[Werthead]

More solid confirmation that Lyman has fallen intact. Izyum has either fallen or is about to, with most of the Russians fled over the Oskil (some apparently swam across) or surrendered. There may be some holdouts in the town centre but it's effectively in Ukrainian hands.

It looks like another counterattack north of Kharkiv city, towards Velykyi Burluk. Russian civilians are fleeing over the border into Belgorod, apparently a 500-vehicle traffic jam at the border overnight.

On the Kherson front, Oleksandrivka SE of Mykolaiv has fallen, on the far western end of the Russian salient outside Kherson city. Russia seems to have responded by sending 1300 Chechens to the front which is...something, I guess?

Reports that Svatove is being abandoned. WTF? That's way, way back in Luhansk Oblast, unless there's another town closer to the front with the same name.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 10 September 2022 - 12:43 PM

[Werthead]

Lt. Col. Artem Helemendyk from 18th Motorized Rifle Division was captured near Izyum. This seems to be confirmed as he had his ID on him.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 10 September 2022 - 03:49 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Here's a thought, and I could be way off, but I suspect something similar might be occurring... Are these high ranking Russians allowing themselves to be captured? I mean, things aren't going too well, Putin is not exactly know for his magnanimity, and they might be taking the chance that the Ukrainians will treat them better than Putin might?

Like I said, possibly not and I doubt it's that simple or obvious and I definitely have no actual evidence to back this up, but I reckon they might be not trying too hard to escape...

[Werthead]

Tiste Simeon, on 10 September 2022 - 04:09 PM, said:

Here's a thought, and I could be way off, but I suspect something similar might be occurring... Are these high ranking Russians allowing themselves to be captured? I mean, things aren't going too well, Putin is not exactly know for his magnanimity, and they might be taking the chance that the Ukrainians will treat them better than Putin might?

Like I said, possibly not and I doubt it's that simple or obvious and I definitely have no actual evidence to back this up, but I reckon they might be not trying too hard to escape...

Potentially. I think it's been known for a while that the Ukrainians are treating POWs well (in most cases, isolated cases of mistreatment have surfaced) whilst if Ukrainians surrender it might be an even toss-up on being taken to a POW camp or shot in the head (or perhaps taken to a POW camp and then shot in the head). So I think Russians know they're most likely to be okay if they surrender. To what degree they want to avoid punishment or reprisals is another matter, but too much reprisals and punishments could backfire on the Kremlin quite badly, especially if the war ends with a full Russian withdrawal and you suddenly have a lot of very angry soldiers and officers in driving distance of Moscow, and a lot of the Rosvgardia used to defend Putin are now dead in Ukraine.

[Werthead]

Apparently Kreminna is under attack, which is outside Rubizhne, near Severodonetsk.

At this rate, Ukraine will capture Crimea on Thursday, be in Moscow a week next Tuesday and will hoist its flag on the Bering Strait on New Year's Day, and the Russians will still be agonising over whether to call this a war.

Donetsk Airport has been captured by Ukrainian forces, which have pressed on into the outskirts of Donetsk city, which has not been under Ukrainian control since 2014.

This is crazy.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 10 September 2022 - 06:47 PM

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 10 September 2022 - 06:06 PM, said:

Apparently Kreminna is under attack, which is outside Rubizhne, near Severodonetsk.

At this rate, Ukraine will capture Crimea on Thursday, be in Moscow a week next Tuesday and will hoist its flag on the Bering Strait on New Year's Day, and the Russians will still be agonising over whether to call this a war.

Donetsk Airport has been captured by Ukrainian forces, which have pressed on into the outskirts of Donetsk city, which has not been under Ukrainian control since 2014.

This is crazy.

I have a feeling we would stop at the Don and Kuban rivers, and let Finland, China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia sort out the rest.

[Werthead]

The situation seems to be becoming farcical. Rumours that the so-called Luhansk People's Republic government is trying to leave for Russia. That seems dramatically premature, unless they know they have absolutely nothing inbetween Luhansk and the front to defend with.

That said, there's also a massive Ukrainian psyops miscommunication campaign going on. Apparently the social media accounts of a governor in a northern Kharkiv town were hacked and used to spread misinformation that he'd fled, leading to a panicked half-evacuation before he showed up in person to confirm he was still around.

The head of the DPR and apparently the entire DPR government has fled its own capital. Also reports that the head of the DPR has resigned.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 10 September 2022 - 09:51 PM

[Mentalist]

Well, based on Ruscist MoD's latest maps, they are actually fully pulling out of Kharkiv Oblast W of the Oskil.

videos coming out of Izyum explain why UAF's progress has slowed down: they'll need some time to set up a new tank brigade out of all the abandoned hardware.

The orcs' Z-channels are all spreading panic that UAF is about to attack SW of Donetsk, in order to sever the Mariupol road and start isolating the city from the S.

the frontline's gonna contract quite a bit now, as they'll try to shift all those forces E to set up new defensive lines.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Moscow Officials Call on Putin to GTFO as Troops Flee

[...] open letter to Putin from municipal deputies in the Russian capital’s Lomonosovsky district [...]

“The rhetoric that you and your subordinates use has been riddled with intolerance and aggression for a long time, which in the end effectively threw our country back into the Cold War era. Russia has again begun to be feared and hated, we are once again threatening the whole world with nuclear weapons,” [...]

