Combat continues as does the barrage of disinformation. “Ukrainian gains may continue to be slow if the Russian troops can retain their coherence but could also accelerate significantly if Russian forces begin to break.” Ukrainian forces have liberated more than 60,000 square kilometers of territory since April.
Russian forces are likely attempting to conduct a more deliberate and controlled withdrawal in western Kherson Oblast to avoid the chaotic flight that characterized the collapse of Russian defensive positions in Kharkiv Oblast earlier this month. The Russians have heavily reinforced western Kherson Oblast over the past several months including with airborne units and at least some elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army.[11] These ostensibly more professional and well-trained and equipped units are concentrated in a small area in Kherson Oblast and were prepared for the expected counteroffensive. They appear to be performing significantly better than Russian forces in Kharkiv Oblast. The Ukrainians destroyed a number of units of the 1st Guards Tank Army in Kharkiv Oblast, putting them to flight and capturing large amounts of high-quality equipment. The worse performance of professional Russian soldiers in Kharkiv Oblast compared with those in Kherson Oblast may be due to the thinner concentration of Russian forces in Kharkiv Oblast as well as the fact that the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast appeared to surprise the Russian defenders.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast is nevertheless making progress, and Russian forces appear to be attempting to slow it and fall back to more defensible positions rather than stop it cold or reverse it. Continuous Ukrainian attacks on Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) across the Dnipro River to western Kherson Oblast appear to be having increasing effects on Russian supplies on the right bank—recent reports indicate shortages of food and water in Russian-occupied Kherson City and at least a temporary slackening of Russian artillery fire. Poor-quality proxy units have collapsed in some sectors of the Russian front lines, moreover, allowing Ukrainian advances. Ukrainian forces remain likely to regain much if not all of western Kherson Oblast in the coming weeks if they continue to interdict Russian GLOCs and press their advance. Ukrainian gains may continue to be slow if the Russian troops can retain their coherence but could also accelerate significantly if Russian forces begin to break.
A prominent Russian milblogger also claimed that the Russian command issued a “no retreat” order last week for all units serving in Donbas, requiring that Russian forces operating on the axis hold their positions regardless of the unfolding situation in front of them.[12] This order would be noteworthy in two ways if the report is accurate. First, Donetsk Oblast is the only area in Ukraine in which Russian forces are still attempting offensive operations. There have been sporadic reports of limited Ukrainian counterattacks, but no evidence that Ukraine is preparing a large-scale counteroffensive operation in this area.[13] The order suggests that the Russian military may fear a Ukrainian counteroffensive into the teeth of their last offensive efforts, however. Second, it shows deep mistrust of the combat capabilities of the units receiving the order in contrast with the apparently higher confidence Russian commanders have in the units in western Kherson Oblast, where sensible efforts to conduct a controlled withdrawal appear to prevail.
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- Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be increasingly relying on irregular, poorly trained ad-hoc volunteer and proxy units rather than attempting to rebuild damaged or destroyed conventional Russian ground forces units.
- Ukrainian forces continue to consolidate positions on the east bank of the Oskil River in Kharkiv Oblast despite Russian efforts to contain them.
- Russian forces in western Kherson Oblast may be attempting to fall back to more defensible positions in a controlled withdrawal to avoid the chaotic retreat that characterized the collapse of Russian defenses in Kharkiv earlier in September.
- Russian forces suffered devastating losses of manpower and equipment in their fight for eastern Ukraine and especially during the Ukrainian Kharkiv counter-offensive. Multiple Russian armored and mechanized units have likely been effectively destroyed according to assessments released on September 18.
