Battle update:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgro...nt-june-19
Around Kharkiv there's relatively light fighting as the Russians try to preserve a strip of occupied land south of the border within artillery range of Kharkiv (Ukraine's second largest city) and the Ukrainians try to push them away. The Russians continue to shell Kharkiv with longer range artillery and missiles.
West of Izium, the Russians have withdrawn many of their troops to reinforce the Severodonetsk area and the Ukrainians are taking advantage. They have been crossing the Severskyi Donets river in small boats and infiltrating small squad-sized units through the woods between the river and Izium. They have been ambushing Russian troops there, in some cases right outside Izium. The Ukrainians hope to disrupt the supply lines feeding the Russian advance on Slovyansk.
East of Izium where most of the Russian forces in the area are, they are on the attack towards Slovyansk. The Ukrainians have been fighting back hard at a village called Dolyna, and there are unconfirmed claims that the Russians have captured it. The Russians are even closer to Slovyansk on the Lyman side, but the Ukrainians have them stopped at the river in that sector.
The battle for Severodonetsk is starting to resemble the battle for Mariupol. The Ukrainian defenders are semi cut-off since all the bridges across the Severskyi Donets have been destroyed. The Russians have taken the residential and downtown parts of the city but an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers remain holed up in some industrial plants on the west side of the city by the river. The Russians seem hesitant to send their own soldiers into this area to root the Ukrainians out, so they are using massed artillery and aircraft to blast the whole area into oblivion while their ground forces stand back. It's unknown how many Ukrainian fighters remain there and whether they can be withdrawn back across the river under fire. I'd like to think almost all of them have already been evacuated and the Russians are just scared of a bunch of empty factory buildings.
Across the river from Severodonetsk is its twin city of Lysychansk. It appears more secure at the moment, since it's unclear whether the Russians could successfully attack it from across the river. The river swings around and heads west just to the north and has become the front line-of-contact across its length all the way to Izium. The Russians seem held back (temporarily?) in the north. So they are attacking from the south of Lysychansk. But their progress there is slow. They have taken several small towns south of Lysychansk but are only advancing a few kilometers at a time. The biggest battle seems to be on the north side of the Popasna breakout, where the Russians have cut the main road east to Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. (The Ukrainians in that area seem to be in danger of encirclement on several scales.)
Along most of the southern front along the north shore of the Sea of Azov, things are (relatively) quiet. The Russians seem to have stopped advancing northwards (for the time being at least) and seem more interested in holding the territory they have seized. The Ukrainians don't have any forces to spare to retake these areas, but are launching more of the small harassment attacks, in hopes of forcing the Russians to garrison these towns and not redeploy the forces elsewhere. Interestingly, there are increasing reports of Ukrainian civilian partisan resistance in the Melitopol area, ambushing Russian occupation troops.
And to the west around the Kherson-Mikolaiv front, the Russians seem to expect a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The severely-depleted Ukrainian Air Force is still conducting offensive operations here and the Russians have never been able to establish control of the air. The Ukrainians have been launching a number of relatively small attacks, taking a village here and there, and inching closer to Kherson a kilometer at a time. But no major changes in the situation so far. The Russians expect the Ukrainians to be more active here in the future, since it might represent their best opportunity to retake territory.
Out in the Black Sea south of Odessa, the Ukrainians used missiles to sink a large ocean-going Russian navy "rescue tug", the Spasatel Vasily Bekh. The Russians were using it to resupply their garrison on tiny Snake Island and the Ukrainians hope to cut those soldiers off from resupply.
All in all, I see little sign of the "operational pause" that Igor Girkin talks about in the post above. Fighting seems to be occurring about about the same rate as it has been in the last few months and the Russians are definitely still trying to advance in several areas.
![[Image: Luhansk%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20June%2019%2C2022.png]](https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Luhansk%20Battle%20Map%20Draft%20June%2019%2C2022.png)