“We ask you to relieve yourself of your post due to the fact that your views and your governance model are hopelessly outdated and hinder the development of Russia and its human potential,” [...]

Even the pro-Kremlin Telegram channels run by Russian military bloggers had a dramatic change of tune as Ukraine claimed new wins Saturday: They began to openly blast military leadership—and Putin personally—for the embarrassing failures.

“Stalin, as much of a vampire as he was, never stooped to this and said how we lost nothing and there are no problems,”'

Moscow Officials Urge Vladimir Putin to Give Up Power

[Werthead]

Kadyrov has published a scathing assessment of the Russian military command and accused them of not giving Putin good information. Says he will directly contact the Russian government tomorrow.

Pushilin hasn't just abandoned Donetsk, he's abandoned the DPR and Ukraine. Apparently he's now arrived in Rostov.

A steady build-up of Ukrainian forces outside Vuhledar has been observed. The Russians are sounding alarm bells of a push south, maybe aimed at Mariupol or at least the coast.

[Puck]

No power in Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy oblasts. Grr. But apparantly also in parts of Belgorod oblast. Good riddance.

Anyway, my brother confirms the Kharkiv part.

[Werthead]

Looks like Russia hit a series of power substations across the country with some of the few cruise missiles they have left. Some reports Ukraine responded by blowing up power junctions in Belgorod (although that might be confusion with an attack on Belgorod's power infrastructure last week).

Ukrainian troops have re-secured the border crossings along a wide swathe of the north. Unclear what's happening to the Russian soldiers at the crossings, in most cases they seem to have run off. Ukrainian forces not advancing beyond the border for now.

Some indications the attack on Donetsk may have been contained and the Russians and DPR troops may have shored up a firmer line SW of the airport, although if that's true that makes the DPR government's decision to flee all the stupider.

[Mentalist]

Holy shit, so now Azerbaijan is shelling Armenia proper.

99.9999% sure Aliyev is doing this because he saw that Russia has no army to intervene with.

Welcome back to the world of wars of conquest, everyone.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 12 September 2022 - 09:16 PM

[Werthead]

President Xi has visited Kazakhstan and made a public guarantee that China will defend Kazakhstan's territorial integrity. This follows recent noise in the Kremlin and Duma that Kazakhstan is "not a real country" and it has a Russian-speaking minority it has to defend etc etc. A pretty clear rebuke of Putin and a warning not to try any "special operations" in that country.

[Tiste Simeon]

Werthead, on 15 September 2022 - 12:03 PM, said:

President Xi has visited Kazakhstan and made a public guarantee that China will defend Kazakhstan's territorial integrity. This follows recent noise in the Kremlin and Duma that Kazakhstan is "not a real country" and it has a Russian-speaking minority it has to defend etc etc. A pretty clear rebuke of Putin and a warning not to try any "special operations" in that country.

If China are turning against Russia that might be the final nail in the coffin.

[Werthead]

Apparently there was a "productive" call between Putin and Macron, and Putin and Schulz. Both European leaders seem to have proposed a peace deal on the lines of Russia withdrawing in full from all of Ukrainian territory (unclear if they included Crimea in that) in return for Ukraine not carrying out reprisal attacks on Russian soil and some easing of sanctions. I'd be interested to see if reparations came up. Both France and Germany made it clear that Russia has suffered a massive defeat and Putin should consider ending things now before they get worse for him and for Russia.

Tiste Simeon, on 15 September 2022 - 01:45 PM, said:

If China are turning against Russia that might be the final nail in the coffin.

China has been lukewarm about the war from the start and has only really been interested in how it's gone to gauge the Western willingness to support and back a country under threat of an invasion. I'm going to guess what they've seen has not been to their liking.

[champ]

From Reddit, a comment I think sums up Russia/China right now...

Quote

Translation: China is unhappy Russia is screwing up, alarming Western nations and getting them to focus on security and not being overly dependent on aggressive autocracies for trade. China worries that Russia’s current troubles in Ukraine are a foretaste of what China can expect if it attempts to seize Taiwan.

However, on the flip side, China is delighted to see Russia ruining its armed forces and reputation - makes it all the easier for China’s own ambitions in Central Asia. China is also happy to purchase Russian raw materials at cut-rate prices, and is also happy to make Russia dependent on China in various other ways.

On balance China is content to see the Russian bear with its snout firmly trapped in the bear trap of Ukraine, but is annoyed that the process is causing an overall tightening of security and damage to the notion of appeasement, which China hoped to take advantage of itself.

For Russian success or failure, or for that matter the fate of Ukrainians, China otherwise remains quite indifferent.

Thanks for the continued updates too, interesting thread.

[Werthead]

Yikes. The Russian government has administered an across-the-board budget cut of 10% to all departments. Apparently a black hole has opened in the Russian budget of more than 1.5 trillion roubles.

[Werthead]

Narendra Modi publicly rinsing Putin in front of the international press is certainly an unedifying sight (well, for Putin, anyway). Putin whingeing unconvincingly that the invasion of Ukraine hasn't been a complete clusterfeck and refusing to admit defeat.

Apparently Wagner Group has been sending new recruits to Ukraine with the advice not to "sleep with locals or livestock."

In the meantime, the Russian lines around Lyman seem to be crumbling.

[Briar King]

Another mass grave discovered in liberated territory. More to follow you can bet.