Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is running out of steam, again

ago the second Battle of Kharkov was raging in what was then the western Soviet Union. The Red Army had heroically driven the Nazi back from the gates of Moscow. It gathered in a bulge west of Izyum, a town to the south of Kharkov, as Ukraine’s second city was then known. The subsequent Soviet offensive, launched on May 12th 1942, was a disaster. Soviet armies were driven back and encircled. Over 170,000 Soviet troops were killed. Nikita Khrushchev later focused on the battle when denouncing his tyrannical predecessor as Soviet leader. “This is Stalin’s military ‘genius’,” he sneered, citing the crude tactics of frontal assault. “This is what it cost us.”The Russian army is once again gathered around Izyum. And once more it is in retreat from Kharkiv, as the city is now called, after another underwhelming campaign failed to take it. Ukrainian counter-attacks to the north and east of the city have forced the Russians back tens of kilometres, out of artillery range of the city and, in places, back to the border. It has been over a month since Russia, having abandoned its assault on Kyiv, launched a in the east. The idea was to encircle Ukrainian troops in a large salient stretching from Izyum in the north to the city of Donetsk in the south, in part by driving south from Izyum.