The Russian army's retreat from Izyum and Kupyansk is a "complete collapse," says Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

“More troops were probably stationed there to fight for the Donbass than anywhere else, and now they don’t seem to be able to hold anything there,” O’Brien explains.

Due to the fiasco of the army, the referendums on the annexation of the occupied territories of Ukraine have again been postponed indefinitely, Meduza reports, citing sources close to the presidential administration.

Initially scheduled for May, then postponed to September, then postponed to November, the referendums were put on hold, one of the interlocutors of the publication said.

According to another, the political technologists sent to the Kharkiv and Zaporozhye regions to prepare the vote received an “order to go home,” says a Meduza source. In the Kherson region, Russian political technologists who prepared the referendum are still staying.

After a successful counterstrike, the Ukrainians will now have "logistical problems of their own: they will need to supply all the units now scattered throughout the territory" occupied by the offensive in the Kharkiv region, O'Brien says. “But the Russians will have trouble stabilizing the front line,” he continues. “So for a while, the situation will be chaotic until a new front line begins to emerge.”

Medusa? That's the name of a news agency?

...

Internet war punditry: rapidly advancing towards total irrelevancy.

The Ukrainian military has launched a counter-offensive in the Kharkov region.

There are many hot takes about this.

We are not going to provide you with a Military Analysis. Instead, we will offer a brief overview of how we arrived at the current state of affairs—and ask the simplest of questions: Can we please stop with the malarkey and have an honest dialogue about what has occurred over the past six months? Please? It’s time.

The Kiev “feint”

Remember when thousands of Russian troops semi-surrounded Kiev and Zelensky was supposed to flee for his life (maybe he did, temporarily, to Poland. History’s Mysteries)? Oh, we remember.

“Going for the jugular” and “doing it the hard rock way” suddenly became a sneaky “feint”? Okay, sure.

Go back to mid-March—all the usual suspects were still predicting an imminent assault on Kiev. There’s a simple explanation for this: Russia was still signaling it had ambitious plans for Kiev and neighboring regions.

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@colonelhomsi
In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry listed the areas of Ukraine where, according to their data, the population represents "good relations" with Russia - these are:
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March 18th 2022

But by late March the narrative had changed in a very radical way.

On March 25, Russia’s ministry of defense claimed that operations in Kiev, Kharkov, Chernigov, Sumy, and Nikolaev were designed to “tie down [Ukrainian] forces” and prevent them from “strengthening their grouping in the Donbass.”

March 13, 2022 (source: URA.ru)
A few days later, the Kremlin described the Russian withdrawal from these areas as a gesture of goodwill aimed at encouraging peace talks.

Seemingly overnight, Russia’s short-lived excursions into Kiev and the surrounding regions were rebranded as a “feint” that would allow for the swift liberation of Donetsk and Lugansk. (Current status: incomplete.)

A new narrative was born: with Phase I (“the feint”) a resounding success, the Russian military could now focus its attention on the Donbass. We were told, day after day, that Ukrainian forces in the east were going to be boiled alive, Ramen noodle-style, in a giant cauldron. Once the Ukrainians were encircled, Kiev would be forced to either surrender or crawl to the negotiating table.

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@GonzaloLira1968
In the encirclement pictured on this map, there are some 60,000 Ukrainian combat troops—their finest men. They have no chance of being relieved, reinforced or resupplied. They have no chance to win. If they keep fighting, they will die—for nothing.

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This is an utter tragedy.
Terror Alarm @Terror_Alarm

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🚨🇺🇦🗺Battle of #Donbas starts.
Russian Red Zombie army is trying to pinch off a Ukrainian salient with two major strikes from the north and the south now. https://t.co/OYrFGgWXkT

It was all over, according to the liveliest intellects of our time. Gonzalo Lira proclaimed that Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin met with Zelensky in late April to inform Kiev that the United States would not be sending heavy weapons to Ukraine.

“It was a kiss-off. It was the signal to the Zelensky regime that US/NATO will not supply heavy weapons or planes, and will not get into this war. It's over,” Lira tweeted on April 27.

Scott Ritter had a slightly different take: Russia would destroy any NATO weaponry sent to Ukraine before it could reach the front lines.

