If you can remember all the way back to pre-Flu Manchu 2020, housing prices were soaring and there were a raft of articles decrying how commercial investors were snapping up housing as fast as they possibly could, pricing ordinary Americans out of the market.
Now, some two years later, it’s evident that a lot of those commercial investors kept buying right up through the peak of the market, and are now proceeding to lose their shirts on those deals thanks to the Biden Recession.
Take, for example, OpenDoor, the company that sends out those endless “We want to buy your home” letters. They promised investors they were going to use the Internet to revolutionize home-buying by flipping homes at scale and cut out the middle man. How well did they succeed?
Now that they’ve had a while to run their system, the answer is: Not so well.
Takeaways:
One thing I was unaware of: Commercial investors in residential real estate fund their purchases through variable interest rate debt.
OpenDoor’s outstanding debt balance “has ballooned from $271 million to $6.1 billion.”
Every point rise in interest rates costs OpenDoor $40 million more in interest rate payments.
“OpenDoor is truly a modern day house of cards. The company’s revenue grew from $1.8 billion in 2018 to over $8 billion in 2021. To grow they scaled, going from 18 markets to 44 markets in the U.S. In those four years, the company went from flipping 7,000 homes a year back in 2018 to now flipping 21, 000 homes most recently in 2021.”
“Despite OpenDoor’s top-line growth, the company has incurred loss after loss after loss, each bigger than the last, even in a strong rebound year in 2021. Where the company sold a record number of homes, OpenDoor incurred a record loss of over $600 million.”
Some math snipped. “OpenDoor would need to sell roughly sixty thousand homes a year just to break even with how much it costs the company to exist in its current burn rate. Every time the interest rate goes up a single point, OpenDoor needs to sell an additional 2,000 homes in order to offset that additional $40 million.”
The end of the video touches on how Zillow lost $881 million by trusting an algorithm that had them paying above-marker prices. We covered that briefly here some nine months ago. Here’s a video with more details:
But it’s not just OpenDoor and Zillow. Here’s a video that explains why all the large-scale commercial buyers of residential real estate (including those buying to rent it out rather than flip) are screwed by rising interest rates:
Takeaways:
The Fed “is now committing to not only continue increasing interest rates, they’re committing to keeping interest rates elevated for the foreseeable future.”
“These real estate investors are going to be losing money in the housing market on their investments, and that they are going to have to fire sale their portfolio as a result.”
“Over the last year, the investor profit or the cap rate in America is about 4.5%, which was pretty good in 2021, when interest rates were zero, but now that interest rates are projected to go to 3.8%, we can see that investors who buy real estate in America are basically getting very little premium over buying a short-term government bond.”
“As this investor demand continues to go down, home prices are also going to continue to go down in America, because in many markets investors were quarter of the demand, a third of the demand for homes over the last of couple years, and in some neighborhoods investors were 50—60% of the demand.”
“A lot of people think [commercial buyers pay] cash, but folks, it’s never cash, it’s always a bank in the background giving these hedge funds and private equity funds money to buy single-family homes.”
“They’ll give these hedge funds maybe 70—75% percent of the money to go do it, like a normal loan. The thing is, the loans that these Wall Street investors use to buy homes are often adjustable rate loans, where every time the fed hikes interest rates, the Wall Street investor has to pay more in debt service and interest on their existing portfolio.”
“We’re gonna get to a point soon over the next six months where these Wall Street investors are having to pay more to their bank and their warehouse lender than they’re going to receive in income and rent from their tenant. Like, literally, these Wall Street investors not only are going to see the value of their property going to go down, they’re going to begin losing money in terms of cash flow.”
So not only will investors have to sell, but frequently they won’t have any choice.
Because their lender, their bank, is going to do something called a margin call. At a certain point, they’re gonna say “Hey Wall Street buyer who I’m giving money to, the value of the homes has gone down and now you can barely afford to pay interest. You’re gonna have to now just pay us off, or pay us down,” and when the bank does that margin call, these investors are then going to be forced to sell off their portfolio, because they’re going to need the cash, causing a massive, widespread dump of inventory onto the U.S. housing market.
He doesn’t mention Austin by name in this video, but he does in another pegging it as the #5 market most likely to see price drops. “This is a market in absolute freefall.” “In the span of just five months, the number of homes for sale in Austin has increased from 1460 and February to nearly 8 000 in July.” He thinks home prices could down by 40%. Naturally, as an Austin-area home-owner, I think that’s way too much, but I do expect significant retreats from the highs reached early this year.
