized chaos, kind of.
It seems the Russians have begun attacking the pocket/bow north of Horlivka and at the southern front they are trying to take Malynivka, which is pretty much right on the Donbass provincial border 🙂
13:45
Now we’re probably getting a bit ahead but at Izyum the Russian offensive has tied itself in knots, it seems chaotic and soon encirclement with all that entails. At Kherson something bigger seems to be happening, we think. Azovstal holds and the Russians have moved some BTGs away from there and now hold the encirclement fairly manageable with TikTok Chechens and DPR rebels and a bit more one can guess?
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What’s missing is some kind of offensive northward at the southern front, an attempt towards Kharkiv and then towards the pocket/bow north of Horlivka but after that the Russian offensive capacity is completely exhausted, they have neither manpower nor armor to continue.
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Then the question is whether they have anything left to defend Donbass and Crimea, considering Zelensky is starting to sound really confident and Ukraine has gone on the offensive in three areas there’s probably a chance they are now strong enough to retake Donbass and Crimea on their own. The Donbass rebels have been sent forward first for a whole month and they must be quite war-weary. Kadyrov will pull back his Instagram Chechens as soon as he realizes it will be more than shooting at empty residential buildings in cleared areas and the Russian units that couldn’t even manage an offensive are probably not eager to die in Ukraine and will increasingly start refusing orders and retreating towards Russia.
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There’s no chance Putin can now freeze the conflict and keep Crimea and Donbass, he will lose everything and if he manages to spin it into something positive for Russia and avoid dangling from a gas station’s feet he almost deserves to stay because this is probably among the worst in warfare the world has seen since Egypt’s invasion of Israel where they almost lost Cairo in the end.
14:49
It will probably be a domino effect, the first place to collapse is probably a race between Kherson or Izyum?
I have a bit poor knowledge of the ceasefire line but guess that in the area north of Horlivka there has been/is mobile fighting and when Ukraine starts taking it back it’s a pretty clear signal that the Russians are finished, the whole area east of Kharkiv – north of Horlivka/Luhansk should be able to fall quite quickly Kiev-style and then it’s just a matter of time.
After all, that’s the area Putin has designated as the focus for the spring offensive.
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Regarding Donbass I imagine one must start rolling it up from the north and move south to get behind the ceasefire line but as I said I don’t have very good knowledge of how that line has gone. Another trick would be to fake a breakthrough north of Donetsk and hope Putin gets a bit too eager and orders all in and weakens other places so one can break through, kind of like a cow release at Avdiivka and then they have to try to push up against the Izyum offensive for a while before they run out of fuel 🙂
15:03
Probably second on this but don’t feel like scrolling through everything. Azov ambush against some platoon in civilian cars in Mariupol.
If you zoom in in the browser, the Russians are lying in a small pile behind the red car and the patrol is behind a wall throwing hand grenades, it’s somewhat incredible to see how the Russians have a total lack of any fieldcraft here.
https://twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1516025510362595332
16:06
There are just as many unconfirmed reports that the Russians are starting to leave the area around Kharkiv, which would give the advance towards Kupiansk a walkover from northern attack attempts, as said, highly unconfirmed.
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Starovrivka (or however it’s spelled) is somewhat simply the last road down towards Izyum, so if the Ukrainians have reached there with SOF and can carry out ambushes, it’s a bit of a sensation. Straight south is an intersection of road P07 and a smaller road going down towards Izyum. It’s enough to deny the Russians that intersection.
16:20
At Kherson, I am quite convinced that Ukraine chose not to deal with it as they moved all the mech and armored brigades in the area east of the Dnipro via Zaporizhzhia. Either they thought it was good that the Russians replenished with BTGs in Kherson or it was a bit of a sharp situation east of the Dnipro and they had to park it for a while.
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Kyiv probably went quite well actually, it was probably the 700 vehicles that managed to get out before Ivankiv fell but if you look at the map there is a road to Vakhivka and Lyubydva and then there was talk of a pontoon bridge. Many vehicles probably got lost on the way because it was a real movie marathon for a while but Ivankiv was not the total block we thought.
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There were actually also rumors of a group trying to break out south of Kyiv and head east, probably went so-so.
16:29
It is kind of in the nature of those about to be encircled to try to break out before it is completed.
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Now over to Izyum 🙂
If Ukraine can hold the terrain east of the Oskil River, Borova and other settlements, then the units at Izyum must try to get north west of the Oskil River. There are really few roads so they are forced westward and there are two brigades lying in wait on the western flank.
Say they manage north then they have to pass the road junction at Starovivirka and then up to Kupiansk and this is probably the retreat route Ukraine is starting to cut off.
Considering how the Russians seem to operate, it will be full speed north when the order is given with no thought to flank protection so they will probably be wiped out quite quickly.
The weakness in the plan is probably Borova but Borova is also connected to Kupiansk and towards Kupiansk an Ukrainian mech brigade and an armored brigade are advancing right now.
22:17
Now they have tried bunker busters on Azovstal.
https://twitter.com/kiranjoshi235/status/1516118332860407808?s=20&t=eyCPzLapXFjGPKeWvmu5Rw
22:36
”Russian troops in Zarichne” on liveuamap.
Ok, they are supposed to try to link up with the Izyum offensive and have the 128th Mountain and 79th Air Assault blocking.
It probably stops at the river just east of the M-03 road in the worst case.
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I have to say it went alarmingly fast from the first shots in Kreminna to Zarichne…
I have no info on Russian BTGs there, only at the army level.
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The whole arc/pocket north of Horlivka I see as a mobile defensive battle where you give up terrain if needed so captured towns are not of strategic importance. The only strategic thing would be if they could link up with the Izyum offensive and get new supply routes.
22:49
Now it will be chaos for a couple of days and pro-Russian forums will be ecstatic over captured towns in the arc/pocket north of Horlivka. It is likely that Severodonetsk and Lysychansk will be surrounded but they can hold out. There will probably be some breakthrough between Horlivka-Donetsk too at absurd losses, also not strategic.
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As long as the Izyum offensive does not gain momentum and the southern front does not start moving far north, there is probably nothing of strategic value that can be achieved here?
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It is a bit early but I want to make you aware that there are no Russian attacks on Kharkiv yet, it can of course be because they haven’t started yet but it can also be because the Russians have given up trying to take Kharkiv.
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It is somewhat incredible that Russia planned to take all of Ukraine a month ago and today they are betting everything on red and trying to take a small area in eastern Ukraine without strategic value to save face for their bunker dwarf.
00:38
A couple of days ago I wrote about the port in Mariupol but it seems to have been lost today…
The Russians have not exploded in triumphant tirades about captured Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol, so one must assume they managed to retreat to Azovstal somewhat more discreetly than the marine brigade?
Prepare for overjoyed pro-Russians tomorrow.