How Russian Troops Assaulted Kharkiv

How Russian Troops Assaulted Kharkiv

on the morning of May 10th Russian forces launched a ground assault against Ukraine in the northern harke region opening up a new front today I want to examine if this might be a diversion tactic by Russia or if they’re planning to assault the harke city center how could Ukrainian Defenders choose to respond and what are the Strategic motivations on both sides behind me is a live conflict map that constantly updates the location of the Frontline positions across the country this redey con here indicates Russian troops are assaulting across roughly two dozen different towns On the Border in the direction of harke so far Russia claims to have captured five Villages within an area known as the contested Gray Zone although Ukraine disputes that and says that they’re launching counterattacks in response elements of the 93rd assault Brigade are in route as a quick reaction force with their cv90 infantry fighting vehicles to reinforce Ukraine searching this one I even noticed something I’d never seen before AI generated fake images of Russian troops at a harke city sign I don’t know maybe something about their faces or six fingers might have given it away this opening up of a new line of attack might seem like a surprise but if you follow the open and Source intelligence reports too closely like me then you’ve noticed for at least the last two weeks we’ve seen signs that Russia was creating an operationally significant Northern grouping Ukraine reported Russia had moved between 35,000 and 50,000 of their troops to this region on May 5th a week before the start of this attack there was a report that stated several Russian units including elements of the 104th vdv regiment were taken off the front lines in the south in zapia and moved all the way up to the north to form a new grouping near harie in addition to that in early May the Ukrainian general staff had warned that Russia was massing troops along the northern border and could push for harke as an opener to a summer offensive starting in mid-may originally they even anticipated the attack might include a second attempt at invading the city of Sumi as well Russian forces even attempted to hide their troop movements according to Ukrainian military Observer movitz who reported they were pretending to unload troops and equipment at Railway stations in kers when they were actually headed to belgrad other units marched on foot to Bel garad oblast near the border in an attempt to hide and conceal their true numbers this is where Russian troops moved to a staging area preparing for the assault over the past week at least the city of harke is Ukraine’s second largest city home to over 1.3 million people they’ve resisted capture since the start of the invasion even though they’re located only 34 kilometers or about 20 miles from Russia’s border the light green region you’re looking at right now on the map tells us how far Russian troops managed to advance during their initial invasion in 2022 we can see Russian forces once made it all the way to within 10 km before being driven back to the Border it’s the Ukraine Invasion reboot sequel you never asked for the red zones show the limits of Russia’s Advance today there are some different potential motivations I think for the Strategic importance of this region to both sides that I believe are important to consider pro-ukrainian all Russian forces launched several retaliatory crossb raids from the harke region into the Russian city of belgrad in March of 2024 that basically means Russian forces who are loyal to Ukraine launched strikes and ground assaults inside actual Russian territory near here which was a major point of contention it was a big issue for the Russian government directly following this in March the Kremlin stated that they would create what they called a quote unquote sanitary zone or a buffer zone inside of Ukraine that would be big enough to prevent these kinds of strikes on Russian territories in the future however these lines of public reasoning from Moscow might not be their true intentions that information could be designed to keep Russia’s true intentions hidden for example Ukraine has already demonstrated its ability to hit deep inside Russian territory with domestically produced drone strikes on oil refineries some as far as 1300 kmet from the front lines or more and the United States just sent Ukraine longer range attack of missiles with a range of 300 kmers a 10 km buffer zone might not make a major difference no matter Russia’s motivation for the attack the Ukrainian military leadership now has a decision to make how much reinforcements do they want to divert to harke a factor to consider is that they’ve already devoted Reserve forces in the dunas South to stop Russia’s grinding Advance after they took the city of adiva in February according to this isw assessment this might be Russian planners actual goal to force Ukraine to move Manpower and materials off their lines in the dunos to protect harke the evidence that they cite for this assessment is because they believe 35,000 to 50,000 Russian troops would be likely unable to encircle or take the city of harke some estimates based on past assaults of smaller towns like bmot claim Russia would need 300,000 soldiers to capture ourke this is because it would require drives across open terrain on scales that Russia has not conducted since the start of the fullscale invasion even turtle tanks might not be able to push through that when you look at at the geography of the Border it’s a lot of dense forests that provide cover for an advance the territory opens up after that to Flat Lands after the Border though which would make them more vulnerable to fire although if Russia chooses to reinforce this direction more in the future that assessment could change it seems to me that Russia’s attempting to seize the opportunity to attack before US military aid arrives $60 billion worth of artillery air defense and vehicles is currently just been authorized it’s being shipped there this will only make any Russian offensive more difficult the longer they wait however it will take some time for that Aid to arrive and make a difference on the front lines Russia’s military leadership is well aware of this they know they have a limited window of time to act for ideal assault conditions take a look at the town of vonk it’s one of the main border Villages under attack right now Russia is attempting to encircle this town that had a pre-war population of 177,000 people of which only a couple hundred remain there about half the population of ab Diva for context as of today some reports indicate that Russian infantry have just entered the edge of the Town although this is disputed by Ukraine according to the Ukrainian journalist Yuri basov the town is being attacked along two main routes in an attempt to encircle it and journalists from the Associated Press On The Ground there report report intense and frequent air strikes initial reports of battle damage assessments are trickling out according to Russia’s State News Agency Tas they claim to have destroyed several Ukrainian armored fighting Vehicles a multiple launch rocket system and some artillery pieces meanwhile members of Ukraine’s 42nd mechanized Brigade posted videos showing their fpv drones knocking out at least four Russian BMP infantry fighting Vehicles additional Drone footage shows Ukrainian artillery and direct fire repelling one of these assault attempts according to this map Russian forces have not yet reached the Ukrainian main defensive lines which were located to the rear of some of these border Villages now the placement of these defensive lines has become the subject of much heated internet debate keep in mind the fog of war is still thick here but if you’re monitoring the open source information battle space right now if you’re sifting through that cess pole you’re seeing competing theories of what’s happening on the ground the first theory is that Ukraine did not build strong defensive lines in the correct positions or that corruption or lack of improved fortifications allowed Russian forces to essentially walk through the border uncontested the second theory is that