He also thinks inflation is going to get worse (which is probably a good bet).
(In another video covering some of the same ground, he mentions BlackRock, one of the biggest boogeymen in public perceptions of buying residential real estate. Guess what? “BlackRock is not a big player in terms of owning, managing and buying real estate in the U.S.”)
Like the fear of Japan buying everything in the late 1980s, fear that institutional investors will make owning a home impossible for ordinary Americans turned out to suffer from the same recency bias, assuming that what is going on right this minute will continue for the foreseeable future.
Like assuming that the giant ants are unstoppable, or that Hispanics will always vote for Democrats, assuming that housing prices will always go up and that credit will always be cheap are categorical mistakes that the market will eventually punish you for making, and the companies that made it are now bleeding red ink.
People who sold during the bubble made out like bandits, and people who bought during it got screwed, but what can’t go up forever won’t. Bubbles pop. Absent government distortions of the market*, supply and demand have a way of adjusting.
Anyway, if you need to buy a house, nine months from now is probably going to be a great buyer’s market…
*And yes, lots of cities and states try their damnedest to prevent new housing from being built. I’m looking at you, California.
There are indications that Ukraine, in addition to the Kherson counteroffensive, is conducting a counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast, and has apparently captured Volokhiv Yar, Balakliya and Yakovenkove, towns between Kharkiv and Russian-occupied Izyum.
It’s unclear whether this is a feint, a spoiling attack or a full-blown counteroffensive, but the scale of the initial success suggests it’s too large to be a mere probing attack.
Ukrainian forces conducted a counterattack in Kharkiv Oblast near Balakliya that likely drove Russian forces back to the left bank (north side) of the Severskyi Donets and Serednya Balakliika rivers on September 6. Ukrainian forces likely captured Verbivka (less than 3 km northwest of Balakliya) on September 6. Geolocated footage posted on September 6 shows Ukrainian infantry in eastern Verbivka (less than 3 km from Balakliya). Multiple Russian sources acknowledged Ukrainian gains in Verbivka and reported that Russian forces demolished unspecified bridges in Balakliya‘s eastern environs to prevent further Ukrainian advances. Images posted on September 6 also show a destroyed Russian bridge over the Serednya Balakliika River—a geographic feature behind which the Russian front line in this sector likely lies. Social media users reported that Russian forces withdrew from checkpoints six kilometers west of Balaklia on September 6.
Russian forces likely no longer maintain their previous positions in Bairak and Nova Husarivka (just south of Balakliya on the right bank of the Seversky Donets River). Russian forces likely abandoned Bayrak and Nova Husarivka in late August. Images posted on August 30 show that Russian forces blew the bridge over the Seversky Donetsk River near Bayrak on an unspecified date. Bridge demolition activity indicates a planned Russian withdrawal. Ukraine’s General Staff reported on September 6 that Russian forces conducted air strikes against Bayrak, indicating that Ukrainian forces may have advanced in the area.
Russia’s deployment of forces from Kharkiv and eastern Ukraine to Ukraine’s south is likely enabling Ukrainian counterattacks of opportunity. The September 6 Ukrainian counterattack in Kharkiv was likely an opportunistic effort enabled by the redeployment of Russian forces away from the area to reinforce Russian positions against the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast. Obituary data on Russian servicemen indicates that Russia deployed elements of the 147th Artillery Regiment of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division of the 1st Guards Tank Army to Kherson Oblast no earlier than late August. This is the first time ISW has observed elements of Russia’s elite 1st Guards Tank Army operating in southern Ukraine. Elements of the 147th previously fought in Bucha in Kyiv in March and elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army were active primarily along the Kharkiv Axis after the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv.
Reporting from Ukraine (a pro-Ukrainian source) breaks down the counteroffensive.
Suchomimus analyzes the news as of yesterday. There are “reports that Russia is blowing up bridges, a sign that they are in a bit of a panic and expect Ukraine to advance.”
And here he shows a video of Ukrainian forces entering Yakovenkove further east, from which he surmises that they must have already taken Balakliya.
Bonus: Ukrainian aircraft shoots down a Russian Su-25:
Map snapshot, which is already slightly out of date:
Izyum is the linchpin of Russia’s north-central front. Losing it would not only spell an end to any further Russian advances in Kharkiv for the immediate future, but also put Russia’s hard-won conquest of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in jeopardy.
