Reports today that Ukraine is pushing back the much ballyhooed Russian offensive toward Sumy oblast(featured in quaoar’s diary today), the supposed infusion of 50,000 new Russian troops and their kit from Crimea and Kherson notwithstanding. More here:
Russian advance stalls in Ukraine's Sumy region — military expert
In the past few days, the Russian advance in the Sumy region has stopped, likely because they have run into Ukrainian engineering fortifications, which are built along a line 8–10 km from the state border
global.espreso.tv/...
The Ukrainians saw Sumy for what it really was … a feint, intended to draw Ukrainian troops away from the main theater of their intended summer 2025 offensive… the Ukrainian “Fortress Belt” , the nearly 50 km(approximately 31 miles) line of Northeastern Donetsk industrial cities stretching from Pokrovsk to Kostyantynivka, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, and Druzhkivka. One could throw in Toretsk and Siversk as the trip wire towns to the belt. Russia has not as yet managed to take even these two outer towns. .. since mid June 2024.
Hard as they have tried, the Russians, the self-described master practitioners of Maskirovka ... "masking" or "disguise" in Russian military doctrine based on deception, have not fooled anyone with their scatter shot attempted advances across the Oskil river in Kharkiv oblast, effete raids on the Dnipro river islands at Kherson and lately Sumy. At Sumy they have been stoned and pushed back by Commander Oleh Obolensky(call sign “Cornet” as in the famous Ukrainian champion horse) and his newly formed 2nd National Guard Corps, aka “Khartiya Corps”.
Avdiivka fell on February 17, 2024 and from there General Andrey Mordvichev and his Russian Center Group Force went on a seemingly unstoppable blitzkrieg across the nearly 40 km(26 miles) of open and flat Ukrainian steppe. Every day brought news of Ukraine losing another farming hamlet. It all looked quite grim. In rapid succession followed the fall of the key towns of Vuhledar, Selydove and Kurakhove. The Ukrainians were seemingly being forced to execute one dangerous tactical retreat after another in order to save their soldiers from being trapped in the several encirclement the Russians attempted. The Ukrainians will stay in place, inflict as much pain on the Russians as possible then somehow escaped the trap. They got very good at doing this.
Soon the other axiom of Russian military doctrine kicked in … follow up “success” with even more “success” damn the consequence or cost in lives and materiél … push, push, push on to Pokrovsk, that shining trophy city sitting out there primed for the taking … at all cost and hazard. To many in the media as well as casual observers and even some of our own fellow Kossacks, Pokrovsk was doomed. Whether the Ukrainians planned it that way or not the rampaging Russian bear was suddenly brought to a screeching halt just a few clicks from the urban agglomeration of Pokrovsk.
Thus stymied, Mordvichev decided to channel his inner Ulysses S. Grant(at Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia). Instead of a bloody and costly frontal attack, go on a sliding leftward flanking movement around the enemy’s defensive works. It worked for Grant but so far not for Mordvichev. His men are still out there making perfunctory attacks on the little farming hamlets on the southwest edges of Pokrovsk but not getting far. Of late the Ukrainians regularly mount lightning counter-attacks to push them back.
And so it is that after officially losing over a million lives and pretty much emptying out the once vaunted and seemingly limitless Soviet arsenal, the sheets have been pulled of Putin’s effort to disguise where he plans to aim his main blow in the Summer 2025 Russian offensive now in train. Ukraine has been aware of his plans and has been readying herself for it:
Ukraine Prepares for a Russian Summer Offensive
Russia has spent some time suggesting that it might threaten Kharkiv and testing Ukrainian defences in Sumy and Zaporizhzhia. These attacks have either been intended to fix Ukrainian troops away from Donbas or forestall further Ukrainian raids across the Russian border. The main Russian effort into the summer will once again be against the key towns of Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk. Russian forces continue to plan against orders to complete the occupation of Donetsk.
www.rusi.org/...
In a weird twist the Russians have also opted to go straight into the teeth of the Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk … just as in 2023 General Valerii Zaluzhnyi went into the teeth of the Russian “Surovikin Line” in Southern Zaporizhzhia. Perhaps both sides in turn wished to deal an irreversible mortal blow?
