Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Tsundoku, on 17 September 2026 - 10:29 AM, said:

Russian manpower problems are significant. They are losing troops at an insane rate and this has burned through their huge reserves, which are almost now non-existent. The forces they have are focused overwhelming only two areas, a 30-mile area from west of Dobropillya across to east of Kostyantynivka and then a tight hinge north past Chasiv Yar; and around Orikhiv on the Zaporizhzhia front. To keep these two fronts advancing, albeit slowly, they denuding troops from elsewhere, such as the line of the lower Dnipro in Kherson Oblast. This has allowed Ukraine to advance on the Lyman front, and just recently some indications of a serious counter-attack on the Russian forces holding onto the border areas in Kharkiv Oblast.

Russia still has a lot of troops, obviously, but it no longer has the tons of volunteers and prisoners it could draw upon, so it needs to consider mobilisation. That will not be pretty if they decide to go for it. If they do not mobilise, they have to switch to a defensive posture and that means giving up on taking all of the Donbas, which also means Putin's position will become untenable.

Yup, personally any claim that the Lyman counter-offensive is the "beginning of the end" for Russia in Ukraine is quite hyperbolic and not rooted in any kind of imminent reality.

Russian mil-blogger Rybar has indicated mobilisation is likely in the near future, and said that Russian men should not anticipate being well-equipped or receive adequate training. He's suggested Russian men begin preparations now in terms of training and amassing equipment.

Death notices being published in Russia confirm a very serious Ukrainian hit on a command post may have eliminated half a dozen or so senior officers with responsibilities for the front. Interestingly, both Ukraine and Russia kept quiet about this at the time.

Ukraine has successfully shot down at least one jet-powered Shahed variant with a new anti-jet drone interceptor. Ukraine will scale production to try to deal with the increasingly large number of jet Shaheds used in combat.

A Russian vessel in the Baltic fired flares at a Danish military helicopter, leading to Denmark summoning the Russian ambassador.

One claim that Ukraine fired over 700 drones at Russia during a 24-hour period, an all-time record and larger than most drone swarms fired by Russia at Ukraine. However, sources seem to be disputing how accurate this was.

Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Russian Central Bank, has been quoted as saying that the Special Military Operation and associated funding has to end by mid-January 2027 or "the bad processes will begin, which will be impossible to stop."

I'm waiting to see good sourcing on that outside of several OSINT sources on the more excitable end of the spectrum.

Apologies for a Twitter-link, but this is the best summary of the current order of battle I've seen for the entire front.

This is actually pretty startling, Russia has been forced to concentrate a colossal amount of its total firepower in the Ukrainian theatre on a front about 30 miles wide. Meanwhile, the rest of the roughly 750-800-mile long front is covered by considerably fewer troops-per-mile. This would be more encouraging if Ukraine did not have to focus the majority of its strength in the same way (or risk the entire centre collapsing). Still, Ukraine has managed to achieve its moderate breakthrough (so far) north of Lyman and is focusing on exploiting that advantage whilst Russia is struggling to fully mobilise against it.

Certainly on the Russian side, they have very limited reserves, what you see is what you get, so whenever Ukraine pressures elsewhere on the line, Russia has to dip into the middle for reinforcements, which weakens the middle. This is why Russia is considering the risks of mobilisation because they need fresh bodies but not civil society descending into chaos at the same time.

Girkin was correct, Russia should have switched from attack to defence in 2026, remaining on the offensive has seriously damaged their ability to hold geographically unfavourable sectors of the front and any secondary or tertiary fronts where Ukraine can establish local superiority can be compromised. Fortunately, nobody listened to him.

The main problem here remains Ukraine being unable to convert local and tactical successes into more widespread strategic ones, but with their manpower situation (though improved over 2025) still strained it's hard to see where they can do that. One small possibility, but some Russian commentators have panicked over it, is that Ukraine can exploit the Lyman breakthrough into a larger-scaled breach into the Russian rear, where the impressive array of fortifications and dug-outs the Russians left some time ago are empty, and they haven't even laid substantial minefields. That could trigger a massive problem leaving the Russian centre vulnerable to a sweeping flanking attack. I consider that highly improbable at the moment.

The USA has just put massive sanctions on VTB Bank for doing business with Iran, that could be huge. VTB is not doing well anyway. US analysis that Russian diesel exports have just dropped to 0.

Ukraine has captured five Colombian POWs. Apparently they were hired by the Russians to operate in rear-echelon areas but within days had been moved to the front. The first Colombian POW convinced the others to surrender, saying none had an urge to die for Russia.

Russian forces have pressed closer to Orikhiv on the Zaporizhzhia front, that could be a critical blow if the town is taken.

Some reports that Russia has exhausted its primary reserves on the Donetsk front and has had to withdraw combat units from the front further south to plug the Lyman gap. However, Russian units arriving piecemeal without time to regroup would be cut to pieces, complicating the time it takes for Russian forces to intervene. In the meantime, Ukrainian forces continue to gain ground. It should be noted this is still a relatively restrained breakthrough, it's not comparable to the recapture of Kharkiv Oblast or pushing the Russians out of Kherson west of the river, and might only now be matching the success of the western Zaporizhzhia offensive earlier this year. It's still a huge boost to the Ukrainian tactical position, especially if they can take advantage to advance on other fronts.

If units are being pulled from the main front in Kostyantynivka that may explain Ukrainian forces seeing less Russian activity and have been able to counter-attack on that front as well. However, I'd hold on ordering the champagne just yet. Russia still has significant manpower and could pull troops from other, far less active fronts, as well as formalise the mass-mobilisation that's clearly coming. An extra 300,000 Russian troops, even rubbish raw recruits, would complicate things for the Ukrainians.

I suspect someone somewhere is taking bets on Ukraine re-attacking Chasiv Yar as well, for the sheer hell of it.

Seeing a report that the Polish government has convened an extraordinary meeting of security officials, the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of the Interior and Administration.

Polish intelligence is reporting that Russia may carry out an attack on Polish or Hungarian border positions under the pretext of it being a mistake whilst trying to hit Ukrainian positions near the border. This follows an attack on a Ukrainian train yesterday less than 800 metres from the Polish border.