With Russia reportedly buying artillery from North Korea (Caveat: This comes from Biden’s Pentagon, so grains of salt are in order) and two separate counteroffensives chewing up units, it’s possibly that Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine have already peaked.
Edited to add: Reporting from Ukraine has a video up detailing how different thrusts of the counteroffensive developed:
Back when I’d visit my parents a decade or so ago, one of my father’s guilty pleasures was watching Storage Wars.
If you’re unfamiliar with this cable staple, it features competing teams of people bidding on abandoned storage units, then going through the ones they won trying to figure out what things were worth. Storage Wars was infamous for every episode having one or more “surprise items” that the buyer just happened to know an expert who could identify the item and its value. It was a little cheesy, and like all realty TV, was fake and scripted, but was a higher, more nourishing brand of cable junk food, than, say Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch (which is evidently still on).
Anyway, people still bid on abandoned storage units, and a guy who has a YouTube channel bid a princely $5,786 for a unit because he saw some gun cases in there.
Did it pay off?
Boy did it!
There were a few cheap handguns, but also a lot of expensive hunting rifles, including:
A Marlin 1895CB chambered in 45/70 Government.
Two Remington Model 700s chambered in .270.
A Winchester Model 1894 chambered in 450 Marlin.
Etc.
But also thousands of rounds of ammo, a whole lot in loaded magazines.
This video is almost 100% pure gun pr0n:
Let this be a reminder: If you have a large firearms collection, you want to make sure you have an itemized and notarized will, so your designated heirs end up getting fair value for your collection.
Defense analyst Anders Puck Nielsen says there’s a tendency for many to believe that, although Ukraine has put up a good fight, a Russian victory in the Russo-Ukrainian War is inevitable. (I assume he’s seeing these on the various MSM channels I stopped watching a long time ago, as the only place I see such assumptions these days is among comment trolls and the occasional ZeroHedge headline.)
Some takeaways:
“When Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine back in February, many people assumed that it was going to be an easy win. It was not only Vladimir Putin who believed that they could finish this war within days or weeks. Many people thought so. And even after it became clear that there would not be a quick victory, many people still carried over this assumption that Russia is going to win eventually because that is the only possible outcome.” (I too thought a Russian victory was the most likely (though not certain) outcome in the first few days, before it become apparent just how badly bungled the invasion planning was, how fragile Russian supply lines were, how poor the communication was between different branches of the Russian military, and how neglected even basic maintenance was for Russian equipment.)
“They think of Russia as a giant. And then they think about Ukraine as a small country. But that is not really a good comparison.”
Unmentioned by Nielsen is that one reason they thought so is just how much old Soviet military equipment Russia still had lying around. That assumption was somewhat overstated, and, again, a whole lot of that equipment was poorly maintained.
Russia’s massive display of incompetence didn’t change the minds of many who still saw Russian victory as inevitable. “The assumption was that this just means it’s going to take longer, and then Russia is going to figure it out, and they are going to win.”
“We still have analysts who say that Ukraine could never push Russia back from the occupied territories, and that there has to be a negotiated solution where Ukraine gives something to Putin to end the war. And then these analyst also often seem to take it at face value when Putin or Lavrov or somebody else comes with threats about escalation.” (True, but I don’t think anyone pays serious attention to such people any more, if they ever did.)
Nielsen says there are a number of reasons why Russia can’t just carry out a mass mobilization, or start tossing nukes around.
Putin launched the war due an entire chain of bad assumptions, including those about the inevitability of Russian greatness.
“Ukraine is winning the war of attrition, and they will start pushing Russia backwards.”
“That’s why I think this idea that a Russian victory is inevitable is so dangerous. On the Western side, it leads to the belief that it is dangerous to provide Ukraine with heavy weapons. And this can mean that Ukraine won’t be able to finish the war as quickly as they otherwise could. And on the Russian side it means that they won’t be motivated for peace talks, even if the situation on the battlefield is awful.” (Not sure I agree here; The U.S., UK, Germany, and Poland have all transferred significant heavy weapons to Ukraine.)
“It will be extremely hard for the Russian leaders to embrace the idea that a defeat is possible. Like, not even that it is going to happen, but just that it could be a possibility. Because that would require them to question everything they believe to be true about Russia and being a great power. So they will be able to live in denial for a very long time.”
“If we want the war to end, we need Putin to understand that a defeat is a real possibility. And the best way to do that is to equip Ukraine with the weapons they need to win.”
