Jack Watling/Guardian:
Ukraine can now exploit Russia’s confusion, but must plan carefully
While better weaponry from the west has enabled a surprise counterattack and left Russian forces in disarray, caution is required in formulating a strategy for the harsh months ahead
After five months on the defensive, Ukraine has seized the initiative from the Russian armed forces and is on the offensive. In the south, Ukrainian troops are pushing Russia’s most capable combat units back towards Kherson and fixing them against the west bank of the Dnipro River, where they can be destroyed in place with artillery.
In the north-east, Ukrainian forces launched a surprise counteroffensive to sever the ground lines of communication north of Izyum, the base from which Russian forces were attempting to push into Donbas, compelling a Russian withdrawal. Several key capabilities have enabled these successes. In June, the Ukrainians could not concentrate their forces because of the volume of Russian artillery arrayed against them and struggled to get timely tactical intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles – drones – because of extensive Russian electronic warfare and air defence complexes.
ISW:
The Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast is routing Russian forces and collapsing Russia’s northern Donbas axis. Russian forces are not conducting a controlled withdrawal and are hurriedly fleeing southeastern Kharkiv Oblast to escape encirclement around Izyum. Russian forces have previously weakened the northern Donbas axis by redeploying units from this area to Southern Ukraine, complicating efforts to slow the Ukrainian advance or at minimum deploy a covering force for the retreat. Ukrainian gains are not confined to the Izyum area; Ukrainian forces reportedly captured Velikiy Burluk on September 10, which would place Ukrainian forces within 15 kilometers of the international border.[1] Ukrainian forces have penetrated Russian lines to a depth of up to 70 kilometers in some places and captured over 3,000 square kilometers of territory in the past five days since September 6 – more territory than Russian forces have captured in all their operations since April.
Well, then. The 1904-5 Russo-Japanese war ended badly for the Tsar, and led directly to the 1905 Russian Rebellion (setting the stage for 1917).
Mark Galeotti/Twitter:
Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the Kremlin's 'newspaper of record,' is as stodgy as you might expect, but in light of the extraordinary Ukrainian successes in the past few days, it's instructive to see what it's telling Russians today (and what it's not). A short thread
First, and most obvious, there's not even a hint of the Ukrainians' advance from Kharkov deep into Russian-held territory. Quite the opposite, instead there are tallies, drawn directly from MOD briefings, of alleged enemy losses (4000 KIA since 6 Sept)
…
The Kremlin is happy to lie, but can't just ignore realities, and so is really struggling to create any positive narratives on issues where some basic fact-checking is possible. This is the kind of dilemma we saw in Chechnya (x2) and the Sov war in Afghanistan, and tends to be a sign that the state's control over the narrative is cracking. It is not so much IMO that Russians up to now have necessarily *believed* the official line so much as that they have had no reason to both *disbelieving* it as that is dangerous both politically and also morally. I remember one parent of a vet from Afghanistan I interviewed for my PhD. She said "I didn't want to believe what people were saying about the war, because if I did, then I would either have to act or be a part of it."
Lawrence Freedman/Substack:
Gradually, then Suddenly
“How did you go bankrupt?”
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.
As with bankruptcy so with military defeat. What appears to be a long, painful grind can quickly turn into a rout. A supposedly resilient and well-equipped army can break and look for means of escape. This is not unusual in war. We saw it happen with the Afghan Army in the summer of 2021.
And in other news:
David M Drucker/Washington Examiner:
'The president comes up in most conversations': New Hampshire GOP Senate contender navigates Trump
Republican Senate contender Chuck Morse acknowledged Donald Trump is a polarizing figure in the Granite State but said the former president’s agenda was a boon for the country while declaring he “would love to have his endorsement.”
Campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Morse told the Washington Examiner in an interview Trump has been a hot topic as Republicans vie for the right to challenge Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) in the general election. Most Republican voters Morse talks to want a return to Trump policies, he said, while conceding not all of them miss the constant controversy the former president stirred up with his provocative attitude.