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Click here to see interactive map, updated daily: arcg.is/09O0OS
Eastern Ukraine: (Vovchansk-Kupyansk-Izyum-Lyman Line)
Ukrainian forces are continuing to establish positions on the east bank of the Oskil River. A Russian source reported that fighting is ongoing in eastern Kupyansk, indicating that Ukrainian forces are consolidating prior gains.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian ground assault on Kupyansk.[15] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai posted footage of Ukrainian personnel driving a tank over a pontoon bridge at an unspecified location and claimed that Ukrainian forces control an unspecified location on the east bank of the river.[16] Footage posted on September 17 shows Ukrainian forces operating on the Oskil River in a boat and receiving Russian artillery fire before advancing to the east bank.[17]
A Ukrainian official stated that Ukrainian forces are waiting for the fall of Lyman before beginning ground operations to retake Luhansk Oblast.[18] Ukrainian forces reportedly struck the Russian logistics node at Svatove, Luhansk Oblast on September 18. The Luhansk People’s Republic Interior Ministry claimed that Ukrainian forces struck a hotel and bus stop with two HIMARS rounds.[19] Ukrainian forces have likely previously struck Russian military targets in Svatove, likely impeding the Russian ability to defend Svatove and other areas in the rear if Ukrainian forces choose to advance.[20] Svatove has served as a hub on the Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Severodonetsk. Haidai noted that Russian forces are establishing fortifications in areas close to the front lines, including Svatove, Troitske, Rubizhne, and Popasna.[21] Ukrainian strikes on Russian rear areas undermine these efforts and will degrade Russian forces’ ability to defend these areas if Ukraine advances. These positions are not close to one another, moreover, and Russian forces in this area may be challenged to form coherent defensive lines across such a wide area.
Russian forces continued to strike border areas along the Kharkiv-Belgorod Oblast border and conducted a limited ground assault north of Kharkiv City.[22] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian ground assault on Hoptivka, less than two kilometers from the international border.[23]
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Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)
Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces are “conceding” and losing tactically significant positions in unspecified areas in Kherson Oblast.[24] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command added that Russian forces have decreased the intensity of their artillery fire over some unspecified segments along the line of contact.[25] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command noted that platoon-sized Russian elements still unsuccessfully attempt to assault Ukrainian positions in unspecified areas, however.[26] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian forces are coercing civilians to fortify Russian positions in Chonhar on the eastern Kherson Oblast-Crimean border, which may indicate that Russian forces are setting up defenses in anticipation of Ukrainian counteroffensives south of the Dnipro River.[27] Ukrainian military officials added that Russian forces continued to evict civilians from their homes west of Kherson City and in northern Kherson Oblast and are increasingly searching for deserters in the region.[28]
Ukrainian military officials and local reports note that Ukrainian forces are continuing their interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian barge that was delivering military equipment and ammunition, resulting in the deaths of 62 Russian servicemen and destruction of at least five armored vehicles according to preliminary information.[29] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command added that Ukrainian strikes undermined Russian efforts to repair the Antonivsky Railway Bridge.[30] Ukrainian military officials also reported the destruction of a Russian ammunition depot in Blahodatne, although it is unclear if they referred to the Blahodatne settlement in Mykolaiv Oblast or Kherson Oblast.[31] Social media users also reported that Russian air defenses activated in Nova Kakhovka at least 10 minutes after a missile struck an unspecified target in Nova Kakhovka.[32] Residents published footage of plumes of smoke in Yubileyne, Oleshky Raion (about 51km southeast of Kherson City), and the Ukrainian Southern Operational Spokesperson Nataliya Humenyuk noted explosions in Oleshky but did not specify their cause.[33] Local Telegram channels also published footage from around Beryslav in northern Kherson Oblast, noting that Russian forces have been extinguishing the fire for more than two hours.[34]
Ukrainian officials denied the involvement of Ukrainian forces in a street shooting in downtown Kherson City on the night of September 17 and September 18.[35] The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command claimed that the shooting was a Russian provocation.[36] Humenyuk noted that Ukrainian security services have previously warned civilians of possible Russian provocations in populated areas between September 17 and September 20 and claimed that the shooting in Kherson City is a Russian attempt to discredit Ukrainian forces.[37] Advisor to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office Mykhailo Podolyak noted that Russian street fights indicate that there are boiling tensions between the personnel of private military companies, Russian Armed Forces, Chechen units, and elements of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) amidst the pressure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.[38] Advisor to the Kherson Oblast Military Administration Serhiy Khlan suggested that the incident was “a cheap spectacle,” and noted that Russian occupation authorities are seeking to create a propaganda narrative that Russian forces are able to maintain control of the city.[39] Russian proxy authorities denied the involvement of Ukrainian sabotage groups and did not provide any additional details.[40] The initial Russian proxy denial makes the assessment that that incident was part of an information operation to discredit Ukrainian forces less likely. The incident may instead indicate that Russian forces are struggling to retain control of the city, possibly because of the infighting Podolyak suggests is prevalent.
