For all of the sturm und drang of right now’s preventing, adjustments on the bottom have been scant. Ukraine formally picked up a small city right here, Russia did the identical over there. Whereas a lot of the entrance line was on hearth (Ukraine claimed 14 separate assaults), the scenario on the bottom remained primarily unchanged. @War_Mapper’s updates on Twitter are all the time nice, if you wish to see today’s changes.
I wrote earlier that pro-Russian Telegram sources claimed Ukraine was assaulting Izyum from throughout the Donets River (backside arrow in picture under), however a number of sources declare the assault is definitely coming down from Chuhuiv (prime arrow).
If Chuhuiv is the the supply of the counter-offensive, it might seemingly journey that fundamental freeway southeast towards Izyium, moderately than east towards Kupiansk. Russia has moved quite a lot of fight energy to Shevchenkove, between Chuhuiv and Kupiansk, to guard its essential provide depot from any Ukrainian advance. Getting by these two cities can be costly to Ukraine in navy sources and lives. And there’s no want, as we’ve can now so clearly see with Ukraine’s push towards Izyum itself.
In brief, if Ukraine collapses that Izyum pocket, there may be now not a necessity for Russia to take care of operations in both Kupiansk or Vovchansk—the 2 logistical hubs feeding the struggle machine within the Izyum salient. After per week of debating “Kupiansk vs Vovchansk,” it seems that one of the best reply is “C: Take away the cause for each.”
To make sure, I doublechecked NASA Companies satellite tv for pc imagery, and there’s actually no fires close to Shevechenkove. If Ukraine was headed in that route, it might hearth in town to clear Russian positions, whereas Russia would hearth again to sluggish or cease the advance. As a substitute, as I demonstrated earlier with FIRMS satellite tv for pc imagery, all of the motion is creating instantly west of Izyum:
Perhaps there’s a two-prong assault on Izyum creating, from each the west and northwest. Or possibly folks don’t know what’s occurring. Or possibly there’s even some disinformation designed to repair Russian positions on a northwest strategy that may by no means materialize. That’s why FIRMS imagery may be so useful. There are such a lot of sources of data claiming stuff, and few of them are really incentivized to all the time inform the reality.
On one other subject, it’s good seeing our protection tax {dollars} doing one thing productive.
The declare by Ukrainian servicemen’s is that American-donated M777 howitzers destroyed the 80+ autos at Russia’s unimaginably disastrous Bilohorivka river crossing try. I’m trying ahead to a translation (this guy will do it quickly), but it surely undoubtedly seems to be like an “America, FUCK YEAH” second we liberals can rally behind.
This entire debacle has been a enjoyable occasion to trace on pro-Russia social media. The Institute for the Examine of Warfare claims, in tonight’s update, that they’ve seen pro-Russia telegram shaken by the carnage:
Distinguished pro-Russian Telegram channels (with roughly 300 thousand followers) largely criticized Russian Normal Employees for failing to be taught from earlier fight errors and expressed concern that censorship and self-censorship was depriving them of situational consciousness. Different pro-Russian Telegram channels famous the sluggish tempo of Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast, blaming it partially on ineffective aerial reconnaissance and the detrimental results of dangerous morale inside the Russian navy. Some Telegram channels reported receiving criticism for “misrepresenting” the efficiency of the Russian navy.
They cite all these observations, so that they’re true. However I have to frequent a distinct nook of Telegram and pro-Russia Twitter, as a result of what I’ve seen is completely totally different—the invention of a fantastical alternate actuality the place many of the destroyed autos are Ukrainian.
The idea is as such: many of the destroyed autos are BMP-1 infantry preventing autos, and supposedly Russia now not fields these historical autos. On-the-ground photographs exhibits Russian uniforms in those BMP-1s, however hey, these could possibly be faked, proper? That’s what the propagandists say. Open Supply Intelligence (OSINT) analyst Henry Schlottman, the authority on the composition of Russian military items, actually claims that they’re in service.
Oryx has tracked 43 BMP-1s misplaced by Russia, like this, this, this, and this, all with outstanding Russian invasion markings. Oh, and right here’s one that also in Russia’s palms:
Moreover, Russia has been pressured to dig into its operational reserves to backfill fight losses whereas reconstituted shredded items. There aren’t a variety of fashionable infantry autos in these reserves. That is the crap they’re pulling out.
After all, there’s much more than simply BMP-1s on the Bilohorivka catastrophe website! There are 14 T-72s, that are customary Russian difficulty (although Ukraine has captured a bunch), in addition to BMP-2s, and engineering and help gear that solely Russia fields. So how do they clarify that?
Nicely, they’ll concede that there was an enormous battle on the spot. They’ll even admit (generally) that Russia now not holds the bridgehead. However, their losses have been only a fraction of the general complete destroyed autos. You see, there was an enormous battle, and, Russia destroyed all these Ukrainians in BMP-1s earlier than tactically retreating again throughout the bridge, which then Ukraine destroyed after the very fact … er … 3 times.
Then Russia launched video saying “nah uh, we destroyed Ukrainian bridge!”
Besides … all I see is Russian capturing at a river, then dropping artillery on a river, with no autos wherever round. Who is aware of, possibly they did compromise a working bridgehead. However it might nonetheless imply the tally is as follows:
Destroyed Russian pontoon bridge: 82+ autos
Destroyed Ukrainian pontoon bridge: 0 autos
However actually, that type of propaganda isn’t designed to persuade folks, it’s designed to provide their partisans crap to spew. Nothing else. There’s a time period for that type of fantasy-making on this struggle, and it’ll jump over to our personal political discourse earlier than lengthy: copium. Folks will invent what they want to deal with the information they don’t wish to see.