there are reasons Ukraine didn’t build defensive lines directly on the border with Russia including Geographic considerations to take into account so for example there’s a river directly behind vonk and so setting up front lines in front of the river would have been possibly a strategic mistake because then they would have been fighting with their backs to the river which is a natural defensive barrier another Factor could be that Ukraine has for the large part refrained from striking into Russian territory and so they set up their front lines further away from the border I’ll be posting on our task and purpose Discord server with updates on how that situation unfolds in real time there a link in the description and pin comment Ukrainian command asserts that the area here is still contested rather than seized and that the fighting is far from over over 6,000 civilians have evacuated so far though several bridges and dams have been destroyed in an effort to trap Ukrainian Defenders and cut them off from resupply the threats that Ukraine faces in this assault have increased since the first time they were invaded by Russian forces over two years ago Russia has adapted some of their vehicles to be more resistant to UAV attacks like the infamous turtle tank that everyone’s talking about it remains to be seen how how effective that will be today Russia makes widespread use of Glide bomb kits that are estimated to cost them only an additional $220,000 to give them a double increased range of 70 km this makes it more difficult to shoot down Russia’s fighter jets however Ukraine has also adapted to these new threats themselves they keep their forces further back from the front line in deep trenches and bunkers closer to their air defense assets this has led to many sectors in the front being a sort of gry Zone area where neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces are directly Manning the lines but are monitoring the territory much of this gry zone region was defended by territorial Defense Forces who acted as a kind of warning if an assault came this could explain both how Russian forces were able to advance 5 km overnight and how Ukraine can still claim this territor is contested if Russian forces attempt to advance further they will face a more for ified city than last time for instance we know Ukraine has been constructing fortifications here since at least January of 2024 leadership visited the new trenches just last month in early April 2024 what we don’t know is how effective these defensive lines will be and if they will be able to withstand the assault that remains to be seen early reports from on the ground estimate Russia’s using about five battalions worth of infantry along with an unknown number of armor so possibly around 5,000 troops of their estimated 50,000 strength former Ukrainian military officer and founder of front elligence insights tagami UA believes there might be as many as two core worth of Russian forces devoted to this operation the question on many people’s minds right now though is whether this is a faint a a psych or an attempt to capture the city an article from The Economist published one day before the attack said quote one scenario would be to isolate the City by cutting the main road to keev another would be to move some 10 km closer putting the city’s Eastern outskirts within artillery range this is an important factor to consider prior to the attack Russian forces were more than 40 km from harke City Center but if they could push their artillery assets to within 25 to 30 km from the city center they could start to hammer the metro area with massed tube gun artillery that’s what this map shows right now with the 25 kmet radius around the city here this strategy has been somewhat successful for Russia in the past harke has been rationing their electricity in the face of attacks on their energy infrastructure and they’ve reportedly been hit by Glide bomb launched by aircraft on a daily basis the city of harke has been under pretty much constant pressure from Russian long range fires since the start of the war but only a relatively few systems like rockets missiles and glide bombs can actually reach the city but getting within artillery Cannon range would change many of the calculations here it would make regular life for civilians very difficult even if Russia doesn’t commit enough forces to storm or encircle the city Ukraine can’t take the risk of letting the enemy get close enough to slowly destroy harke for months on end and so it appears to me that one of the high motivations for Ukraine to reinforce this direction is to prevent Russian forces from reaching within that radius so so why didn’t Ukraine hit this large grouping of 50,000 Russians when they were staging just across the border why didn’t they use attack of missiles on them then one of the reasons could be because for the entire War Western military aid has tacitly been not allowed to be fired into Russian territory what that means is that it was thought to be kind of a silent agreement not made public that Ukraine would be restricted from using those Western weapons in Russian territory Russia benefited from this restriction it’d be exactly like if you were playing tag and then someone just ran and said oh no home base you can’t touch me here it would be like if you had a safe space in war however on May 3rd that might have changed Ukraine was publicly given the green light to go weapons free the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary David Cameron said quote Ukraine has a right just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine you can quite understand why Ukraine feels they need to make sure it’s defending itself nailed that accent they’re now authorized to use Western Long Range weapons however and wherever they choose which is a significant change whether that extends to also include us authorization of their weapons Aid I don’t know yet much like during the first Invasion attempt in 2022 when we saw the Z symbol mysteriously painted on many Russian Vehicles we’re now seeing a new more complicated looking symbol Associated specifically with the operational North grouping of Russian forces attacking near harke there are two theories as to what it is the first is that it’s a viking Gung near ruin which is Odin Spear and the other is that it’s the Russian letters for x and O meaning har region experts have noted the timing of this new offensive also coincides with Russia’s Victory Day Celebrations on May 9th to commemorate the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II this event has become a major point of contention if you haven’t heard with Putin saying that the West has tried to erase the Soviet Union’s contributions to the war the Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the conflict however it’s interesting to note that Russian military and political leadership never mentioned that 8 million of those deaths were ukrainians who were also a part of the Red Army in World War II by the end of the third day of the hard attack Ukrainian leadership has declared the Russian incursions fully contained and that rein enforcements are on the way to prevent future attacks meanwhile pro- Russian sources claim that this could just be the beginning of a broader plan for live updates on this situation as the fog of war starts to lift follow our task and purpose Discord Channel Link in the description be sure to check out my appearance on Piers Morgan I’ll get that in the link in the description as well and keep an eye out for my appearance on Destiny’s new podcast soon and come see me at the foo Bar and Grill where everything is up beyond all recognition all the time I’m your average infan Chris happy thank you for 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On the morning of May 10th, Russian forces launched a ground assault against Ukraine in the northern Kharkiv region opening up a new front. It’s the Ukraine invasion reboot sequel you never asked for. Today, I want to examine if this might be a diversion tactic by Russia or if they’re planning to assault the Kharkiv city center? How could Ukrainian defenders choose to respond? And What are the strategic motivations here for both sides?