Ukrainian and Russian sources identified three areas of kinetic activity on September 18: northwest of Kherson City, near the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River, and south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border near Vysokopillya. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults on Pravdyne (about 30km northwest of Kherson City), and geolocated footage showed Ukrainian artillery striking Russian forces near the settlement.[41] Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian and Russian troops continued to fight in Bezimenne (approximately 12km southeast of the bridgehead), and increasingly commented on the effects of the flood caused by Russian damage to dams on the Inhulets River on Ukrainian logistics.[42] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces fired artillery at Ukrainka and launched airstrikes at Bilyaivka, both southeast of Vysokopillya within Russian assessed territory.[43] The Russian Defense Ministry claimed striking Ukrainian positions in Veremiivka, just north of Ukrainka and Bilyaivka.[44]
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised his country there would be no letup in the counteroffensive that has reclaimed towns and cities from Russian troops, as shelling continued Sunday across a wide stretch of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy ran through a list of towns that Ukraine has taken back in its lightning push across the northeast.
“Maybe now it seems to some of you that after a series of victories we have a certain lull,” he said in his nightly video address. “But this is not a lull. This is preparation for the next series... Because Ukraine must be free — all of it.”
Ukraine’s military command said its forces secured the eastern bank of the Oskil River on Saturday. The river, which flows south from Russia into Ukraine, had been a natural break in the newly emerged front lines since Kyiv’s counteroffensive began.
As Russian shells hit towns and cities over the weekend, the British defense ministry warned that Moscow is likely to increase attacks on civilian targets as it suffers battlefield defeats.
“In the last seven days, Russia has increased its targeting of civilian infrastructure even where it probably perceives no immediate military effect,” the ministry said in an online briefing. “As it faces setbacks on the front lines, Russia has likely extended the locations it is prepared to strike in an attempt to directly undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and government.”
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Ukraine’s continuing rout of Russian forces in the east has exposed fundamental problems within the Russian military, including deficiencies and power struggles in its command structure and gaps in intelligence gathering and processing. Though Russia’s early failures and difficulty recruiting enough soldiers for the frontline have been clear for months, the latest operation shows the depth of the disarray and stasis in Russia’s armed forces.
Ukraine’s lightning strike operation in Kharkiv oblast demonstrated the Ukrainian military’s ability to take advantage of those deficiencies to recapture not just territory, but strategically important transport and resupply hubs for the Russian military’s eastern front. Although the war is far from over, and Russia still controls around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, the Kharkiv operation provided a strategic and moral win for Ukraine, and revealed a Russian military seemingly unable — or unwilling — to learn from its previous errors.
Fighting continues in southern Ukraine near Kherson and in the Donbas, where Russia had sent its more experienced soldiers prior to the Kharkiv blitz. While it’s impossible to predict how the fighting will play out there, Ukraine’s ability to take the battlefield initiative and exploit Russian weaknesses — as well as materiel, financial, and intelligence support from Western countries — put Ukraine’s military in a stronger position.
Since the beginning of the war, Russian failures — its inability to achieve its initial goal of a short, surgical operation to remove Ukrainian leadership, its withdrawal from Kyiv and reorientation toward the south in the spring, and numerous tactical blunders — have been surprising. Earlier, devastating campaigns in Syria and Chechnya, as well as sophisticated military doctrine and strategic shows of force, successfully burnished the Russian military’s image, but in a large-scale ground war against a well-equipped and organized adversary, that same organization is buckling under serious miscalculations and a chaotic military structure.
[...]
Part of Russia’s challenges with intelligence collection are apparently due to the heavy losses that some of its elite teams — including reconnaissance units — have suffered due to poor planning and lack of heavy armored support, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service. Ukraine has also destroyed and captured Russian surveillance drones like the Orlan-10, according to reporting from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Moscow has reportedly lost 918 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during the war, both surveillance and attack varieties, according to the Kyiv Independent and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
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2/ The Ukrainian offensive in the north east is continuing to exploit a bumbling and incoherent Russian defensive scheme to the east of Kharkiv. Thousands of square kilometres of Ukrainian territory have been recaptured, and many towns and their inhabitants have been liberated.
