Looks like while everyone was paying attention to the ‘grand Kherson counteroffensive’ which achieved nothing but a lot of dead Ukrainian soldiers and lost materiel, the AFU has had a big success over in the northeastern front, the last couple days they launched an attack north of Balakleya and managed to put the town into encirclement, earlier today the Russians withdrew and residents of the town have said that Ukrainian soldiers have arrived there now. Looks like a rather nasty fuckup by Russia there, this could allow the Nazis to threaten Izyum.
Zelensky has apparently agreed with Zaluzhny to pull basically everything they’ve got from other fronts to Kharkov (the Balakleya is in Kharkov oblast) to focus on developing a new offensive there. The only silver lining to this shit-cloud is that in moving their forces about, the Nazis left Artemovsk (Bakhmut) undefended and Russian army and Wagner’s PMC forces are apparently storming it in force. Artemovsk is a pretty key part of the AFU’s defensive lines in the Donbass, its fall/liberation (take your pick) would be pretty big news.
So, from the couple telegrams I follow, one of them (asbmil) has outright said - this is, for the first time, Russia getting fucked, but also for some reason, until now, Russia has not targeted the supply lines (railways for example) that the AFU has been using to move men and materiel to the front - though they also note that now, in the wake of this front collapsing, they have started to do so, hitting the lines from Chuguev, but it’s a case of too little, too late. I try not to second guess what actual military people are doing, I’m not even any good at ‘map games’ let alone real strategy, but this does seem really confusing that they would leave military infrastructure of the enemy intact.
I think they left supply lines open because they don’t want to hurt civilians, cause hunger or other problems and costs associated with a total destruction of infrastructure. Ultimately such things will have to be rebuilt and if they occupy it they’ll be rebuilding and having to arrange less reasonably priced supply chains for civilian logistics matters for some time.
So it’s probably more not wanting to touch mixed use stuff.
well, these have been described as supply lines of a purely military nature, so… I’m not sure. But yeah that is obviously a consideration, they have been incredibly restrained compared to other wars, and compared to how western media portrays them. If that is the reason for their inaction on this front, it seems like it may now cost them more lives than it saved as it will drag the fighting out even longer. There are areas where the Nazis advanced 50km or so, it’s a huge advance compared to the nature of this war otherwise.
Looks like while everyone was paying attention to the ‘grand Kherson counteroffensive’ which achieved nothing but a lot of dead Ukrainian soldiers and lost materiel, the AFU has had a big success over in the northeastern front, the last couple days they launched an attack north of Balakleya and managed to put the town into encirclement, earlier today the Russians withdrew and residents of the town have said that Ukrainian soldiers have arrived there now. Looks like a rather nasty fuckup by Russia there, this could allow the Nazis to threaten Izyum.
Zelensky has apparently agreed with Zaluzhny to pull basically everything they’ve got from other fronts to Kharkov (the Balakleya is in Kharkov oblast) to focus on developing a new offensive there. The only silver lining to this shit-cloud is that in moving their forces about, the Nazis left Artemovsk (Bakhmut) undefended and Russian army and Wagner’s PMC forces are apparently storming it in force. Artemovsk is a pretty key part of the AFU’s defensive lines in the Donbass, its fall/liberation (take your pick) would be pretty big news.
Aye, the Kharkov situation is quite worrying
So, from the couple telegrams I follow, one of them (asbmil) has outright said - this is, for the first time, Russia getting fucked, but also for some reason, until now, Russia has not targeted the supply lines (railways for example) that the AFU has been using to move men and materiel to the front - though they also note that now, in the wake of this front collapsing, they have started to do so, hitting the lines from Chuguev, but it’s a case of too little, too late. I try not to second guess what actual military people are doing, I’m not even any good at ‘map games’ let alone real strategy, but this does seem really confusing that they would leave military infrastructure of the enemy intact.
I think they left supply lines open because they don’t want to hurt civilians, cause hunger or other problems and costs associated with a total destruction of infrastructure. Ultimately such things will have to be rebuilt and if they occupy it they’ll be rebuilding and having to arrange less reasonably priced supply chains for civilian logistics matters for some time.
So it’s probably more not wanting to touch mixed use stuff.
well, these have been described as supply lines of a purely military nature, so… I’m not sure. But yeah that is obviously a consideration, they have been incredibly restrained compared to other wars, and compared to how western media portrays them. If that is the reason for their inaction on this front, it seems like it may now cost them more lives than it saved as it will drag the fighting out even longer. There are areas where the Nazis advanced 50km or so, it’s a huge advance compared to the nature of this war otherwise.