History may some day account Pokrovsk as the bright shinning "Will-o'-the-Wisp" which having escaped capture forced Putin’s hand into making this strategic shift. According to the Institute for the Study of War(ISW):
The Ukrainian Defense of Pokrovsk Has Compelled Russia to Change Its Approach in Eastern Ukraine
Ukrainian defensive operations, based on the integration of successful Ukrainian drone innovators and operators with ground forces combined with constraints on Russia's strategic and operational-level manpower and materiel reserves have forced the Russian military command to abandon its original campaign design of a frontal assault on Pokrovsk.
understandingwar.org/...
But Putin and his minions as is their wont have made their maximalist demands for Ukraine’s capitulation. They want all of Ukraine, including the Donbas. But how can they claim the Donbas whilst the key industrial cities of that region remain Ukrainian? Thus, the rationale of the Russians to capture both Pokvrovsk and Kostiantynivka in one campaign … to conduct a full-scale offensive toward Kostiantynivka and a successful envelopment of Pokrovsk simultaneously. And how likely is such a gambit to succeed given all of Russia’s current resource constraints? ISW posits that the Russians will not be able to conduct both and that Russia will likely prioritize one direction over the other due to manpower, materiel,and operational planning limitations. But just look at the caption map above outlining Ukrainian defenses in the Pokvrovsk- Kostiantynivka area . Quite formidable.
It is not as if the Russians can choose either an encirclement or a head on frontal assault of either Pokrovsk or Kostiantynivka, and the Ukrainians will just hunker down in the other city, shaking in their boots and let the Russians work their will. As the now developing Russian salient creeps closer into the space between those two cities, unless they are able to flatten their offensive front inside the Ukrainian defensive works(a tall order) the Russians will inevitably face horrendous flanking attacks and enfilade fires on both sides of their salient and any spear head. It’s almost as if the Ukrainians, knowing Putin has instructed his commanders to push push push at all cost and hazard, is inviting the Russian forces into the maw of that wood chipper of a defensive works… a veritable “Roach Motel”.. Roaches check in, but they don't check out,", as the old TV commercial used to say.
And it is not as if at this juncture in the war it is a purely Russian-Ukrainian contest. As Putin enlarges the war by bringing his allies into the fray, Europe, if it didn’t it before, now clearly sees the Russian threat to its own well-being;
Europe realizes defeating Russia's summer offensive in Ukraine is key to its own defense — analyst
According to [Andrey] Piontkovsky, Ukraine and Europe are essentially in the same position right now.
Europeans understand that defeating the Russian horde in the summer offensive of 2025 is a task of protecting Europe, that they have nowhere to retreat
“The only major difference is that the bulk of the defense of the European continent is being carried out by the heroic Ukrainian army, because Europe won’t be sending in new infantry divisions - it simply doesn’t have them. But what Europe does have is an air force. It can contribute its squadrons and pilots to this fight, which would fundamentally shift the situation on the battlefield. In short, Putin’s offensive plans are doomed to fail,” the political analyst concluded.
global.espreso.tv/...
Further that it is in Europe’s interest to ensure that if this Summer’s offensive is Putin’s intended final hammer blow then Ukraine emerges victorious:
Summer campaign of 2025 will be decisive battle of Russia-Ukraine war — political scientist
Political scientist Andrey Piontkovsky said that the summer of 2025 will bring the decisive battle of the war — one that will shape the future of Europe and the world. He believes the outcome will be clear by autumn, based on all objective factors
Piontkovsky believes this will be the decisive battle of the war — and a turning point in the history of Europe and the world.
“The result will be clear by the fall of 2025, based on all objective factors. Despite the huge burden Ukraine carries — defending not just itself but all of Europe — Ukraine will win. Ukraine and its Western allies will prevail. After that, it will be Putin’s turn. He might want to talk, but that conversation will be on very different terms. Everything will be settled on the battlefield this summer,” he concluded.
global.espreso.tv/...
ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE by carefully managing its arms and relationships with allies has fought the vaunted Russian military juggernaut to a frazzle. And by tactical brilliance has brought the Russian Leviathan to what looks to be the decisive battle of the war. In the next four months of active fighting in the field before the infamous Ukrainian Bezdorizhzhya(mud season) asserts itself, Russia finds itself at an inflection point … win(something they have not been able to do since 2022) or take your dead ass home. Ukraine and Europa will stand and ensure the latter.
SLAVA UKRAINI ! PEREMOHA(Victory) !!