When the Russo-Ukrainian war kicked off back in February, I relied on https://liveuamap.com/ to track military action in the war, just as I had used their similar map when tracking the war against the Islamic State. However, after the initial phase of the war, LiveUAMap seemed to update less and less frequently, and it’s been practically useless for tracking progress in the Kherson counteroffensive.
Today, most video commentators on the war seem to rely on https://deepstatemap.live. Here’s today’s snapshot from Kherson:
Better than nothing, but not as good as LiveUAMap used to be.
Here YouTuber Suchomimus compares different maps of the Kherson offensive, and how the differ on territory captured.
He mentions the War_Mapper Twitter account, which I haven’t been following due to my ongoing Twitter timeout.
Updates:
🇺🇦 have entered the settlement of Arkhanhelske, which is now contested.
🇺🇦 advanced from the Inhulets bridgehead, capturing Sukhyi Stavok and continuing to the outskirts of Kostromka and Brushkyns’ke, briefly cutting the supply route to Davydiv Brid. pic.twitter.com/x1ZiAg4Pig
He also mentions the official Russian-sourced map, which I’m not particularly interested in trusting.
The Institute for the Study of War includes a map with their daily assessment updates, but they’re not interactive or particularly detailed.
There are also a few YouTubers who do daily map updates. There’s Denys Davydov (“Hello, my friends…”). He’s Ukrainian and upfront about his bias, and covers the various clashes across the entire front (which makes his videos a bit long, and I tend to skip around for the bits I’m interested in). He suffers from “The map is the territory” syndrome, and isn’t a deep tactical thinker or versed in the intricacies of combined arms operations, but he’s useful if you understand his limitations.
One of the maps he relies on (in addition to DeepState) is the MilitaryLand map, which looks really useful.
Ukraine News TV relies on the DeepState map, and goes into considerable detail recount the day’s events.
War in Ukraine isn’t great in terms of voiceover, but seem to have a lot of unit-specific information on his maps.
For the sake of completeness, I note WeebUnion, who says he’s objective but seems pro-Russian (and his commenters even more so). He’s not a dynamic voiceover talent, and he begins this video with “Hello, comrades,” so…yeah, I don’t follow him.
For those who think I rely too much on Ukraine updates and Peter Zeihan videos, enjoy this Peter Zeihan video update on Ukraine!
Takeaways:
“Everything that the Russians were bad at before (propaganda, logistics, precision, training, maintenance, equipment), everything they were bad at before, they’re worse at now.”
Ukraine has moved from trying to stop the Russian advance with shoulder-mounted weaponry to longer-range heavy artillery, allowing them to hit ammo dumps, logistical hubs and high-value officers.
“The degree to which the Ukrainians are able to put targeting information, either from their own human network or signal intelligence that is provided by the Americans, and put it to use has been very impressive, and it has snarled the entirety of the Russian advance in both the east and the south.”
“Russia may be running out of ammunition.”
Russian doctrine calls for slow advances prepared by massive artillery barrages.
“They faced a massive industrial collapse in the 1990s that they never really covered recovered from.”
They have fought three artillery intensive wars since the Soviet collapse: two in Chechnya and then one in Syria. So now the Russians are attempting to advance over a front that’s a thousand miles long with a burn rate for their artillery in excess of 40,000 shells a day. Going through a relatively small by Soviet standards arsenal that has been acquired since the Soviet collapse, when the industrial system collapses. Well, any equipment any shells that they’re going to use that are not from that stack are things that were built before 1989, meaning that they’re in excess of 30 years old. We’ve seen reports several a year in Russia going back 30 years that, every once in a while, one of these shells [just] cooks off and the entire ammo dump goes up. It’s entirely possible that some of the explosions were seeing in places like Belograd or Western Russia are not actually being caused by the Ukrainians, but by the Russians manhandling of their own equipment. But regardless, that burn rate 40,000 a day is not something that anyone could maintain at length.
Thus Russia has been shooting at big static targets like train stations and malls. “They have the feel of being a little bit more than the Russians shooting at things to demonstrate to the world that the Russians can still shoot at things. Tanks and infantry are not following up on any of these attacks.”
“Kherson was the only major city that Ukrainians ever lost to the Russians, the only regional capital.”
“All the normal things that plague offensives are appropriate to think about here. They trigger higher casualties among the attackers than the defenders. They require more troops, They require better logistics. They’re more vulnerable to disruption. All of that stands. Also, you have to consider that this isn’t simply Ukraine’s first significant offensive in the war, but this is Ukraine’s first significant offensive ever.”