3/ Even the Oskil Rver defensive line, rapidly established by the Russians, appears to be crumbling. Deception and operational art have been central to Ukrainian preparations for their achieving surprise against the Russians in this new phase of the war.
4/ Deception. That it was able to exploit this opportunity indicates that Ukraine had an excellent plan to deceive Russian overhead collection assets as well as their tactical reconnaissance and surveillance.
5/ As one military interlocutor in Kyiv confirmed, Russian tactical reconnaissance in the east of Ukraine has been poor. It has generally consisted of ‘advance to contact’ with infantry and armour, rather than through the use of dedicated air and ground reconnaissance assets.
6/ This means that the environment is ripe for tactical and even operational surprise, something the Ukrainians clearly recognised in their planing for the Kharkiv offensive.
7/ Operational Design. While the Russian focus was primarily on its operations to defend its holdings in the south, and conduct small scale attacks in the Donbas,
#Ukraine planned and launched an operation in the north.
8/ This is not to say that Ukraine’s operations in the south were a feint. They were not, and this was recently confirmed to me by a senior Ukrainian military planner during my visit to Kyiv. The north & south are mutually supporting offensives in a larger operational design.
9/ Operational design is an important component of military professionalism. Through good operational design, military commanders and their staffs’ sequence and orchestrate tactical goals and actions to meet desired strategic and political outcomes.
10/ Ironically, it was the Russians in the early 20th who were early advocates for such operational thinking about military operations. This is not obvious with the current Russian military performance, which has demonstrated historic levels of incompetence and stupidity.
11/ For the Ukrainians, their operational design for the concurrent south and north eastern campaigns will have considered the desired outcomes and worked backwards from there. These outcomes would have included political aims (both domestic and international) and military.
12/ The Ukrainians will have carefully wargamed the best times to conduct their offensives. It would have been based on intelligence on Russian defensive dispositions, the location and quantities of Russian forces held in reserve, as well as logistics and key supply routes.
13/ What might this mean for the moving days or weeks?
14/ First, the concurrent Ukrainian offensives have totally compromised the Russian operations in the Donbas. It compromises Russian supply routes and introduces a larger psychological issue with Russian soldiers and commanders fighting in the east.
15/ Second, it will be difficult for the Russians to continue to fight in the east without responding to the threat that Ukraine now poses to their rear areas and logistics. This problem will only get worse if the Ukrainians are able to continue their advance across the Oskil.
16/ To respond, the Russians will have to reorient their forces in the east, and possibly pull troops from the south. This effectively kills any Russian offensive capability across the east and south.
17/ It also creates other opportunities for Ukraine. Because of a Russian reinforcement ‘shell game’, it is possible that we could see cascading Russian tactical withdrawals and failures in various regions as a consequence.
18/ This, and the resulting losses in equipment and personnel, compromises Russia’s capacity to dictate the pace and location of operations henceforth. The Ukrainians have seized the initiative in this war.
19/ Having surprised the Russians, the Ukrainians have generated shock among Russian troops and commanders. This period of shock is generally a productive time for those on the offensive.
20/ It during this period of shock when Ukraine can seize the most ground, and destroy the largest number of enemy troops. And it is exactly what they are doing. The Ukrainians, using mission command, are operating inside the Russian tactical and operational decision loops.
21/ While like all offensives, exhaustion and outrunning supply lines will eventually slow the Ukrainian advance, this one probably has a little way to go. The Ukrainians seem to sense the potential for a larger Russian collapse in the east.
22/ Not only has this been a stunning feat of arms, it has answered the question many of us posed several months ago about Ukrainian offensive capacity. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have demonstrated emphatically in the last few weeks their offensive mindset and capability.
23/ We will be studying this campaign for decades into the future. But for now, we need to ensure the west continues to provide the equipment and munitions for this campaign, and for those that will inevitably follow. End.
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