Yesterday I noted that Russian Telegram had been hyping up a supposed offensive out of Kreminna, pushing west toward Lyman.
Given Ukrainian advances across that entire front, all the way up to the strategic town of Svatove to the north, an actual successful Russian counterattack would be truly notable. It would mean that Russia had stemmed its losses, rallied its forces, and begun retaking the initiative. But as I also said yesterday, Russian Telegram is only truthful when they’re in blind-panic mode. Unsurprisingly, these Russian advances never happened. As far as I can tell, Russia never even tried. So how do these same propaganda sources explain Ukraine’s control of those towns? Well, there are lots of ways!
Maybe Ukraine counter-counterattacked and pushed the Russians out:
But wait, that’s embarrassing, suggesting yet another Russian military defeat. Those sting. Instead, how about Russians voluntarily retreated for the fun of it?
Hmm, retreat isn’t much better. It means they can’t hold their ground against advancing Ukrainian forces. So how about this—Russia isn’t retreating, Those towns are a “gray zone” and, you know, anyone can possibly occupy them at any given moment.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian sources roll their eyes and are like “it’s quiet in that direction.” The real action is up north, at Svatove. Ukrainian forces have been steadily, methodically, pushing closer and closer to this strategic transportation hub.
Let’s pull back to get a sense of the broader strategic picture:
It’s funny seeing Izyum so far from the front lines, around 40-50 kilometers depending on the exact location of the front lines. (@War_Mapper shows fewer Ukrainian advances than DefMon, who himself is very conservative in his map updates. War Mapper likes to wait for official confirmation.)
If you look closely at Svatove, you can see that almost every road in that region runs through Svatove, making it strategically important to both sides. But even more importantly, Svatove opens up the approach to Starobilsk, with almost no natural barriers to slow down a Ukrainian advance (except maybe for rainy season).Every road and railroad in that sparsely populated agricultural steppe region runs through Starobilsk.
That means if Svatove is retaken, a big chunk of Russian-held red territory in the middle of that map above automatically turns Ukrainian yellow. But if Starobilsk is liberated? The That entire Russian presence in the northeast will clear out, cut off from supplies, down to the Luhansk purple on the map. And best of all, that dark line through Starobilsk is Russia’s last functional rail link into Ukraine from its main supply hub at Belgorod, just north of Kharkiv. Once Ukraine cuts that line, Russia’s logistics are truly f’d, and will need to be completely reconfigured toward eastern Ukraine.
Russia, for its part, is rushing its best and its brightest to Svatove’s defense, and some of them aren’t even 60 years old (the guy in the middle, at least):
These sad saps were called up from their hometowns, sent to Belgorod, then trucked to Svatove, where they were dumped into flooded trenches they said were “half destroyed, even with weapons lying around, as the guys before us also ran away from there.” They waited in those trenches, under constant Ukrainian mortar fire and without food or water for three days (because why would Russia care about its own), until water came up to their waist. They said screw it and walked down a road thinking they were walking back to Belgorod, until they came across a Ukrainian checkpoint and happily surrendered.
This is what “shaping the battlefield” current looks like for Ukraine—forcing Russian defenders from their entrenched defensive positions, and apparently the rain and Russian incompetence is assisting. Ideally, by the time Ukrainian forces are ready to march on Svatove itself, there won’t be many defenders left.
Russia’s inability to support and train its forces can lead to some … I want to say “hilarious” situations, but people are dying so that feels wrong. On the other hand, come on …
Hitting a buried anti-tank mine? That’s bad luck. You can’t see them. But here, the Russian driver pulled onto the road, with two rows of neatly laid out mines, and didn’t even pause or slow down as he drove over them with the all-too-obvious result. Clearly, no one ever told this driver “those things go boom boom, so don’t drive on them if you see them.” He’s in a war zone, without even the most rudimentary education on what to expect. And yet they put this guy behind the wheel of an armored infantry vehicle, full of comrades in the back!
Stung by criticism in Russian media about the lack of training for the mobilized, their Ministry of Defense staged this Potemkin “training” to pretend otherwise. It’s quite hilarious (and this time, no has died … yet).
They are literally pretending to shoot as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu “inspects” the training. (Turns out Shoigu hasn’t been ousted as some rumors suggested.) They superimpose small arms fire over the video to try and complete the illusion, but their clumsy effort pathetically fails. They don’t even care enough to give those trainees empty magazines to make the whole thing more believable!
If you want to see what competent infantry training looks like, here’s my son’s advanced infantry training unit doing live fire drills during the day, and at night (using night-vision gear Russia can only dream of having). Notice how it’s not a chaotic clusterfuck, and how they’re actually firing live rounds. (By the way, since I know you’ll ask, he’s doing great, still working his way through the pre-Ranger pipeline. Of the roughly 30 in his training unit that began the process, just two are left. My kid is stubborn and refuses to quit. Assuming all goes well, he’ll start Ranger school on November 1. If you don’t know what that is, you can read this, or watch this.)
Meanwhile, on a more practical level, Russia’s indiscriminate mobilization threatens to bring its country’s educational system to a halt. With all male teachers and administrators hauled away, there are fewer teachers left to educate Russia’s children.
Russia’s diplomatic situation continues to deteriorate.
The four pro-Russian votes are the usual suspects: Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, and Syria. Cuba and Serbia, close Russian allies, couldn’t bring themselves to support Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. The murderous North Korea-style regime in Eritrea, having voted for Russia in previous votes, weirdly abstained. All the nations in the CSTO—Russia’s supposed NATO-style military alliance—abstained in the vote. China and India abstained, both of them having already signaled their unhappiness with the war.
For a country that still insists it is fighting “Nazis” in Ukraine, weird how the entire world doesn’t see it that way, not even most of Russia’s closest friends.
Speaking of Potemkin, remember the day of the attack, how Russia published video of cars and trains crossing the bridge? That was their attempt at a “NICE TRY, UKRAINE!” Yet here we are, six days later, and Russia is still working to restore service. Too bad Ukraine doesn’t have HIMARS to take out that floating crane and finish the job on the clearly weakened rail bridge.
On this week's episode of The Downballot we get medieval on the traditional media for its appalling display of ableism in the wake of John Fetterman's recent NBC interview; recap the absolutely wild goings-on in Los Angeles, where City Council President Nury Martinez just resigned after a racist tirade was caught on tape; dive into the unexpectedly close race for governor in Oklahoma; and highlight a brand-new database from Daily Kos Elections showing how media markets and congressional districts overlap.