@PAK
Kharkov movements are interesting, but it's too early to get excited.
Everybody I read (and this time it even includes the absolutely retarded Institute for the Study of War) - claim that the purpose of this operation is not to capture Kharkov, but to stretch the AFU further.
The approx. 50K strong "Army Group North", while packing a serious amount of firepower, is likely insufficient to take such a big city like Kharkov.
However, it is enough to scare the Ukrainians into urgently rotating their already scarce reserves into that direction.
This means, hopefully, that those same reserves will then not be available to keep plugging holes in the Donetsk are.
Ukraine is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position now. They can try to play it cool, and not "overreact" to the Russian army's advances in Kharkov Oblast. This, of course, runs the risk that the Kharkov situation will develop from merely a "worrying" one, into one that is potentially catastrophic.
Alternatively, they can take the situation there seriously, but by the same stroke run the risk of the situation in Donetsk becoming catastrophic.
The cure to these problems, to some extent, lay in mobilizing sufficient numbers of men to adequately man the entire front AND be able to form reserves. Unfortunately for them, they are led by a donkey clown, that sat on his ass recording daily videos instead of trying to mend the situation.
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Also, in case people are not aware, I just want to explain why the ISW is a sh*t source for understanding anything about the war in Ukraine. That reason is... that the old Anglo dudes that run the place, have let two young girls from Ukraine run the show on both Twitter and even in their actual reports.
The more senior of the two, is a girl named Natalia Bugayova.
The type of sh*t she writes... makes me wonder if one of the executives at this formerly respected institute is f*cking this girl. Otherwise, why would they flush their reputation down the drain like that?
Before I discovered this, I really could not understand why the ISW kept pumping out overly politicized nonsense in re: to the war, instead of engaging in sober analytics. Then, one day, I read an interview with her in the Ukrainska Pravda, and everything fell into place.
Source: understandingwar.org/press-media/staff-bios/nataliya-bugayova

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