Russia-Ukraine Flash Report 27 JUL 2022 13:00 PDT - Fog of War in Izyum

This morning, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote in their report, "In the Slovyansk direction...in the area of ​​the settlement of Pasika, a reconnaissance group tried to expose the positions of our troops. Unsuccessfully. The group is neutralized."

This caused quite a stir because Pasika is 6 kilometers north of the known line of conflict. The General Staff is very conservative about territorial gains, tends to announce things days after they happened, and rarely makes an open declaration of, "we liberated," unless they are 100% sure it is liberated and will be held. When we read between the lines, the group in Pasika has to be more than a small group of Special Operation Forces (SOF), because the General Staff was comfortable in announcing they have advanced to the "area of" Pasika, and comfortable enough to let the world know.

Yesterday, it was reported that Russian forces evacuated from Studenok, and a satellite image showed the bridge between Yaremivka and Studenok had been destroyed. We assessed we couldn't verify the veracity of the report of the withdrawal. We also indicated it had come from a very reliable source.

Russian military doctrine has been to destroy bridges when they start a retreat. We don't know who destroyed the Yaremivka-Studenok bridge, or why. Destroying the bridge favors Russian defenders versus Ukrainian forces in a counterattack.

There are still a lot of questions, but the body of evidence that is available supports that Ukraine has made a significant advance toward Izyum.

• The collapse of the southwest advance toward Barvinkove earlier in the month
• The continued withdrawal of Russian forces from the western flank of the Izyum axis, closer and closer to the Oskil River
• The dwindling number of ground attacks south and southeast of Izyum toward Slovyansk
• A dramatic decrease in artillery and rockets fired from Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) over the last 72 to 96 hours
• An almost complete absence of Russian offensive operations west of Lyman toward Slovyansk since mid-June
• The report of Russian forces closing the field hospital in Borova on July 22, the reported withdrawal that started on July 25, and a likely but unconfirmed HIMARS strike on Borova railroad infrastructure on July 26
• The report that Russian forces had withdrawn from Studenok and Yatskiva on July 25
• The destruction of two training camps for the terrorist group Imperial Legion, PMC Wagner Group, and separatist militias in mid-July - members of PMC Wagner complained about massive losses in the strikes
• Russian forces building a wet crossing in Oskil, west of the Oskil Reservoir and dam - Russian forces had established the dam crossing after Ukrainian forces withdrew and failed to fully destroy the roadbed that goes across

It is all still circumstantial evidence, but there is a lot of evidence that Ukrainian forces may have started a broader counteroffensive toward Izyum. It is more likely that Russian combat strength on this axis, which we assessed had reached a culmination point is collapsing, and with it, the axis. We had assessed that if any axis for either belligerent reached a tipping point where combat strength could no longer hold defensive lines, a collapse would come fast.

There remains a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and to hedge our bets we've coded large areas south of Izyum as contested, including Pasika. It is starting to look like our assessment that Russia was suffering a death of a thousand cuts around Izyum, is coming into focus.