The evolution of the Donbass “cauldron”
It wasn’t until mid-May that Ritter conceded “Russia has shown itself unable or unwilling to [intercept weapons shipments]—as a result—the Ukrainians are having a meaningful impact on the battlefield.”

Mariupol was officially cleared of Azov fighters at the end of May (some of whom were later released as part of a prisoner exchange), but the long-anticipated encirclement of Ukrainian forces in Donbass never materialized. Reinforcements and NATO-supplied weapons continued to flow across the Dnieper.

No biggie.

In a tweet commemorating the first three months of fighting, Lira mused that the AFU wouldn’t be able to hold out for another 90 days. The Ukrainian military, according to Lira, was now a spent force entirely reliant on reservists.

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@GonzaloLira1968
Today is Day 90 of the conflict.

►Russian forces have captured +100,000 square kilometers, are destroying the AFU in the Donbas.

►The AFU has little-to-no airforce, tanks, APC's. They're down to reservists.

Does anyone really think Ukraine can stand another 90 days of this?

But after taking Mariupol, Russia’s advances slowed to a snail’s pace. Gains in East Ukraine came to a screeching halt after the AFU was expelled from Lugansk in early July.

“The special operation is going according to plan”
Suddenly, a new narrative was born: the longer the war went on, the better it was for Russia. Time was on Russia’s side—even as Ukraine was “rebuilding significant capability” (source: Scott Ritter).

But this wasn’t always the prevailing wisdom. For educational purposes, let’s briefly review what Very Serious Pundits were saying in the first weeks of the conflict.

On March 9, the Saker published an article under the headline: “The opinion of a professional about the special operation in Ukraine (MUST READ!)”. The analysis, written by a “military professional” named Alexander Dubrovsky, repeatedly stressed that speed was of critical importance to achieve Russia’s goals in Ukraine.

“The special operation does not stop, there will be no more delays. Every day of delay categorically harms us, unplanned diplomatic, political, economic and military problems appear. Only speed and onslaught, until in the West they begin to assess the situation with a cool head,” Dubrovsky wrote.

The article continued: “The final turning point will come after the cleansing of Kharkov, blocking or taking Odessa.”

A new directive had been issued by the Russian MOD, Dubrovsky revealed: the gloves were coming off and “hypothetical harm to civilians” would no longer take precedent over military objectives:

I want to reassure you, for the twelfth day our guys are operating in a different operational and tactical reality, losses will rapidly decrease. If earlier there was a strict order not to cause even hypothetical harm to civilians, civilian objects… today it has been modified. In one sentence: “not to the detriment of the personnel of the units.” As a military man, I am completely satisfied: now the humanitarian sensitivities are over – real work will go on.

This was the “must-read” that received a glowing preface from Andrei, the Saker’s chief curator.

Fast-forward five months. On August 10, the Saker penned a commentary explaining why he was no longer posting maps of the military situation in Ukraine.

“Unlike the first month or two of the SMO, there are very few changes worth showing on a map,” Andrei wrote, adding that the barely moving battle lines showed Russia was taking special care to avoid civilian casualties.

Okay, great—but what happened to the speedy “cleansing” (yikes) of Kharkov and Odessa? And how is it that “every day of delay” was bad news for Russia in March, but suddenly a non-issue in August?

On August 24, Shoigu explained the lack of progress in East Ukraine.

“[E]verything is done to avoid casualties among civilians. Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but we are doing it consciously. The special operation is going according to plan,” Russia’s defense minister said.

Less than three weeks later, Russian forces abandoned their positions in Kharkov region, endangering the lives of countless civilians who were promised that “Russia is here forever.”

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@nexta_tv
🤡"Russia is here forever"

On June 18, Alexander Sidyakin, a representative of Putin's "United Russia" party, announced the beginning of issuing Russian passports in #Kupyansk with the words "Russia is here forever".

On September 10, the occupiers fled the city in just 2 days.
September 10th 2022

Ukraine’s counter-offensive: “Meaningless”
Which brings us to the precarious present.

Marko Marjanović has an excellent write-up of the incredible events that have transpired over the past week:

In just 4 days the Russians lost a vast area—everything beyond the Oskil river gone. Just like that.

