Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had withdrawn from the strategic city of Izyum, saying it had decided to “regroup” and move them southeast to the Donetsk region. The Russian retreat is one of President Vladimir Putin’s biggest setbacks since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and could prove to be a turning point, with the capture of thousands of Russian soldiers and their equipment. “Since the beginning of September, about 2,000 kilometers of our territory have been liberated,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily afternoon video address to the nation. “The Russian army is showing its best – showing its back. . . it is a good choice for them to run away. There is no place for the occupiers in Ukraine and there will be no place,” Zelensky said. In an apparent attempt to encourage more Russian soldiers to surrender, Zelensky promised that Ukraine would “guarantee” Russian soldiers who surrender fair treatment “in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.” Videos posted on social media showed drifting Russian soldiers who had hurriedly abandoned their vehicles and positions, leaving equipment and food behind. Locals cheered Ukrainian forces as they advanced into the liberated villages. “Earlier the world did not believe that the Russians could be defeated. . . Today the world has seen that it is proven that the Russians can and must be defeated. This is what we are doing and we will do it,” Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, said Saturday during the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv. In comments to the Financial Times, Reznikov described the swift counter-attack that had taken Russian soldiers by surprise and sent many fleeing like “a snowball rolling down the hill and getting bigger and bigger”. A snowball rolling down a hill gets bigger and bigger He claimed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was also making steady progress in southern areas near the city of Kherson. “We’re moving but probably a little bit slower” than in the east, he said. The Russian Defense Ministry made a rare statement on Saturday, portraying the withdrawal from Balakliia and Izyum as a move to focus attention on a different front line, rather than a defeat after the Ukrainian offensive, which began on September 6 . “To achieve the objectives . . . it was decided to regroup the Russian troops. . . to increase efforts in the direction of Donetsk,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. He added that for this purpose: “an operation was carried out over three days to clear and transport” the Russian troops in that area. The announcement came shortly after Ukrainian troops seized Kupyansk, north of Izyum, a road and rail hub that feeds Russia’s defenses across northeastern Ukraine. This has left thousands of Russian troops cut off from supplies in a part of the battlefield where some of the heaviest fighting of the war has taken place. Ukrainian officials have yet to officially confirm the capture of Izyum, but videos on social media show Ukrainian troops raising the national flag on the outskirts. Some officials confirmed that he had been released. Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said the Ukrainian advance was a moment of hope. “This is what we need,” she said during a visit to Kyiv. “We know that the time between the UN General Assembly and Christmas is critical and arms support is critical and we will be with them.” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba met in Kyiv on Saturday © REUTERS Analysts said Kiev’s attack had taken advantage of Russian defenses that had been depleted after troops were sent south to repel a separate Ukrainian offensive. As many as 10,000 Russian troops could be caught up in the new maneuver, estimates Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of military studies at King’s College London. Despite tougher Russian resistance in the south, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s armed forces near Kherson, said on Saturday that government troops were also making significant gains in the region. “There is an advance of our troops along the southern front along various sections, from two to several tens of kilometers,” he said. Military analysts said Ukraine had launched the two, almost simultaneous, attacks to overwhelm the central command system of the Russian military, which is struggling with multiple deployments. “Russian generals are afraid of making mistakes. . . which leads to the centralization of decision-making because everyone tries to push decisions as far up as possible to avoid responsibility. This kills their ability to deal with multi-pronged approaches,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister. “So that’s exactly what our armed forces do. . . they are attacking where the Russians are not expecting and in more than one direction,” he told participants at the Yalta conference. Ukrainian officials said government troops were also advancing on towns further east, including Lysychansk, Lyman and Kreminna. A military commentator embedded with Russian troops described it as a “disaster” and “the biggest Russian military defeat since 1943”.
Below: Counterattack on Friday, September 9. Reports on Saturday indicate that Ukrainian forces have reached both Kupyansk and Izium.
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But amid a growing sense of euphoria in Kyiv, analysts cautioned against reading too much into Ukraine’s early successes, as supply lines could be overstretched and the Russian military retains formidable capabilities. “They [the Russians] they have very good electronic warfare. They have very good artillery. They have some high tech weapons. . . So you have to be careful. You always have to respect the adversary,” said General Wesley Clark, former NATO supreme commander. Russia is reportedly sending more troops. Ukraine’s general staff said 1,200 Chechen soldiers had been deployed to reinforce Russian positions around Kherson. Videos posted on social media on Saturday also reportedly showed the Russian military floating in fresh troops to reinforce Izyum.
