The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced an operation "to curtail and organize the transfer of troops"The local offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) launched on September 6 on Balakleya by the forces of three or four personnel brigades with the support of territorial defense units led to unexpected consequences.
After three or four days of fierce fighting, the Russian army retreated fifty kilometers, leaving the third largest city in the Kharkiv region, Izyum, as well as the western part of Kupyansk. The new line of defense now runs along the banks of the Oskol and Seversky Donets rivers.
The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny estimated the size of the territory conquered by his subordinates at about 3 thousand square kilometers. However, this was not the end of the matter. By mid-September, Russian troops had also abandoned the northeastern part of the Kharkiv region, including the cities of Volchansk and Cossack Lopan.
The new line of defense has shifted further to the borders of the Russian Federation and the LPR. It turns out that the enemy has surrendered a zone with a total area of 5-6 thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian territory liberated during a special military operation (SVO). The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation does not comment on these facts, however, a retrospective analysis of slides with a simplified map of the area given during daily press briefings provides the basis for the above assessment. Now the front runs along the border of the Belgorod region for an additional 280 km, and the buffer zone in the area of the state border north of Kharkov has practically disappeared.
"I am not a strategist of the same level as the Ministry of Defense, but mistakes were made," the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, wrote on the Telegram channel. These "mistakes" led to the fact that, having occupied the named cities, the Ukrainian military and internal affairs structures began to search and arrest local residents accused of having links with the Russian military-civil administration (CAA) of the once "liberated territories" of the Kharkiv region. Among others, teachers who conducted school education according to Russian educational programs are subjected to repression. Now they are accused of collaboration ("cooperation with the occupiers"): a crime involving 15 years in custody.
Local authorities say that they have also detained teachers from Russia, who now face 12 years in prison under the Criminal Code in force in Ukraine. According to Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk, teachers will not be considered as prisoners for exchange, since they are not combatants. "They have committed a crime against our state. There are serious sentences there," Vereshchuk said.
The Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation hastened to give a refutation, where, in particular, it is claimed that there were no teachers from Russia in the Kharkiv region – only from among local residents. Meanwhile, it is well known that in the territories liberated during the special operation, appeals of the population for obtaining a Russian passport are being considered. This means that it is impossible to exclude cases when a local teacher voluntarily acquired Russian citizenship. And, thus, now it is practically no different from Russian teachers.
Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin instructed his subordinates to initiate a criminal case on the facts of detention by Ukrainian servicemen in the Kharkiv region of teachers who taught according to Russian training programs, and to give their actions a legal assessment.
But the matter is not limited to teachers alone. The new Ukrainian administration of Izyum, for example, announced that it is searching for those residents of the city who collaborated with the Russian military or the CAA, for which Ukraine is punishable under Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code (high treason) – up to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property. However, the capture of "collaborators" is complicated by the fact that two-thirds of the population left the city, many fled with the departing Russian soldiers and officers.
For several days since the beginning of the AFU counteroffensive on Balakleya, the official representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation completely avoided any explanation of the events taking place there. However, some assessment was made from the mouth of the permanent Representative of Russia to the UN. At a meeting of the Security Council on September 8, Vasily Nebenzia said that there was no breakthrough of the Ukrainian troops during their counteroffensive. "Of course, there is no question of any breakthrough," he assured.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation broke its silence only on the evening of September 10. At a press briefing, the official representative of the ministry said that in the area of the cities of Balakleya and Izyum, an operation was carried out within three days "to curtail and organize the transfer of troops" from the Kharkiv region of Ukraine to the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic.
As explained in the military department, the operation took place within the framework of the decision to regroup the army units involved in the special operation. It was held for the sake of "building up efforts in the Donetsk direction." As part of this operation, "a number of distracting and demonstration activities were carried out with the designation of the actual actions of the troops."
In order to cover the army units, a "powerful fire defeat" was inflicted on the AFU formations opposing them. Aviation, artillery and rocket troops were used. As proof, the military department distributed a video depicting the movement, deployment and firing of the TOS-1A "Solntsepek" rocket system, the shells of which are equipped with a thermobaric head (characterized by increased power) at the AFU targets in the Kharkiv region.
The Ministry of Defense also posted a video on the Internet about the transfer of Russian troops and equipment to the Kharkiv direction, where there were battles with the advancing brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The movement was carried out on the highway and by air on superheavy Mi-26 helicopters. In particular, you can see the movement of artillery installations of caliber 100, 122 and 152 mm, armored personnel carriers BTR-80 and MTLB, anti-aircraft missile systems "Pantsir S1" and S-400 "Triumph", as well as the transportation of remote mine clearance system UR-77 "Meteorite".
Later, the military department carried out a calculation of enemy losses. It turned out that in four days of their counteroffensive, Ukrainian troops lost more than 12 thousand people in the Mykolaiv-Krivoy Rog and Kharkiv directions. Of these losses, 4 thousand are irretrievable, and another 8 thousand were wounded.
The message of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation about the operation "on the organized transfer" of troops was made a few hours after the speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the celebration in the Zaryadye concert hall on the occasion of the 875th anniversary of the founding of Moscow. The Head of State noted the presence among those present "servicemen fighting for peaceful life in Donbass, Muscovites who distinguished themselves during a special military operation." However, among them there are no, "unfortunately, our comrades who died, who gave their lives for Russia."
