Thread by @Maks_NAFO_FELLA

The Washington Post reconstructed the Kharkiv and Kherson operations.

▪️In the last days of August, the commander of the Ground Forces Sirskyi met in a large operational room in the east of Ukraine with his chief assistants and key brigade commanders.

In front of them lay a 520-square-foot map of the Russian-occupied part of Kharkiv Oblast, printed on a 3D printer.

▪️Each commander went through the planned assault route of his unit, discussing coordination, contingencies and worst-case scenarios. Officers used laser pointers to highlight trouble spots.

▪️In the summer, the General Staff commissioned the development of diversionary operations to distract Russian forces from the defense of Kherson - and Syrsky suggested, on the contrary, to go on the offensive in Kharkiv Oblast, while the Russians expect an offensive in Kherson.

▪️By August, thanks in part to US intelligence, Syrskyi saw that the number of battalions in Izyum had been reduced by at least half, as Russia redeployed its most experienced fighters to Kherson.

▪️Each attacking brigade was armed with at least eight M777 howitzers. In some cases, the howitzers arrived at the camps the night before the assault began.

▪️Head of the Missile Troops and Artillery Department of the Land Forces Command Training Command Andriy Malinovsky believed that the Armed Forces may need more than 100,000 ammunition - but in 5 days they used about 32,500.

▪️The Americans were not deeply involved in the planning of the Kharkiv offensive and learned about it relatively late, according to WP sources.

▪️The Russians eventually realized that the Ukrainians were up to something. According to Syrskyi, thanks to the Russian bureaucracy, the information "did not reach anyone or was not taken into account."

The Pentagon believed that the Russians were not fully aware of the vulnerabilities on the Kharkiv front or saw the offensive coming, but did not have enough people to stop it.

▪️On September 6, the Ukrainians attacked all advanced positions at once - and there was a breakthrough everywhere. The advance was fast, the Russians were leaving positions, so the Ukrainians entered Izyum even earlier than planned.

▪️The commander of OK "South", according to the management, did not move fast enough and he was replaced by Oleksandr Tarnavskyi - deputy of Syrskyi during the Kharkiv operation.

▪️Tarnavsky singled out the territory between Mykolaiv and Kherson - flat lands with a small number of trees and concrete irrigation canals - as a place for the deployment of the main offensive strike.

The responsibility for this part of the front was assigned to the commander of the 59th motorized infantry brigade, Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi.

▪️Sukharevsky's troops resorted to "folk creativity" on the battlefield: for example, they modified the batteries in DJI Mavic drones so that the copters could fly 4 times further - up to 13 miles;

they launched a stinking smell into the enemy's trenches; drones were taken from cigarette smugglers and turned into homemade explosives.

▪️On the night of November 9, Sukharevskyi's brigade occupied the village of Zeleniy Gai, so Kherson was within reach of artillery. But the Russians began to retreat a few days before.