First, Russia launched a few hopeless attacks on Sosnivka (1) during the day on September 10th, and at night they attacked Sosnivka again along with Velyki Prokhody (2). Fortunately, these attacks were hopeless and did little more than briefly slow down everything else.
Russia tried to hold on to the Kharkiv front and sent reinforcements to Kupyansk by road and helicopter. Still, casualties on the western side of the Oskil River were so severe, and the troops were so uncoordinated and chaotic that they had no choice but to begin to withdraw.
To help Russia along with this decision, Ukraine crossed the Siverskyi Donets river at Khotimlya and marched north toward Vovchansk (3).
Simultaneously, forces from the recently liberated Martove and Artemivka marched north (4), and troops from Kupyansk moved north and captured Velykyi Burluk (5).
Russia rapidly abandoned all its strongholds in Kharkiv west of the Oskil River (6), including Kozacha Lopan and Vovchansk.
In doing so, they left behind vast amounts of equipment, including tanks, artillery, arsenals full of ammunition, and the paperwork and documents belonging to officers and an entire headquarters. Not to mention soldiers and officers killed or captured in the retreat.
Further south, Ukraine moved into Izyum (7) and at least superficially seized control over everything west of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers. However, Ukraine will have to deal with the roving bands of Russians still in the area.
It will likely take ten or more days to clear Izyum fully and even longer to clear all of the newly liberated territories.
I have marked a subset of officially and unofficially liberated towns (the blue and white flag icons).
After Russia abandoned the western side of the Oskil, they began to shell the area, especially around Kupyansk, heavily.
As a result, downtown Kupyansk, where Ukraine had filmed liberation videos (and where they had been in control since September 9th), has been effectively turned to rubble as of September 12th.
There are rumors of Ukraine controlling areas east of the Oskil river, but all of my sources have told me they know nothing about this. I have not seen any evidence, and I believe it is a baseless rumor.
It is likely that Ukrainian special forces are operating on that side of the river, perhaps even recon. Still, I have not seen evidence of regular Ukrainian troops crossing the river.
On September 12th, Russia ordered the evacuation of the border towns of Nekhoteevka (8) and Zhuravleva (9). I believe they are doing this because they intend to build artillery positions in these locations to shell the Kharkiv area.
As you see on the map, this area, along with Sereda, a bit to the east, are the closest areas of Russia to Kharkiv city. Zhuravleva is 36km from downtown Kharkiv.
One final note about the Kharkiv area, yesterday, Ukraine used drones and artillery to destroy a mortar position near the Russian town of Logachevka (10) on the 12K-33 highway (road?).
They destroyed three 2S12 Sani 120mm heavy mortars and three 2F510 mortar transport trucks. Russia claims Ukraine targeted and killed local people. If true, maybe the locals should not have been manning heavy mortars and shelling Ukrainian towns.
Ukraine has been building and establishing bridgeheads over the Siverskyi Donets river in the Slovyansk and Siversk areas.
On the 12th, Ukraine liberated Svyatohirsk (11), and on the 10th and 11th, they crossed the river near Zakitne and assaulted Yampil (13) and captured Bilohorivka (14), and crossed the river near this area (15).
Russia has been continuously counterattacking Bilohorivka, trying to dislodge Ukraine (16). Unfortunately for Russia, the forces in this area have not been combat ineffective for many weeks and likely do not have the power to push Ukraine away.
Ukraine now controls areas near Svyatohirsk, Satryi Saltiv, Ozerna, Zakitne, and Bilohorivka. Five significant crossing points. Ukrainian engineers have built strong enough crossings to allow the transfer of tanks and heavy equipment.
For Russia, the crossing near Bilohorivka is the most threatening because it is behind their main defensive line near Lyman and Yampil and threatens an attack on the much more critical Kreminna (17).
On September 12th, I heard that the intensity of the shelling and fighting around Bakhmut had lessened compared to previous days.
In Soledar, Russia claims to have captured a block of buildings adjacent to the Knauf Gips factory. I marked this area on the map. It represents the total net gain of the Russian position in Soledar since August 23rd.
There is minor skirmishing on the eastern outskirts of the town and in Bakhmutske to the south, although Russia seems to be focusing on moving west (18).
In Bakhmut, Russians have reached the industrial zone in the east after having abandoned this position and withdrawn several weeks ago. There is fighting near the Ceramic factory (19).
I have the factory marked as the easternmost Ukrainian fortification marker in the city. The map may exaggerate the extent of battle in the city's south (20).
Around Vesela Dolyna, several weeks ago, I had heard that the fighting was primarily near the electric substation. Still, given that so much time has passed, I had assumed the action migrated either north or west.
Fortunately, I was mistaken, as the Russian forces triumphantly declared they had begun fighting near the substation on September 12th (21). As if this were progress. Progress in the sense that nothing has changed since August 2nd.
There is ongoing fighting around Zaitseve (22). I do not have any particular knowledge about this town, but someone in the area told me that my map gives Russia too much credit and that they have made much less progress than depicted. And I show them making almost no progress.
