Since September 4, when the Ukrainian operation north of Izium started, the Russia Defense Ministry had said nothing about the issue.
Today it finally published a statement (machine translation):
Statement by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense
In order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbass, a decision was made to regroup the Russian troops stationed in the Balakleya and Izyum regions to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction.
To this end, within three days, an operation was carried out to curtail and organize the transfer of the Izyum-Balakley group of troops to the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic.
During this operation, a number of distraction and demonstration activities were carried out with the designation of the real actions of the troops.
In order to prevent damage to Russian troops, a powerful fire defeat was inflicted on the enemy using aviation, missile troops and artillery.
Over three days, more than two thousand Ukrainian and foreign fighters were destroyed, as well as over a hundred units of armored vehicles and artillery.
(Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation)
Has that been the plan all along?
In retrospect that seems likely. The Russian military must have know that the Ukrainian attack was coming. There was only light resistance against the Ukrainian attack. Major Russian units had already been moved out of the area. The region did not have any public priority in Russian planing. A larger fight would have cost many Russian soldier and civilian lives.
So there were no cunning plans to surround the Ukrainian forces and no real disaster or success on either side.
Well, that is at least what the Russian military says. It also fits to the known facts.
There may be another reason why the Russian military did not want to fight for Izium. In May 1942, during the Second Battle of Kharkov, a Soviet counterattack on Nazi held Kharkov was defeated by two preplanned Nazi attacks south and north of Izium.
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The names on the map will look familiar to those who have followed the current battle over the past days.
The Soviet counterattack ended in a bloody defeat:
On 17 May, the German 3rd Panzer Corps and XXXXIV Army Corps under the command of Fedor von Bock, supported by aircraft, arrived, enabling the Germans to launch Operation Fridericus, pushing back the Soviet Barvenkovo bridgehead to the south. On 18 May, [Marshal Semyon] Timoshenko requested permission to fall back, but Stalin rejected the request. On 19 May, Paulus launched a general offensive to the north as Bock's troops advanced in the south, thus attempting to surround the Soviets in the Izium salient. Realizing the risk of having entire armies surrounded, Stalin authorized the withdraw, but by that time the Soviet forces were already started to be closed in. On 20 May, the nearly surrounded Soviet forces mounted counteroffensives, but none of the attempts were successful in breaking through the German lines. The Soviets achieved some small victories on 21 and 22 May, but by 24 May, they were surrounded near Kharkov.
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The Second Battle of Kharkov resulted in an extremely costly loss to the Soviets, which saw 207,000 men killed, wounded, or captured; some estimates put the number as high as 240,000. Over 1,000 Soviet tanks were destroyed during this battle, as well as the loss of 57,000 horses. German losses were much smaller than the Soviets, with over 20,000 killed, wounded, or captured. Soviet General Georgy Zhukov later blamed this major defeat on Stalin, who underestimated German strength in the region and failed to prepare an adequate reserve force to counter the arrival of the German reinforcement that turned the tide.
So it's on towards Donbas.