Russian Army Defeated: AFU Broke Through Kharkiv Region Frontline
- YULIA LATYNINA, NOVAYA GAZETA EUROPE
- 11.09.2022, 8:24
The Russian military fled along the entire Balakliya-Izyum-Kupyansk frontline.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine occupied the empty trenches. Then, without entering Balakleya and not being distracted by its assault, they bypassed two more lines of Russian defence and rushed to Kupyansk, the most essential transport supplies hub for the Kharkiv and Donbas Russian groups.
In military language, all this is called "cascading collapse of the front line and access to the manoeuvre space". All three enemy fortification lines fell, and there are no more fortification lines. Advance at whatever speed you want. Ukrainian troops are advancing: 50 km per day.
The simultaneous offensive of the Ukrainian troops threatens to close the entrapment near Izyum; a separate bonus is that this is the same location where the German troops entrapped the Red Army in 1942.
Everyone was expecting an offensive near Kherson, but it broke through near Balakleya.
How did it happen? What did Zaluzhny do? Where is the plan, and where is the successful improvisation?
First of all, in order to understand the breakthrough mechanism, one must take into account the nature of the roads on both sides of the frontline.
“There are a lot of lateral roads (i.e. running parallel to the front - note by Y.L.) on the Ukrainian side of the frontline,” says Roman Svitan, a military expert, pilot and reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "On the Russian side, on the contrary, the rear is cut by many rivers and streams, and the direction of movement along the roads is radial."
This difference allows you to handle reserves differently. The Armed Forces of Ukraine easily transfer troops from front to front, and they especially easily transfer HIMARSs, which ride on wheels far behind the front line at the usual speed of a truck, fire at Russian depots and positions, and easily roll further, moving tens of kilometres. On the contrary, it is difficult for Russian troops to transfer manpower and military equipment from one sector of the front to another.
This difference is not accidental: the Russian offensive essentially stopped where lateral roads appeared.
“This is how the dough that comes out of the mixer is pressed into a mould and hardens in that mould,” says Roman Svitan.
One more condition is the nature of the defence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Izyum sector of the frontline. The so-called active defence existed there all the time. The troops, let's say, were separated by the Siverskyi Donets River, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not have fixed fortifications in this location, but there was an active tank defence. It was one of the few places where the AFU had armoured vehicles (which they usually don't have). These were Polish T-72 tanks with all sorts of Western kits - thermal imagers, laser sights - that made it possible to turn this piece of iron into a rather advanced gadget.
The defensive tactic was possible only because of the nature of the terrain: superb pine forests spread around Izyum - you can’t see it from above with any drone, and tanks can move freely under the forest cover. The tanks were based 15 km from the frontline, out of reach of the bulk of the artillery, and when the Russian troops tried to break through the defences and cross to the other side, they advanced and quickly put things in order. Sometimes, of course, the Msta or Pion reached it, but Russian artillery, as you know, does not shoot accurately. It first adjusts fire. At the first adjusting shot, crews were jumping into tanks and retreating. “Today he dries his trousers under one tree,” says Roman Svitan, “and tomorrow the tree is different, five kilometers away, and the trousers are also different.”
The Ukrainian offensive near Balakliya (as well as near Kherson) was preceded by several days of heavy shelling of Russian positions with brand new artillery received from the United States. First of all, these were the same unguided M-26s for the HIMARSs, which had already distinguished themselves near Kherson. Recall that the M-26 is an American analogue of the Grad. These are unguided missiles with 15-32 km range, and which were already going to be written off in 2018, but now they are being written off on the Kharkiv and Kherson frontlines The HIMARSs rushed like crazy along the lateral roads, and created a barrage of fire, no longer aiming at depots far in the rear, but right along the line of defence, not only along the first line of fortifications but also along the second and third. “We targeted all the defence lines in depth,” says Roman Svitan.
But what is important: these attacks were not focused on Balakliya. The Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to break through the line of defence in several key areas: in Balakliya, near Izyum, near Stary Saltiv, and near Chuhuiv. “In all cases, there was a carefully worked out plan, and this plan provided for an attack on Kupyansk from Balakleya, Izyum, Stary Saltiv, and Chuhuiv,” says Roman Svitan. It was just not clear which plan would work. The best thing, as Sun Tzu used to say, is to have a plan and not to have one. And to make in the war the secondary - the main, and the main - secondary.
This breakthrough worked near Balakleya. Because of the Ukrainian offensive near Kherson, they took away a lot of troops, leaving only the Donetsk “mobilized” and the SOBR, who were used to beating the unarmed people at rallies. As a result, the troops from the first defence line simply fled.
“Near Verbivka, they fled to Balakliya, and even blew up the bridges across the Balakliyka River behind them,” says Roman Svitan. “They just jumped into the Siverskyi Donets River and began to swim across it, because the bridges were mined,” adds Taras Berezovets, a well-known Ukrainian political scientist, who is now a press officer of the First Separate Special Forces Brigade and advanced under Balakliya along with the brigade.
Russian publics now, of course, are talking about hordes of Ukrainians on tanks and sand-colored American M-113s, painted for the desert, who break into fortifications, shooting everything and everyone. But the reality is much more modest.
The AFU would never have attacked in such a wasteful way. They advanced where the positions were abandoned. “We didn’t even see the enemy,” says Berezovets, who was one of the first to enter the liberated village of Bayrak. But in the trenches, Berezovets saw the inevitable washing machine, which was difficult to take out by swimming. Even among the items in the trenches that surprised Berezovets, were boxes of ammunition with large oil paint inscriptions: “Unfit”. The ammunition was indeed useless, but this did not prevent them from being sent to the front.
After that, gliding along the Siverskyi Donets River and entering the manoeuvre space, the Izyum tanks, deployed in an hour along the lateral roads, and that sandy American M113s rushed into the gap, it's true that there was no time to repaint them. "Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane," as it was in Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Izyum forest went to Kupyansk.
Kupyansk was liberated, Izyum was surrounded (and, according to some reports, has already been abandoned by Russian troops). The Russian army, as Oleksiy Arestovych predicted more than once, turned out to be incapable of defence. Demotivated troops can still be sent on the attack like cannon fodder, but when they run, it's an avalanche. The panic spreads to others.
Moreover, Russian generals have long discovered the main secret of victories. They don't need to win - they need to report on victories. Even now, they probably continue to tell Putin about how they are luring the Ukrainians into a trap and that there is no progress, just as in 1840, after each lost battle, the Chinese military leaders told Emperor Daoguang about the fantastic victories over which they won the English "rebels".
Yulia Latynina, Novaya Gazeta Europe