Ukraine offensive: Russian soldiers flee back across the border - Russia is probably also evacuating part of Crimea

Created: 09/14/2022, 04:47

By: Richard Strobl, Andreas Schmid, Franziska Schwarz, Fabian Müller

Ukraine is continuing its counter-offensive.

Russian soldiers are apparently fleeing.

News ticker on combat events in the Ukraine war.

• Intelligence

  to

  Putin's military

  : Will take years to return to 'combat strength'

• Analysis

  by

  US military experts

  : Ukraine's successes make Putin's military hesitant

• Ukraine

  probably reaches

  Luhansk

  region : reports of mass looting by fleeing Russians.

• This

  news ticker

  on

  military events

  in the

  Ukraine war

  is constantly updated.

Update from September 13, 9:21 p.m.:

According to the Pentagon, Russian troops are fleeing from the Kharkiv region back to Russia.

This is reported by the US TV broadcaster

.

Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Tuesday: "We have seen that some Russian forces, particularly in the northeast, in the Kharkiv region, have crossed the border back into Russia as they retreated from the Ukrainian counteroffensive. "

However, the Pentagon spokesman put it into perspective shortly afterwards: Russian armed forces are still "present in large numbers in Ukraine".

The United States, meanwhile, was not surprised that Ukrainian forces "advanced so quickly" in the counteroffensive.

The Russians, on the other hand, were obviously surprised, Ryder continued.

Update from September 13, 5:55 p.m .:

In its counter-offensive, Ukraine recaptured at least 300 towns with almost 150,000 inhabitants on 3800 square kilometers in the eastern region of Kharkiv in one week.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar said Tuesday in Balaklija, one of the recaptured cities.

These are only the confirmed numbers, she said, according to a message on Telegram.

The liberated territory in the Kharkiv region is probably almost twice as large.

There will be more data on Wednesday.

Ukraine has been repelling the Russian war of aggression since the end of February.

According to official figures, Kyiv has already recaptured more than 6,000 square kilometers in southern and eastern Ukraine since the beginning of September.

Russia had meanwhile controlled more than 20 percent of the neighboring country.

The information from the war zone cannot be fully independently verified.

Ukraine offensive: "Urgent evacuation" in Crimea?

Russia is probably bringing leaders to safety

Update from September 13, 3:50 p.m .:

In response to the Ukrainian territorial gains, the first Russian occupiers are now said to be withdrawing from Crimea.

This is reported by the Ukrainian portal

with reference to Ukrainian intelligence reports.

Accordingly, an “urgent evacuation” of Russian deputies, intelligence officers and military commanders and their families is currently underway.

According to the report, the evacuation is said to be a direct response to the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

The information cannot currently be independently verified.

Ukraine-News: Russian troops are apparently leaving the city of Luhansk

Update from September 13, 2:50 p.m .:

The effects of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in northeastern Ukraine are apparently already reaching into the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.

The Ukrainian military governor in Luhansk announced on Tuesday the withdrawal of Russian troops from the city of Kreminna.

“Today Kreminna is completely empty,” wrote Serhij Hajdaj via Telegram.

Ukrainian partisans have even raised the Ukrainian flag over the city.

However, the Ukrainian military has not yet taken it.

The reports cannot be independently verified.

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Ukrainian military vehicles move on the road in the liberated area in Kharkiv region, Ukraine.

© Kostiantyn Liberov/dpa

Kreminna is only about 20 kilometers from the city of Sievjerodonetsk, over which Russian and Ukrainian troops had been fighting for months in June.

With Ukraine's withdrawal from Sievjerodonetsk and the neighboring city of Lysychansk, the last resistance in the Luhansk region fell.

Should Ukrainian troops succeed in taking Kremmina, it would be another significant territorial gain in the current offensive.

Ukrainian counter-offensive: renewed power outages in Kharkiv

Update from September 13, 11:12 a.m

.: Politicians fear power outages in this country due to a lack of capacity, Ukraine is already experiencing them, but due to shelling.

The power went out again in the metropolis of Kharkiv and its environs, causing, among other things, the subway to be shut down there.

The authorities justified the blackout with the shelling of the city the day before.

This damaged a reserve line that supplied several towns.

The information could not be checked independently.

Update from September 13, 10:24 a.m

.: The General Staff from Kiev claims that the losses in Ukraine are causing the morale of the Russian soldiers to drop while the fear of death is growing.

Now Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin allegedly no longer wants to send any more troops to the war zone.

More details on the reported situation in Russia's military here.

Intelligence to Putin's military: Will take years to return to 'combat strength'

Update from September 13, 9:53 a.m

.: Leading units of the Russian military have been enormously weakened by their attack on Ukraine.

According to the latest update from the Ministry of Defense in London, the British secret service estimates that there were heavy losses in the early stages of the war in particular, from which the troops would not have recovered.

In the event of a war against NATO, it is envisaged that the prestigious First Guards Tank Army will assume a leading role.

However, parts of it have now withdrawn from Kharkiv.

However, the losses have significantly weakened Russia's conventional combat strength against NATO.

The British said it would take years to rebuild them.

Analysis by US military experts: Ukraine's successes make Putin's military hesitant

Update from September 13, 7:23 a.m

.: The Russian military could initially refrain from sending new troops to Ukraine – because of its current losses there.