Positions that took months for Russia to capture and expand were gone in an instant. (The whole of March to take the city itself, followed by battles to expand the bridgehead over Seversky Donets to its south.)

Particularly around Izyum, the Russian military had fought bloody close-quarter battles to take and expand positions beyond the Oskil and Seversky Donetsk and was now giving it all back in a rout.

Russia’s MOD explained that the retreating troops were being “regrouped” in order to “boost efforts in the Donetsk region” (does that sound familiar?).

As our blog-friend Rolo Slavskiy wrote:

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The SBU is going to be sent in now to do what they do best - slit throats and then demand confessions. Yes, in that order. These people are monsters. We have no idea how many people have simply been disappeared in Ukraine. I complain about the FSB, but the SBU just do whatever they want with no restraint at all. Torture, mutilations and mass-killings are standard SBU operating procedure. The Ukrainians, ironically enough, are fighting like Bolsheviks - with no concern for any norms or conventions or anything resembling humanity.

This regrettable episode reminds us of an article published in April by Strana.ua—home to Ukraine’s “pro-Russia fifth column”—about why Russia-sympathetic Ukrainians were so demoralized. One of the reasons given:

[Pro-Russia Ukrainians] do not openly support Putin even in the territories controlled by the Russians. Because the officially declared goal of Russia is to achieve a number of demands from Kiev, after which the Russian army will leave all the territories occupied since February 24 (except Donbass).

Naturally, as soon as the Ukrainian authorities return there, all those who collaborated with the Russians will go to trial in the best case for themselves, and in the worst case they will simply be shot as traitors. In such conditions, there are very few who want to openly help the Russian army.

After the events of the past week, could anyone blame them? And how does Russia intend to win over hearts and minds when it can’t even guarantee the safety and security of Ukrainians who welcomed Russian troops as liberators?

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There is much more to say. It will be said (later). For now, we’ll close with this sober assessment published in Russian-language media:

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In six months, Ukraine has become much more militarized, much more angry and closer to NATO, and the degree of nationalism and Russophobic hysteria is much higher. At the same time, Donbass has turned into an arena of fierce hostilities and shelling, which has increased tenfold, with no clear prospect of their completion, becoming much less protected and safe than before February 24.

How does this end, friends?

Our buddy Kissinger again showed his prophetic abilities (not that his ilk, aka the Jєωs, planned it all) when he prognosticated that the conflict would escalate in mid-August.  Well, he was a few weeks early in his prediction, so perhaps his waning intellectual abilities manifested themselves here ... or, rather, the Jєωs had some reason to postpone their plans.

In any case, the Ukrainian propaganda has been that there was a major "counter-offensive" where Ukraine took back large swaths of territory in the Kharkiv region.  Evidently that was just propaganda, as the Russians started withdrawing from there 8 days ago, and the Ukrainians just walked in to various abandoned outposts.

So one thought was that this was the famous Russian tactic of pulling out to draw the troops in so that they can be surrounded.  But reportedly the intent here was precisely to set up this next phase.  Withdrawal was actually ahead of this planned bombing, and the bombing was carried out so that they could cripple Ukraine's ability to send US and NATO arms to the front.  In particular, they wanted to stop or slow down the trains that are carrying these armaments so as to destroy them.

Evidently the Russian public are getting tired of this stretching out so long and there has been pressure on Putin to escalate, especially from the right wing.  Thus far he has tried to avoid taking out civilian infrastructure, but it seems like the pressure from the right has gotten too strong, so he had to up the game.  Every time a Russian soldier died because Putin has been so "soft" in conducting this operation, that increased pressure on Putin to escalate.

But I marvel at what a political genius Kissinger is, that he could make these accurate predictions.  No wonder he had all these high-ranking positions in every US administration for the past 80 years or so.

Ukraine has proven that Russia's ground forces aren't up to task, unless they have somehow only feigned weakness. Russia probably has the best missile technologies ready-to-go and more warheads than anyone, but that would leave them open to massive retaliation by the United States. If they want to defeat the US and NATO, Russia's allies are going to have to get involved. China is apparently still waiting for something before its attack on Taiwan. Turkey may have something to do with it in Europe. Then there are countries such as North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela, etc.