Daily Kos coverage of the NE theater of the Ukraine war has been focused on the cutting of the rail line going through Starobilsk, and for good reason. The rail line through Starobilsk connects the Russian supply base near Belgorod with the city of Luhansk. Cutting this line would force a rerouting of supplies to just a few rail lines much farther east and south. This offensive is represented by the yellow arrow on the map above, driving from just West of Svatove to Starobilsk. However, this rail line doesn’t have to be cut in Starobilsk. It could also be cut by taking the city of Urazovo as pictured by the orange arrow.
Ukraine is currently much closer to Urazovo (about a third of the distance). Mark reported on Friday that there was some movement in this direction. He commented there were no good road connections between the P-79 and the P-66 NE of Kupiansk. However, he didn’t look far enough North. Not only are there good road connections in Urazovo, there is a railroad from Kupiansk to Urazovo which connects to the Starobilsk railroad. Taking Urazovo would not only be a closer distance, it would allow Ukraine to make use of the Starobilsk railroad for its own supply. The offensive from Svatove to Starobilsk is roads only. There is no E/W rail line from Svatove to Starobilsk.
So why is no one talking about Urazovo? Well..., it happens to be in Russia. The thicker off-white line that the orange arrow crosses is the internationally recognized border between Ukraine and Russia. Crossing into Russia would be something Ukraine has yet to do in this war. So far they have been content to drive Russia back to the border. There is unfortunately plenty of land in Ukraine still to retake and there hasn’t been a strong reason to cross into Russia, until now.
Connecting a rail line from Kupiasnk (and points West) to the Starobilsk rail line would be a big deal. Rail lines carry a significantly greater volume of goods than roads can. That volume of supplies could well be the difference between Ukraine having the ability to attack from Starobilsk into southern Luhansk or not. Attacking from Starobilsk into Luhansk could cut yet another critical rail line (Luhansk to Volgograd) and threaten an encirclement of all Russian forces in Ukraine.
The question is, would there be repercussions? The area needed to be occupied would be relatively small. The Free Russian Legion (if they are truly a thing, there is very little information about them) would be an ideal force making this a liberation instead of an occupation. Using the Free Russian Legion would also essentially kick off a Russian civil war, which may not be a good thing. It’s a Pandora’s box of consequences.
Internationally, there would certainly be talk of “escalation” by the New York Times and other sources also prone to bothsiderism. From a war standpoint, there is nothing inherently wrong about attacking the country that has attacked you. We occupied Germany and Japan in World War II. Of course both of those countries did not have nukes. But Russia’s nuclear posture is supposed to be the use of Nukes only if facing an existential threat to Russia itself. Temporarily taking a few square miles of Russian land is hardly an existential threat. But it’s not nothing either.
I don’t really know what the repercussions would be. Russia would make as much PR as they could out of it for both domestic and international audiences. I really don’t think Russia would use nukes over this. But it would be quite the risk to take. I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision.
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