This is the verdict of the "Institute for the Study of the War (ISW)" in its most recent situation analysis.

In addition, the fighting spirit of the Russian soldiers is sinking, the military experts write.

After the Ukrainian military successes in Kharkiv, the Russian armed forces are unable to strengthen their front lines, it was said.

The ISW is a think tank based in Washington.

Zelenskyy on Ukraine's counteroffensive: Have recaptured 6000 square kilometers since September

Update from September 13, 6:49 a.m

.: The Ukrainian counter-offensive is apparently taking on more forms.

According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian troops have now recaptured 6,000 square kilometers of territory.

They are said to have crossed the Siwerskyi Donets River and taken control of the Russian-occupied city of Svyatohirsk in the Donetsk region.

This is reported by the US broadcaster CNN.

Update from September 12, 9:45 p.m .:

According to their own statements, the Ukrainian authorities have discovered four bodies with “traces of torture” in a recaptured town in eastern Ukraine.

Initial investigations indicated that the people found in Zaliznychne in the Kharkiv region were killed "by Russian soldiers during the occupation of the place," the regional prosecutor's office wrote on Monday on the online network Facebook.

Three of the bodies were found on private property, one on a factory site near the train station.

According to the public prosecutor's office, after the Ukrainian recapture of several towns, the authorities received information that several citizens had been killed by Russian soldiers.

The bodies would now be examined by coroners, the law enforcement agency said.

It is being investigated for murder and "violations of martial law".

Ukraine offensive in "third phase": Defense Minister gives insight into the planning

Update from September 12, 9:46 p.m .:

Ukraine’s counter-offensive is currently looking like a resounding success.

Now the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov has declared that the offensive is currently in the “third phase”.

According to reports from

and

, Resnikov told the French newspaper

that in the first phase attempts had been made to prevent Russia from further attacks.

In the second phase, attempts were made to stabilize the front line.

According to this, the army leadership also designed the plan after the arms deliveries from the West.

After the delivery of the Himar missile launcher systems by the United States, the supply lines to the Russians began to be cut off.

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Update from September 12, 6:54 p.m .:

Ukraine’s counter-offensive apparently continues.

CNN reports that Kiev's troops have crossed the Seversky Donets River and captured the city of Svyatohirsk.

A Ukrainian flag flies at the city's administration building.

According to the report, this will make it much more difficult for Russian troops to withdraw from the region.

Especially if Ukraine's soldiers advance even further east.

Russia is recruiting new soldiers - "from the poorest" regions

Update from September 12, 6:42 p.m.:

Russia has apparently recruited new soldiers for the Ukraine war.

The

, citing Ukraine's secret service, reports that volunteers from the far east have been recruited for the army.

Accordingly, these are people “from the poorest and coldest regions of Russia”.

Ukraine probably reaches Luhansk region: reports of mass looting by fleeing Russians

Update from September 12, 4:30 p.m

.: Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive continuing?

According to their own statements, Kiev's troops are pushing back the Russian occupiers in some areas in the east and south.

So also in the Donbass region of Luhansk?

Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai posted a photo of a Ukrainian flag on Facebook.

According to the

, it is said to be hanging over a transition tower in Kuzemivka, a village in Luhansk Oblast near the border with Kharkiv Oblast.

According to its own statements on Sunday evening, Ukraine has so far recaptured around 3,000 square kilometers of land.

To put this into perspective: That corresponds to around three times the area of ​​Berlin.

However, Russian troops still control a large number of areas.

The intelligence service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is now reporting on mass looting by Russian soldiers as they “escape” from Kharkiv Oblast.

Russian soldiers would steal generators and residents' personal belongings.

For example, phones and computers were stolen.

According to the secret service, there were also cases of looting in educational institutions. 

Ukraine war: Total power failure in Kharkiv

Update from September 12, 2:40 p.m

.: Another total power failure in Ukraine.

This time the metropolis Kharkiv is affected.

"Due to the shelling, objects of critical infrastructure are out of order, as a result, electricity and water supply failed," the city's mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.

Work is in progress to fix the problems.

The evening before, there had already been a brief, widespread power outage in the Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Military experts on Ukraine counter-offensive: Putin makes “fatal mistake”

First report from September 12

: Kiev/Washington - The think tank "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) in Washington has been publishing regular analyzes of combat events since the Russian invasion of Ukraine - the most recent does not sound good for Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

The reason for this assessment is Ukraine's successes in its counter-offensive.

"Putin risks a common but deadly mistake by waiting too long to send reinforcements to the Luhansk front,"

quoted the paper as

The ISW military experts even see a "time and space dilemma" for Putin, because the Russian army should actually withdraw troops from other battlefields in order to set up a new line of defense in the areas occupied by them - but the ISW sees no signs of this .

The course of the front in the Ukraine war: Experts see a shift

The day before, the ISW reported that President Volodymyr Zelensky's Ukrainian soldiers had regained more territory within five days than the Russian troops had occupied in total since April.

"The liberation of Izyum will be Ukraine's greatest military success since the victory in the Battle of Kyiv in March," it said in its analysis of the situation.

As a result, Russia's planned advance on the Donbass from the north failed, the experts said.