Izyum has a long memory of the war. It is a city of 50,000 inhabitants that is 120 kilometers from Kharkov, the second Ukrainian city, on the banks of the peaceful Donets River. It was a settlement of the Crimean Tatars since 1571. The Cossacks occupied it in 1668. During World War II, the Soviet Red Army turned it into a beachhead to fight back against the Nazis. They were defeated. The Germans occupied it between 1942 and 1943. In 2014, with the Russian invasion and the creation of the separatist enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk, it was once again the epicenter of tough battles between the pro-Russians and the Ukrainian army.
The strategic route E40, which connects Luhansk with Sloviansk and Kharkiv, passes through Izyum. Whoever is in control of the city will gain direct access to these other two war fronts. Russian forces have been fighting for a month to conquer it. This week there were reports that the Russians had arrived in the downtown area and taken over the headquarters of the local government. But Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Matsokin, who is taking refuge in one of the suburbs, says on his Telegram channel that he is still in Ukrainian hands. But the city is reduced to rubble and twisted irons “For three weeks there has been no civilization. The city has been left in ruins, and intentionally,” he wrote.
To end Izyum's resistance and move towards the Kharkiv jackpot, the Russians need fresh troops and a shorter supply line. Because of these problems they already failed in the seizure of Kyiv and now that Vladimir Putin wants to conquer the Donbas region to create their Eastern Ukraine, they will have to set up safe corridors from the Russian border to improve logistics and troop morale, which is still very low. Ukrainians need heavy weapons to repel them. For now, they don't have them. Izyum's fate is tied to that of Kharkiv and both to the end result of the war.
The United States and Europe delivered to Ukraine a large number of light and medium-sized weapons such as the Javelins and NLAW missile systems that are launched on the soldier's shoulder. These weapons were instrumental in attacking Russian convoys and destroying tanks. They are designed for urban or semi-urban warfare. Defenses must have hiding places and escape routes where enemy heavy artillery cannot enter. Now, for this Donbas campaign, Ukraine needs another type of armament. President Volodymyr Zelensky has been calling for weeks for combat aircraft and S-300 missile systems, which are installed in the back of trucks and can shoot down planes and drones. “If we don't have heavy weapons, how can we defend ourselves?” , he said in one of his dramatic messages he sends every night. “Give us missiles. Give us planes!”
Until now, the West refused. Some military analysts argue that these weapons will not help Ukraine as much as Zelensky thinks. But the main reason is the fear they have in Washington and Brussels that Putin will see this delivery of weapons as a NATO advance in invading Russia and responding by expanding the war to other countries and using chemical and nuclear weapons. But without medium-range aircraft and missiles, Putin is very likely to take half of Ukraine and consolidate his power in Russia. Also to continue committing war crimes such as those being seen in Irpin, Bucha and so many other reconquered towns around Kyiv, the Mariupol bombing of civilian hospitals and shelters, or the massive and compulsive deportation of Ukrainians to inhospitable regions within Russia.
“It is the West's dilemma that will have to be resolved very soon. If you hand over the weapons, it may provoke the anger of Putin who is able to press the red button on nuclear missiles. If he doesn't, Putin gets away with it and is much stronger so that the rest of the world remains hostage to his whims,” wrote Frederick Kagan, military expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
At least two European countries, both on the Ukrainian border, seem willing to provide some of the weapons Zelensky wants. Slovakia, which owns S-300 missile systems, announced that it is ready to send them to Ukraine, while Poland offered to deliver MIG fighter jets, which would be of great advantage because Ukrainian pilots are used to flying them. But both countries want the transfers to be part of a broader agreement that includes the United States and NATO, so as not to become even more vulnerable to a Russian attack. They know that Putin can take advantage of the situation to launch attacks on Warsaw and Bratislava.
The foreign ministers of NATO member countries, the Western military defense system, are meeting tomorrow in Brussels to discuss the possibility of increased military aid to Ukraine. US President Joe Biden is under severe pressure from the bench of his own party, the Democrat, and the Republican opposition in Congress to take the risk and help the Ukrainian armed forces more decisively. For now, the White House Security Council continues to advise him not to do so. But Biden knows that his fate is largely tied to what happens in Ukraine and when the campaign for re-election begins everything can change.
Biden directly accused Putin of being a “war criminal” and assured that the Russian leader will face an international tribunal for atrocities that are appearing in Ukraine. Europe is also moving in that direction. Germany and France expelled 75 Russian diplomats in the last few hours. And trade sanctions will increase. “The European Union is going to totally restrict the purchase of Russian coal, which is that country's third export. And I don't think that causes much more headache for Europeans than they already have with gas cuts,” Matina Stevis-Gridneff wrote in The Times in London. Washington is also going to go around the turnstile that he put on the Russian economy one more time. He is going to chase weapons manufacturers around the world not to give him the parts that Moscow needs to rebuild its damaged tanks. And they would confiscate, not only freeze as before, the money of the Russian government deposited in foreign banks. “This would stifle Putin who would run out of hard currency for any trade other than with China,” explained Jeffrey Schott, of the Peterson Institute of International Economics.
But as Cornell University historian Nicholas Mulder recalled, “sanctions rarely affect behavior on the battlefield and when they work, they can come too late.” He added that “wars are won or lost on battlefields and communications, not in banks.”
General Mark Hertling, the former commander of US forces in Europe, agrees with this perspective. In a long Twitter thread, he describes what the Russian strategy would look like in the coming days: they will continue to bomb until the defenses in Mariupol and Berendyansk, in the east, as well as in areas surrounding the already conquests Kherson and Mykolaiv. In the coming weeks they will try to keep Odessa by bombing it from the sea, which is what they have not done so far. And they will have two strong fronts in particular, one on Kharkiv and the other that will open on Dnipro, the key city that is in the geographical center of Ukraine.
Although everything will depend on whether the Russians can solve their serious logistical problems. “The forces of the RU - of various kinds - have suffered incomprehensible losses. Some estimates speak of 10-15%... I would place it closer to 30-50% of combat units on the front line,” General Hertling wrote. “British intelligence and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense estimate Russian casualties at more than 18,000 soldiers with 700 tanks destroyed or captured. As a former commander of a tank division, those figures are inconceivable to me.”
And he warns that the move of Putin's generals to pull troops out of Kyiv to concentrate them on the Donbas is not something that gives an immediate strategic advantage on the battlefield. “This is not a computer game. This isn't a Hollywood movie. Forces do not leave one area to fight immediately in another. It would take several weeks to move entire regiments from Belarus to Crimea, and if they arrive, those soldiers would have to stay in the rear until they recompose and rearrange. I don't think that's possible for now.”
General Hertling believes that Ukrainian forces still have a comparative advantage and if they send them the weapons they need, as well as air support, they could cut off the offensive, save Dnipro and corner the Russians over their border. Of course, for this, they still have to resist in Izyum and prevent them from completely taking over the E40 route. Kharkiv can hold out for weeks, but if Russian tanks have cleared the way to that city, the bombing will be hellish.
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