On the Ukrainian social sphere after the advance of the army and militias in the area north of Kharkiv, videos began to appear of abandoned Russian military vehicles, filmed by a girl on a scooter. These are of a shed in Crimea where the vehicles are being repaired. This disinformation skilfully carried out by Ukrainians and Russians makes it very difficult to establish reliable and unreliable facts.
What is known for sure is that in the evening of yesterday: Russian and Ukrainian social sphere source, the Russians evacuated civilians and military from the area north of Kharkiv. The Ukrainians reported the capture of Chkalovskoye and Bolshaya Kamyshevakha. The Russians reported that Chkalovskoye (west of Shevchenkovo) had been abandoned a few days ago. From Bolshaya Kamyshevakha west of Izyum the Russians confirmed the retreat. In the morning of 12 September, foreign mercenaries were spotted in Izyum.
On the night of 11-12 September, the Russian Air Force destroyed HIMARS MLRS in the direction of Kharkiv. They appeared on video AFUs heading towards Kharkiv.
On the morning of 12 September, it was reported that Russian units had almost completed their withdrawal from the territory of the Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian army entered Liptsy, Kozacha Lopan’, Velykyi Burluk and Hoptivka. Other settlements in the region west of the Oskol River have already been abandoned by Russian units. Near the state border, in the Belgorod region, units of the Russian Allied Forces are entrenching and building engineering structures. Ready for defence.
At the moment, the front has stabilised along the left bank of the Oskol, the Ukrainians’ plan to rush on Oskol from the south in a single daylight appears to have failed. There are battles for Liman, the Russians continue to hold Studenok. In the direction of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian armed forces will probably switch from active offensive operations to control of captured territory. They will filter, shoot and imprison those suspected of collaborating with Russia. At 11.07 a.m. on 12 September: we learn that the Ukrainians are exerting pressure in the direction of Liman. The Kiev regime, with infantry under tank cover, is trying to find a weakness in the Russian defence. But at the moment they have not been able to break through. The LNR artillery is returning fire. Krasny Liman is still controlled by Russian troops. The AFU broke through the Siverskyi Donets river near Zakitne and transported various equipment to attack Krasnyi Lyman from the eastern direction. According to military analysts, in the near future, the AFU will continue to attempt to conquer Krasnyi Lyman in order to create a staging point on the left bank of the Oskol River and develop an offensive towards Kreminna.
Now, the Ukrainians themselves will have to consolidate in Izyum and Balakleya to hold a large portion of territory, which means patrolling the roads, preparing storage sites for weapons, fuel and lubricants, setting up checkpoints and bringing in equipment. And they will have to work in neutral territory. The area, according to pro-Russian social sources, conquered by the Ukrainians has not yet become Russian, but has already ceased to be Ukrainian. In fact, the Ukrainians have taken the place of the Russians. If the war becomes positional, it will be very difficult to come up with a winner in the short term, and winter is just around the corner. As foreseen by military analysts, the Russians have started in a tight manner to destroy the power infrastructure in order to weaken Ukraine from the inside: the Russian Armed Forces have hit Ukrainian power facilities with cruise missiles. Some of them hit Kharkivsʹka Tets-5, one of the largest thermal power plants in the country. A vast fire broke out at the site: the city of Kharkiv, the Kharkiv region and neighbouring regions were deprived of electricity.
On the morning of 12 September, the Russian social sphere posted online a video of FSB arrests that reportedly prevented terrorist attacks against members of the Crimean and Kherson Oblast governments, which had been prepared by the SBU. The post reads: ‘The FSB prevented a series of terrorist attacks against authorities in the Kherson region. The terrorists were also planning attacks on members of the Crimean government. As specified by the agency, the SBU acted as the organiser – an officer was identified who organised the work of the recruited nationalists. Now the perpetrators and their accomplices have been arrested and the means of committing the crimes have been seized: it was discovered that they were local residents who were preparing a terrorist act on the territory of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Federal Security Service stated that communication channels and financing methods were also identified during the operation. In turn, the Investigative Committee opened criminal proceedings’. There is no way to verify the news. During the night, however, posts had appeared in the Ukrainian social sphere indicating that the Ukrainians were preparing to take over Crimea and Donbass.
Online, the partial list of Ukrainian forces involved in the Izyum-Balakleya direction appeared. The list was compiled from obituaries posted online by Ukrainians:
▪️ 92nd AFU mechanised brigade (Kharkiv region).
112th Territorial Defence Brigade (Kiev)
14th Mechanised Brigade (Volyn region)
The 95th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade (Zhytomyr region)
▪️ special units of the 93rd Independent Mechanised Brigade (Dnipropetrovsk region)
▪️ units of the 1st Separate Special Purpose Brigade
▪️ Nationalists of the Kraken Army Formation (Kharkiv region)
▪️ special units of the Kharkiv National Guard and National Police
Graziella Giangiulio
