Thread by @TheStudyofWar

NEW: #Ukraine has inflicted a major operational defeat on #Russia, recapturing almost all of #Kharkiv Oblast in a rapid counter-offensive. Ukraine has turned the tide in its favor, but the current counter-offensive will not end the war. /1

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The #Ukrainian recapture of #Izyum ended the prospect that #Russia could accomplish its stated objectives in #Donetsk Oblast. /2

After retreating from #Kyiv in early April, the stated #Russian objectives had been to seize the complete territory of #Luhansk and #Donetsk Oblasts via an attack along an arc from #Izyum through #Severodonetsk to the area near #Donetsk City. /3

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). /4

Even the #Russian seizure of #Bakhmut, which is unlikely to occur, 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. /5

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. /6

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. /7

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. /8

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. /9

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. /10

#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. /11

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