‘Most consequential’ days of Ukraine War just occurred and ‘collapse’ of Putin’s forces ‘doesn’t...

“It looks like the last few days have been the most consequential of the Ukraine War,” military expert Mike Martin wrote in a Twitter thread Saturday. “After what we’ve seen over the last 72 hours the collapse of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine doesn’t seem a long way away.”

The Russian move—relocating troops from the Balakliya and Izyum areas of the eastern Kharkiv region to the Donetsk region—follows a lightning counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces.

“The Russians fled Izyum in what can only be described as a rout,” wrote Martin, a former British army officer who served multiple tours in Afghanistan as a political officer. “The Ukrainians have just fought a brilliant piece of combined arms maneuver.”

Ukraine’s military prowess has taken a toll on Russian morale, according to the Institute for the Study of War, which wrote on Thursday: “Ukrainian successes on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line are creating fissures within the Russian information space and eroding confidence in Russian command to a degree not seen since a failed Russian river crossing in mid-May.”

Igor Konashenkov, a spokesperson for the Russian defense ministry, said Saturday the move was made “to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas,” according to the Associated Press. A similar claim, however, followed Russia’s failure to capture the capital Kyiv earlier this year.