Russia is seeing progress in a new offensive near Kharkov

 

A bombed out building in Ukraine. NBC News/Getty.

Russia is seeing progress north of the city of Kharkov (known as Kharkiv in Ukrainian) where they have seemingly launched a new offensive. NBC News. Ukraine struggled to rush reinforcements to the region to try and stop the offensive. It is unclear if the attack is a major "red arrow" offensive to retake the city for a 2nd time or if it is meant to pull troops from Russia's other major axis of attack in the Donbass region. Russia claimed to have taken several villages and reported a breakthrough near the town of Vovchansk. Karkov has been bombed for weeks and many people thought it was a prelude to an attack in the region. 

My Comment:

The NBC News report is both a day old and very optimistic in terms of Ukraine's chances in this battle. From what I have heard from other sources it sounds as though Russia has indeed made a breakthrough near Vovchansk and that Ukraine is having a very difficult time stopping the offensive. Whatever the Russians are doing, it seems to be working as Ukraine has lost several villages. 

So is this the big summer Russian offensive that everyone was expecting? I am not sure and the fact that I am not sure is a credit to the Russians. Unlike Ukraine they don't announce their major operations before they carry them out. Doing so is a major reason why Ukraine's summer offensive was such an utter failure, it's much better to keep the enemy guessing, and that appears to be the case here. 

It is important to note that Russia is also having a lot of success near Donetsk. They have had several breakthroughs there as well and are exploiting gaps in Ukraine's lines. Could this offensive be just to further dilute Ukraine's lines and force them to retreat? It's very possible. 

But it's also possible that Kharkov is the actual objective. It's a very important city and is a major logistics and manufacturing hub and has a lot of propaganda value as well. Losing the city was an embarrassment for Russia and I am sure they want to get it back. And if they succeed in taking the city they could start to trap Ukraine in a rather massive salient if they also have success on the Donetsk front. 

I don't know how Ukraine plans to counter this attack. They don't have much in terms of reserves and will probably have to pull troops out of other locations to try and blunt this attack. Doing so will give the Russians more openings and even then it might not do much to stop the Russians. 

If there is a major breakthrough, the Russians might be wise to not overextend themselves like they did early in the war. Unless Ukraine has a general collapse, Russia should make sure that they don't get cut off from their supply lines or widen the front lines too far. That's why they lost Kharkov in the first place, though Ukraine is not anywhere near as powerful as they were back then. 

I do wonder if we are going to be in a new stage in this war. It's clear that the old World War I style trench warfare is done, largely due to Russia's dominance in the air and their KAB glide bombs. The real question is if the grinding and slow warfare we have seen for months with steady but slow Russian advances will continue, or if we might actually see some major changes in the front lines. We will have to continue to monitor the front lines and if a breakthrough happens then things will get interesting