“The president comes up in most conversations throughout the state of New Hampshire,” Morse, the president of the state Senate and a key ally of Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), said Friday in Rochester, a town of 35,000 people 40 miles northeast of Manchester, New Hampshire, that is something of a political bellwether in statewide elections.
“In almost every conversation, people want to get back to Trump’s policies,” Morse added. “They believe what he did on the border, what he did with energy, what he did with budgeting, was the right way to head as a country. What they didn’t like was the way he presented it, so I get both sides of that when I’m out on the campaign trail.”
His opponent, retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, and more hard right, currently leads in the polls.
Rachel Monroe/New Yorker:
The Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Has Given Beto O’Rourke a Fighting Chance
As a candidate for Texas governor, the Democrat was considered a long shot. But the state’s new—and extreme—restrictions have galvanized his campaign.
Even before the trigger law went into effect, Texas’s punitive abortion policies were generating uncertainty and fear—and political opportunities for Democrats. O’Rourke appeared alongside Elizabeth Weller, one of a number of Texas women carrying nonviable fetuses who have been forced to continue their pregnancies despite physical and emotional risks. In May, during Weller’s eighteenth week of pregnancy, her water broke. Doctors determined that her amniotic sac had ruptured; the fetus would not survive outside the womb. After consulting with her physician, Weller and her husband decided to have the pregnancy terminated, but, because of uncertainty about the legal circumstances in Texas, the hospital refused to perform the procedure unless she developed certain severe symptoms, she said. “The administration of the hospital told me that I was not sick enough at the time that this happened to me,” she said. “And they sent me home to wait for either my baby to die or for me to incur an infection.” After several days, as Weller’s symptoms worsened, an ethics board finally determined that she could undergo the procedure.
WaPo:
Americans are finally feeling better about the economy
Gas prices are falling, and there are signs households are learning to deal with inflation
After months of gloom, Americans are finally starting to feel better about the economy and more resigned to inflation.
Consumer sentiment, which hit rock bottom in June, has begun inching up in recent weeks. Gas prices are down. Decades-high inflation appears to be easing. And at the same time, Americans are making small changes — buying meat in bulk, for example, or shifting more of their shopping to discount chains — suggesting that many families are learning to deal with higher prices.
“While consumer sentiment is still fairly low by historic standards, we’re starting to see pretty dramatic improvements,” said Joanne W. Hsu, an economist at the University of Michigan and director of its closely watched consumer surveys. “It’s very much being driven by a slowdown in inflation, particularly with the decline in gas prices.”
Nicole Lafond/TPM:
Where Things Stand: Watching The Christian Right’s Power Play Out In Real Time
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters yesterday that a vote on the bill could happen in coming weeks. He also suggested that Democrats would rather vote on the bill as its own package with enough GOP support to overcome the filibuster then to have to tuck it into a short term spending bill. But getting Republicans on the record on same-sex marriage ahead of the midterms is proving to be an uphill battle as some key senators, like Johnson, come out against the bill. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) even used the same religious liberties language in explaining his opposition.
As we wait for more clarity on the dynamics of any possible impending vote, I want to re-up this piece from last month from TPM contributor Sarah Posner.
In it, Sarah argues that the leaders of the Christian right’s powerful political apparatus are already signaling that, for them, Obergefell is the new Roe. Senate Republicans have heard the message. And they fear the movement’s power.
Philip Bump/WaPo:
Can Mastriano win in a purple state while staying in right-wing bubble?
It’s not uncommon that candidates will work to appeal to their party’s poles as they try to win a primary. Often, they then tack back to the middle. But when [PA Republican Senatorial candidate Doug] Mastriano won his primary in May, he made clear that very night that he’d be doing no such thing. His acceptance speech was a mélange of culture-war rhetoric and talking points that could have been pulled from a Tucker Carlson monologue. Not only was he going to govern as a hard-right conservative, he assured any observers, but it became clear that he was going to continue to run as one.