Russian Ukraine operation becomes a disaster

 ISW:

Ukrainian forces have inflicted a major operational defeat on Russia, recapturing almost all Kharkiv Oblast in a rapid counter-offensive. The Ukrainian success resulted from skillful campaign design and execution that included efforts to maximize the impact of Western weapons systems such as HIMARS. Kyiv’s long discussion and then an announcement of a counter-offensive operation aimed at Kherson Oblast drew substantial Russian troops away from the sectors on which Ukrainian forces have conducted decisive attacks in the past several days. Ukraine’s armed forces employed HIMARS and other Western systems to attack Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in Kharkiv and Kherson Oblasts, setting conditions for the success of this operation. Ukrainian leaders discussed the strikes in the south much more ostentatiously, however, successfully confusing the Russians about their intentions in Kharkiv Oblast. Western weapons systems were necessary but not sufficient to secure success for Ukraine. The Ukrainian employment of those systems in a well-designed and well-executed campaign has generated the remarkable success of the counter-offensive operations in Kharkiv Oblast.

The Ukrainian recapture of Izyum ended the prospect that Russia could accomplish its stated objectives in Donetsk Oblast. After retreating from Kyiv in early April, the stated Russian objectives had been to seize the complete territory of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts.[1] The Russian campaign to achieve these objectives was an attack along an arc from Izyum through Severodonetsk to the area near Donetsk City. That attack aimed to seize Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Slovyansk, Bakhmut, and Kramatorsk, and continue to the western boundary of Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces managed to take Severodonetsk on June 24 and Lysychansk on July 3 after a long and extremely costly campaign but then largely culminated, seizing no major settlements and little territory.[2] The Russian position around Izyum still threatened Ukrainian defenders of Slovyansk, however, and retained for the Russians the opportunity to return to the attack on the northern sectors of the arc, which they had largely abandoned by the middle of July in favor of a focus on Siversk (near Lysychansk) and Bakhmut.

The loss of Izyum dooms the initial Russian campaign plan for this phase of the war and ensures that Russian advances toward Bakhmut or around Donetsk City cannot be decisive (if they occur at all). Even the Russian seizure of Bakhmut, which is unlikely to occur considering Russian forces have impaled themselves on tiny surrounding settlements for weeks, would no longer support any larger effort to accomplish the original objectives of this phase of the campaign since it would not be supported by an advance from Izyum in the north. The continued Russian offensive operations against Bakhmut and around Donetsk City have thus lost any real operational significance for Moscow and merely waste some of the extremely limited effective combat power Russia retains.

There is no basis for assessing that the counter-offensive announced in Kherson Oblast is merely a feint, however. Ukrainian forces have reportedly attacked and made gains at several important locations on the western bank of the Dnipro River. They have cut the two bridges across the river and continue to keep them cut as well as interfere with Russian efforts to maintain supply via barge and pontoon ferry. Ukraine has committed considerable combat power and focused a significant portion of the Western-supplied long-range precision systems it has to this axis, and it is not likely to have done so merely to draw Russian forces to the area.

The Ukrainian pressure in Kherson combined with the rapid counter-offensive in Kharkiv presents the Russians with a terrible dilemma of time and space. Russia likely lacks sufficient reserve forces to complete the formation of a new defensive line along the Oskil River, as it is reportedly trying to do before Ukrainian forces continue their advance through that position if they so choose. Prudence would demand that Russia pull forces from other sectors of the battlespace to establish defensive lines further east than the Oskil River to ensure that it can hold the Luhansk Oblast border or a line as close to that border as possible. But Russian troops around Bakhmut and near Donetsk City continue offensive operations as if unaware of the danger to Luhansk, and Russian forces in Kherson still face attack and the threat of more attacks on that axis. Russian President Vladimir Putin risks making a common but deadly mistake by waiting too long to order reinforcements to the Luhansk line, thereby compromising the defense of Kherson or ending offensive operations around Bakhmut and Donetsk City without getting troops into position to defend against continuing Ukrainian attacks in Luhansk in time. The Ukrainian campaign appears intended to present Putin with precisely such a dilemma and to benefit from almost any decision he makes.
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There is more.

Putin may be running out of commanders soon.  He sent many of them to the front where they were killed and fired others because of the failure of his war plan.  The Russian command is currently being outsmarted by Ukraine leaders and troops.  Putin clearly overrated his own military when he launched this war and it has gotten worse as it went on.  The current operations demonstrate that he is running out of troops in this phase of the war.

The US needs to study why its own prewar assessment of the Russian military was so wrong.  The  Russians were certainly overrated.  They should also study whether Biden's Afghan bug-out led Russia to attack along with Biden's Big Green energy policy which drove up the price of energy to Russia's advantage and helped to fund this war.

See, also:

Russia gives up key northeast towns as Ukrainian forces advance

And:

 Putin ‘fires army commander after just 16 days’ amid major losses in Kharkiv

Ukraine says a ‘series of defeats’ inflicted by its armed forces led to the change in leadership

Russia has fired an army commander just 16 days after he was appointed to his role, Ukraine has claimed, after Kyiv’s forces made major gains.

Lieutenant General Roman Berdnikov was appointed to the position of commander of Russian army’s Western Military District on 26 August, replacing Lieutenant General Sychecvy.

But he lasted little more than two weeks before being removed, according to the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence. Ukrainian credited the change in leadership to the “crushing defeats” by its troops in the Kharkiv region.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said the Russian troop group will now be headed by Lieutenant General Oleksander Lapin.
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And:

Amid Ukraine’s startling gains, liberated villagers describe Russian troops dropping rifles and fleeing

Evidence of the Ukrainian gains continued to emerge Sunday, with images of Ukrainian soldiers raising a flag in Izyum after it was abandoned by Russian forces.