Russia is pushing toward Odradivka (23), Mykolaivka Druha (24) and Kurdymivka (25). The latter two are heavily fortified towns and will be very difficult to attack. It is unknown to me how much progress Russia has made in these areas.
Russia claimed to have captured the Mayorsk train station (26), but there is still fighting in the area. I do not know if the fighting is still at or north of the train station.
On September 11th, Ukraine stated they repelled a Russian attack near Ozeryanivka (27). An odd statement. I do not know how to interpret it. I marked some of the ground as contested. Very confusing.
On the same day, Ukraine stated that they repelled an attack on Novobakhmutivka (28), which is now labeled contested. In light of the recent news that Ukraine liberated all or most of Novoselivka, you could charitably say Ukraine is expanding its area of control south of New York
Or perhaps little has changed, and the Ukrainian General Staff is taking too many liberties with their language. Unfortunately, I have not been able to confirm any news about this area.
Russia desires to capture Avdiivka. It is one of the primary objectives of the war. Given the past few days' events in Kharkiv and what is happening in Kherson, you would think Russia may abandon its attack on Avdiivka and maybe reposition these troops to more essential areas.
But no, they are doubling down on their attack.
They are attacking Krasnohorivka (29), Avdiivka (30), Pisky (32), and Marinka (35) and in the directions of Vodyane (31) and Pervomaiske (33). Ukraine launched a failed counterattack near Pisky (34).
South of Donetsk, on September 12th, Russia attacked Novomykhailivka (36). This attack in itself is not notable because Russia has been attacking this town on an almost daily basis. However, an (unconfirmed) report that Ukraine rebuffed this attack with a counterattack is notable
Supposedly Ukraine pushed the Russians back a bit, then opened up a massive artillery barrage.
According to Russian reports, Ukraine is building up forces in Krasnohorivka (A), Vuhledar (B), Prechystivka (C ), Hulyaipole (D), Orikhiv (E), and Stepnohirsk (F). If true, the goal of these buildups would be to disguise the intent of any future Ukrainian offensive.
They want Russia to believe they could attack anywhere, so Russia does not know which attack may be a feint or a genuine offensive. Of course, it could be that all of these attacks are a feint, and the actual attack could be somewhere else entirely. Or there may not be any attack
Last night there were reports of significant fighting near Vasylivka (G). I believe this was most likely a large artillery strike.
On September 11th, Russia launched a massive missile strike on Ukraine's electrical infrastructure, targeting four power plants. This strike did significant damage to Ukraine's electrical infrastructure.
This is all I have. I do not have enough information about Kherson to talk about it at the moment.
The tiktok army is back in action. Ready to fight trees and stoplights.
If you remember, they disappeared after they filmed themselves uncontrollably sobbing in the middle of the street because someone was shooting at them.
btw I had the increase the speed to make it fit in the 2 minute 20 second twitter time limit, but I think this also greatly improves the audio.
Around Kharkiv city, Russia is working to maintain a buffer between the front line and the Russian border. I have tried to find an update on the status of Udy and Sosnivka, but I have not been able to find reliable information.
From what I gather, based upon reports from September 5-9 and from newer reports from September 10-11, I believe Russia may have had some control over Sosnivka from September 5th-9th and then lost this control sometime during the 10th. I believe Udy is a contested town.
If Russia doesn’t figure out some way to build a defensive line, and at the moment they seem to be in a total route, then Ukraine could end up liberating most of Luhansk oblast in the next few days.
The issue is that their units do not normally operate with each other, so now under emergency circumstances they have great difficulty communicating. As a result, the officers don’t know where to go or who to report to. And the disconnect between soldier and officer doesn’t help
Even if they can figure out the officer problem, the officer may not even have soldiers around to control. They are fleeing and falling into disarray. And even if they did all somehow come together, they have a catastrophic lack of infantry.
It shocks me that there are people who supposedly work in ”intelligence” or “geopolitics” on any level who actually believed Russia would win a war with Ukraine. It is baffling to me. Complete ignorance of the Ukrainian people. There was never any chance of that happening.
Let me make this very clear. Ukraine is not winning this war because of foreign aid. They are winning because they are a (mostly) unified people with a (mostly) national identity and a (mostly) desire to live a free and peaceful life. They would have won regardless.
Not only is this narrative that "they are only winning because of foreign aid" completely wrong, not only does it play into Putin's propaganda narrative, but it misses the entire point of aid in the first place.
I wasn’t lying when I said when Balakliya falls, so will the towns behind it.
Ukraine blasted through the defenses blitzkrieg style and kept going. The dam broke and the water is unleashed. Russia is screwed, there is a tidal wave heading to their rear. You can’t downplay how bad this is for Russia. They stripped the manpower, no defense in depth.
The forces Russia rotated to Kherson would take weeks to move back to Izyum. It took two weeks to move from Izyum to Kherson. Back then they had bridges. Now they have to cross a ferry, then take two weeks on top of that. They set their own trap.