Window of opportunity for Vladimir Putin

Despite being Russian about 20 kilometers awayKharkiv residents go about their lives as normal, as if the air raid alarms and the bombs falling in the city center were merely a formality, a temporary inconvenience. There is a traffic jam here, people are drinking coffee on the rooftops and teenagers are playing in the park., It has nothing to do with the first days of the invasion. Ukrainian troops stationed north of the city must defend a surviving city.

If we leave the city to the front, the cars disappear from the second checkpoint. They allow us access only to Borschova And the panorama on the road is already scary. Most homes and businesses on both sides of the road were destroyed. Military vehicles run at full speed or return from the front carrying injured people. There are several ambulances waiting hidden along the way to take them to hospitals. Ukrainian artillery has been deployed throughout the area And defeats Russia’s progress. The sound of its explosion can be heard for several kilometers around. In front of us, a wall of smoke and dust marks the battle front.

The head of Ukrainian intelligence, the eccentric General Kirill Budanov, published a video yesterday from a bunker near the first line of fire in which he insisted that Russia’s Kharkiv invasion had only two objectives: “to create panic among the civilian population and second to Ukraine.” ” Troops will have to be removed from other fronts. At least Russia is achieving the second one.

threat of attack

Is the attack dangerous for Ukraine? It is obvious. What seemed like a reconnaissance and testing maneuver on Russia’s part has turned out to be much more serious, as increasingly more Russian reserves are entering the open gap. They have already advanced about seven kilometers At some points towards Vovchansk and towards Hlyboke, indicating that the city of Kharkiv is close to them. A few more kilometers and Moscow would have “fire control” over the city, that is, being able to conduct artillery bombardments from a distance. This would be fatal for the citizens who have returned to their streets and would return them to a situation similar to the first weeks of March 2022, where the Russians bombed the city center, causing many civilian victims, destroying buildings and all businesses. Was destroyed. Shut down as if it was a ghost town.

If Ukrainian officials are to be believed, they have been successful in stopping the Russians and holding the front. If we listen to the Russians, they are getting closer to Ukraine’s second city. Reality, complex and changing, lies somewhere between these two statements.: Ukraine has managed to stop the bleeding that occurred in the first three days in the last 48 hours, but Z troops are still advancing on some frontier points and trying to encircle Vovchansk, the most important city in the region. This area full of rivers, forests and lakes is a nightmare for invaders. Without armored support, Moscow would have difficulty going much further, but it may have already got what it wanted.

Ukraine also faces an asymmetry in Moscow’s favor here: Russia attacks its enemy with everything it has, which includes Iranian Shaheed drones and North Korean ballistic missiles, but Kiev cannot because of sanctions imposed by its allies: attack Russian soil with all weapons delivered, including long-range ATACSM missiles , with which it can give a tough competition to logistics. Russian. Zelensky fights diplomatically to get this veto dropped as soon as possible. Blinken, Secretary of State, He said yesterday that Ukraine will be able to use its weapons against Russian soil,

But if we go from the specific picture of this front to the global map of the war, we can say that Putin’s Russia is in a hurry. This is your moment to take the initiative: we are almost in summer, the dry season in which the roads become hard, ammunition drips to the Ukrainians, Despite big promises from allies, And its forces outnumbered local troops by ratios that at some points reached three to one.

The Zelensky government has made a serious mistake: Mobilization law is repeatedly delayed That goes into effect this Saturday and it will still take weeks, if not months, to put any new recruits through the training process. This delay, which can only be explained by its bad press and as troubling as the very slow approval of the aid package from the US, has left a huge window of opportunity for Russia. That is, the war is not existential for Russia (it is existential only for its regime), but it behaves as if it is. For Ukraine it is, but did not act accordingly during the crucial months, Now she has to brave this summer storm with her outfit, which isn’t much.

troops and resources

After two years of mistakes and suffering some humiliating setbacks, the offensive has finally left Putin smiling for a few months with gains for a few cities here and there, but with a sense that this war may continue for a long time. Could stay. Since the defense created by the disgraced General Surovikin stopped Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, it has acted in a more effective but criminally bloody way. Moscow has understood that it has a large male population to sacrifice in a large-scale war at any cost (it now deploys about 510,000 troops in Ukraine, for about 280,000 Ukrainians) only on the front lines. It also has vast weapons resources provided by old Cold War warehouses. An autocratic regime that allows military factories to operate 24/7 Without anyone daring to oppose.

For a new adventure in reopening the Northern Front. He is already using 30,000 soldiers, are mostly new recruits who entered Ukraine in detachments on foot, which does not speak very well about the security created by Kiev. In an investigation published by the Ukrainian news agency, Ukrainska Pravda, most of the companies that won public tenders to build fortresses and trench lines were created in the last month, which makes one think that we are facing a big case of corruption Due to which people may lose their lives, because there are areas through which the Russians should not have passed and they did so on foot. The trenches have not been completed and mountains of dragon teeth on both sides of the roads, which have yet to be laid, are visible in satellite images.

Now to block progress, Ukraine must displace Kharkiv Some of its best reserves are ready to fight in Donbass: For example, the 93rd Brigade, a veteran of Bazmut, and the Kraken unit, which relies on the Interior Ministry. This is exactly what the Russians were looking for. As military analyst Jack Vetting writes: “The Russian summer offensive is based on attacking the provinces of Kharkiv and Zaporizhia (territory reclaimed by Ukraine in 2022). Once the Ukrainian lines are overextended, Russians will infiltrate Donbass: their main objective,

This week, announcements of deliveries by Western countries of spectacular weapons packages with all types of armored vehicles, anti-aircraft missiles, cannons and tons of artillery projectiles have multiplied, which unfortunately includes another 10 Leopard 2 battle tanks from Spain. The consignment also includes Ukraine, None of these shiny gadgets are here and now, where they are needed and will still take several weeks to arrive. Insane bureaucracy and lazy decision making is costing the region and lives. opposite of this, Putin launches his offensive and his missiles with bloody punctuality at any cost,

The alarm goes off again on people’s phones in the middle of the street in the center of Kharkiv, who don’t even bother to turn it off, it’s as annoying as the sound of a pigeon. Old Soviet trams packed with people returning from work pass the destroyed administration building while the sounds of explosions are heard in the distance. Russian bombs again. Another day at the office.