Joe Biden still isn’t taking my calls even though I try to explain to the switch board how militarily brilliant I am in the 3 seconds before they hang up on me. Having the latest NSA intercepts and satellite images would certainly help me figure out which way Ukraine is actually going. But then, that’s the point. Mark and Kos have published some recent articles which seem to contradict each other. Ukraine’s going after Izyum! No, they crossed the river further north! Which leads me to say, “Well done Ukraine.”
Misdirection and surprise are a critical element in war and both are much harder to achieve in this age of twitter intelligence gathering. But Ukraine is doing a fantastic job using that Twitter intelligence to perform head fakes on Russia.
When Ukraine first went for the bridges NE of Kharkiv Mark or Kos shared that there was artillery shelling of the eastern bank. Then the action went elsewhere. The forces around Izyum faced a buildup of artillery over several days and Ukraine apparently launched an attack on the salient itself. Which was followed by news that, … they crossed the river near Kharkiv. Maybe.
Misdirection is important in any war as striking where the enemy doesn’t expect you to is clearly a good thing. Versus Russia, it’s even more important. In this article, I highlighted how Russian BTGs work with conscript troops and due to that are not necessarily good at rapid redeployment to new areas in response to changing conditions. Russia also has problems with logistics. Making their troops move around frequently messes up logistics delivery.
Imagine taking a vacation in Europe via train and you move to a new city every day. Now imagine somebody trying to ship a package to you while you’re traveling. The sender has to guess how long it will take to get to you and guess which city to send it to based on your stated itinerary. If they guess wrong in one direction, you’ve left the city before the package arrives. If they guess wrong the other way, the package might be sitting around for a few days while you get to the city. If the package is medication, you may have a problem. Then what happens if you need to change plans at the last second and end up going to a destination not on the itinerary? This is why military logistics are complicated. Now imagine you’re a BTG bouncing back and forth between Izyum and near Belgorod and keep getting your orders changed depending upon where Ukraine is apparently attacking now. And enemy attacks destroy some of the items on the way to you. You can’t eat your ammunition (well, not more than once). Logistics is not easy and the Russians are incompetent.
In the coming days you should expect more such false(?) leads. Ukraine might even appear to attack in another 5 or 6 places. It’s not hard to shell an enemy line for a day to make it look like an imminent attack. The more BTGs Ukraine can force the Russians to move around the more mixed up the Russians will get. If the Russians start to refuse to move, the Ukrainians can strike a weak spot for real. Further, BOTH attacks might be real in a certain sense. Ukraine can pressure one area or the other depending upon the Russian response.
And this pressure is related to Ukraine having short interior lines of communication compared to Russia’s exterior lines. Ukraine can juggle it’s forces from one front to the other far quicker than Russia due to having to travel a much smaller distance. Combine with superior Ukrainian logistics, and they will be able to confuse the heck out of Russia.
I expect Ukraine has crossed the river in (at least) 2 spots. To do so quietly and quickly is a superb accomplishment. If Ukraine has achieved an actual breakout behind Russian lines, that will be absolutely amazing and you should expect the area north east of Donbas to fall relatively quickly. What will be truly important to find out is if Russia has kept many forces in the pre-invasion fortifications east of Severodonetsk. If they haven’t and the Ukrainians can beat them there then the rout will be on.
Go Ukraine!
