Dr Mike Martin:
Reports are coming in that Kupyansk has fallen, and also, just now, early reports that Izyum has been abandoned with Russian troops fleeing.
I tweeted this map a few days ago. Kupyansk is the yellow circle, and Izyum the red circle. By taking K the Ukr cut off the logistics to Izyum making it undefendable.
The Russians fled Izyum in what can only be described as a rout.
The Ukrainians have just fought a brilliant piece of combined arms manœuvrer. The Russian armed forces have been demonstrated, again, to be utterly terrible.
Russian units are now reportedly trying to relocate to the Donbas. Once they get there they have to contend with the loss of Izyum and Kupyansk - the two railway hubs for that side of the country.
The Russians use rail for lots of their log and so this is very significant - the Russians will not be able to conduct offensive operations in the Donbas anymore until (if ever?) they reconfigure their logistics.
But as ever - this is all about Kherson. Watch over there too today - because Crimea is the Russian strategic centre of gravity and the Kherson pocket will need to collapse to make that happen.
But after what we’ve seen over the last 72 hours the collapse of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine doesn’t seem a long way away.….