The Ukrainian army’s offensive continues, and the Russian army’s defeat or “regrouping” in Kharkiv is having an impact across the board. Now, no one knows where the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive will stop.
With the loss of strategic locations such as Izum, the Russian army is considered to be likely to abandon the entire Kharkov. Of course, even so, I think it will be difficult to hold back. Many of the Russian troops attacked by the Ukrainian army, whether they were regular Russian troops, Donbas militia or Chechen troops, were on the verge of collapse and fled. Some analysts believe that the performance of the Russian army was not even as good as that of the former Afghan government.
At present, the specific losses of the Russian army in this battle are still unclear. In addition to the continued counterattack, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is still implementing strict front-line information control, and the Russian Ministry of Defense has often avoided talking about the front-line situation.
However, judging from some public reports, the losses of the Russian army are very serious, and for some Russian fans with poor psychological endurance, it is simply a disaster. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that the 237th Russian Airborne Assault Regiment (Toronsky Airborne Assault Regiment) was completely destroyed in the northeast of Kharkiv, and this is likely not the only loss of the Russian army in this counter-offensive.
The video released by the Ukrainian side shows that a large number of heavy weapons have fallen into the hands of the Ukrainian army, and there are likely to be thousands of them, including advanced T-90M main battle tanks and 2S19M2 self-propelled artillery units. Only a small part of these abandoned heavy weapons were damaged by the Russian army, most of them are intact or can be repaired quickly. Let’s not talk about the Russian army deliberately discarding old equipment.
These captured weapons can not only supplement the Ukrainian army’s battle losses but also upgrade more Ukrainian mobilized infantry brigades into mechanized brigades, greatly improving their ability to attack fortifications. So many weapons have been seized since the beginning of the war that many analysts think that the United States and other countries just handed Ukraine knives behind their backs, while Russia handed Ukraine a mace in person, calling it Ukraine’s largest military aid country.
A lot of information shows that the Russian army was extremely chaotic in the emergency “regrouping”. In addition to the collapse of many troops and the abandonment of a large amount of equipments, they were still in retreat and did not care about notifying the friendly forces, and even deliberately did not notify the friendly forces at all. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov angrily declared that when the Russian 20th Army was withdrawing from Izum (which did not appear to have surrendered), the nearby Chechen troops were not notified at all, and all senior officers of the 20th Army were withdrawn.
In an interview with the British “Financial Times”, Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznekov admitted that the smoothness of this counter-offensive far exceeded expectations. In the race, the current priority is to ensure that the Ukrainian army continues to control the recaptured territory and prevent possible Russian counterattacks.
Although there are still some analysts who openly claim that the Russian army is luring the enemy deeper and may counterattack, a source in the Ukrainian army who did not want to be identified told The Economist that the Russian army is likely to lack sufficient strength to counterattack, they are even unable to stop the offensive momentum of the Ukrainian army. The anonymous person also claimed that the important reason for the success of the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive was to contain the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Even Russian fighter planes with various active and passive defense systems are still suppressed by the Ukrainian air defense network at low and ultra-low altitudes, trapped in a fire network composed of Ukrainian short-range air defense systems and portable air defense missiles. The Russian army has no ability to suppress the air defense of the Ukrainian air defense network at all.
The overall situation of Kharkiv has been decided, where will the Ukrainian army exert its strength next? Many people said that while the Ukrainian army was counterattacking, the Russian army also launched an attack in Kherson. If you think about it, you can see how unreliable this is. If the Russian army is going to launch an attack in Kherson, are there enough troops, ammunition, and fuel? ? The Russian army in Kherson has actually become a dead chess game because the main line of communication has been cut off. The latest news shows that the Russian army not only did not launch an attack, but instead gave up the strategically important Snykhurivka and concentrated its forces more in city of Kherson, as a whole, retreated 5-10 kilometers, and withdrew to the range of the Russian artillery on the left bank of the Dnieper. It seems that the great success of the Ukrainian army in Kharkiv deterred this quasi-lone army in Kherson.
Russian intelligence shows that the Ukrainian army is gathering in Uglidar, ready to make another big move to cut off the connection between Donetsk and Mariupol, and cut off the Russian army front. As for what will happen, it is not easy for us to make predictions. Let’s continue to observe and see how much the Ukrainian counterattack can achieve.