In a war defined for months by vicious battles between the two armies along 1,500 miles of mostly static front lines, Ukraine's astonishing speed of advance in the country's northeast changed the conflict in a matter of days.. This is how the loss of Izyum by the Russians is assessed by The New York Times.

Russian troops surrounded Izyum at the end of February, besieged it for three weeks and only then captured it. Russia has used Izyum as a base of operations, command center and convenient transport hub to seize eastern Donbas, a top Kremlin target in the spring after the failed attack on Kyiv.

During this time, Ukraine experienced an artillery famine in the spring, and then its military-political leadership announced a counteroffensive in the south for a long time, writes the NYT, in fact, giving the Russians a lift more forces. It was thanks to this that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were able to successfully strike in the Kharkiv region.

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\? Ukrainian troops moved farther and farther than Russian lines, surrounding Izyum and recapturing cities and villages on their way. Russian troops retreated en masse, and pro-Kremlin bloggers reacted to the sudden collapse of the defense with shock and horror. On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it is strengthening the Kharkiv region; on Saturday, he confirmed that he had withdrawn forces to regroup, ”says the NYT article..

However, the equipment abandoned by the Russians indicates that in fact they did not plan any departure, and this is a real escape..

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And already in the second text on this topic, The New York Times assessed in more detail the scale of the catastrophe that suffered Russia in recent days.. The loss of Izyum will be a turning point in the war for Moscow, comparable only to the humiliating defeat of Russia near Kyiv in the spring, at the beginning of the invasion. The course of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the east, combined with slower and more limited advances in the south, is one of the most significant front-line changes in recent months..