Written by: Chris Cappy and Diego Aceituno
Video edited by: Chris Cappy

Behind me is a live conflict map that constantly updates the location of front line positions across the country. This red icon here indicates Russian troops are assaulting across roughly two dozen different towns on the border in the direction of Kharkiv. So far Russia claims to have captured 5 villages within an area known as the contested grey zone although Ukraine disputes that and says they are launching counter attacks in response. Elements of 93rd assault brigade are en route as a quick reaction force with their CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles.

This opening up of a new line of attack might seem like a surprise, but if you follow the open source intelligence reports too closely then you’ve noticed that for at least the past 2 weeks we’ve seen signs that Russia was creating an operational significant northern grouping. Ukraine reported Russia had moved between 35,000 and 50,000 of their troops to this region. On May 5th a week before the attack this report stated several Russian units including elements from the 104th VDV Regiment were taken off the front lines in south Zaporizhia and moved all the way up to the north to form a new grouping near Kharkiv. In addition to that, in early May the Ukrainian general staff had warned that Russia was massing troops along the northern border and could push for Kharkiv as an opener to a summer offensive starting in mid May. Originally they even anticipated the attack might include a 2nd attempt at invading the city of Sumy as well. Much like during the first invasion attempt in 2022 when we saw the Z symbol on many Russian vehicles we’re now seeing a new more complicated looking symbol associated specifically with the operational north grouping attacking near Kharkiv. Don’t ask me if it’s a celtic symbol, a letter of some unknown alphabet or a graphic design, I have no idea what that symbol means. If it means anything at all. maybe one of you guys recognize its significance and can enlighten me.

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