“The Ukrainians have continually surprised to the upside, and the Russians have continually surprised at the downside. So what should have been a wildly unbalanced war that should have been over four months ago all of a sudden, if not a conflict among equals, is suddenly looking like a little bit more of a fair-ish fight.”
Summary of the Kherson situation so far, including damage to the bridges, covered here and here.
No guarantee that the Ukrainians will win in Kherson, but it obviously offers them the best chance.
“If it proves that the Ukrainians are successful [Russian] forces are going to have to evacuate on foot, they are going to have to leave all of their gear behind…this would be the single biggest military transfer to Ukraine of the post-war environment, and certainly of this war…all of a sudden, the Ukrainians might actually have what they need.” Sometimes Zeihan has a tendency to overstate things, and I think he does that here. Yes, they’ll probably capture some usable heavy equipment, but the estimates I hear are some 20,000 Russian troops in Kherson, and I’m not sure how many functional military vehicles will be left in usable condition after such heavy fighting. They might well pick up significant quantities of towed artillery.
He talks about the importance of taking Nova Kakhkovka, and controlling the irrigation gates for the canals that feed occupied Crimea.
If Ukraine retakes Kherson, they might theoretically be able to take out the Kerch Strait Bridge. (Note that this is only true if they actually have the ATACMS missiles for their HIMARS that the Biden Administration says we haven’t given them yet, as I calculate a distance of roughly 179 miles from Nova Kakhkovka to the bridge.) “Crimea goes from being an incredibly strategically valuable platform that the Russians can use to launch into Ukraine proper, into the most significant military vulnerability that post-war Russia has ever had.” Eh, I think I have to go with the Atomic Bomb between 1945 and August of 1949.
“If Ukraine is going to win this war, this is how it’s going to start.”
There are some people whose staggering failures are so awesome that they put ordinary successes in the shade. Like Christopher Columbus trying to find a quicker route to India and discovering the New World instead.
Such is the case with Mikhail Gorbachev, who died yesterday at age 91.
Gorbachev never meant to destroy Soviet Communism, he merely meant to reform it so that it could run more efficiently, allowing the Soviet Union to compete more effectively with capitalist nations that were stomping their communist counterparts both economically and technologically. Moore’s Law was creating a tech boom racing so far ahead that the Soviets couldn’t even copy technology fast enough to keep up. Reagan’s obvious resolve and the threat posed by SDI scared them even more. To compete with the west, Gorbachev had to reform his stagnant nation.
His means for doing so were glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform, or restructuring). Those two methods, meant to rejuvenate Soviet communism, actually ended it. Glasnost made it clear that a majority of Soviet citizens across the various republics hated the oppressive nature of communism. Perestroika was a hard sell to stagnant and ossified state agencies and enterprises. While some well-connected oligarch’s got rich on the first green shoots of capitalist reform, western companies proved unenthusiastic about investing in Soviet co-ventures.
Politically, Gorbachev’s reforms eventually resulted in the draft New Union Treaty, which would have devolved more power to the constituent Republics. This was deemed so threatening to the status quo that an abortive coup was launched against Gorbachev by communist hardliners the day before it was supposed to be signed. The coup, opposed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and a large swath of Soviet citizens, collapsed in a matter of days, sealing the fate of the Soviet Union, which would dissolve on December 25, 1991.
In the process trying to reform the Soviet system, Gorbachev would stop funding communist movements around the world and withdraw troops from eastern Europe. These were great, liberating decisions, but they were committed in support of reforming Soviet communism, not ending it. By that grand mistake, Mikhail Gorbachev did more to make the world a better place than all previous Soviet Premiers combined.
Ukraine’s Kherson counteroffensive appears to be making significant headway. The Institute for the Study of War has some summary goodness.
Ukrainian military officials announced the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast on August 29. Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces have broken through the first line of defenses in unspecified areas of Kherson Oblast and are seeking to take advantage of the disruption of Russian ground lines of communication caused by Ukrainian HIMARS strikes over many weeks. Ukrainian officials did not confirm liberating any settlements, but some Russian milbloggers and unnamed sources speaking with Western outlets stated that Ukrainian forces liberated several settlements west and northwest of Kherson City, near the Ukrainian bridgehead over the Inhulets River, and south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border. The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD), Russian proxies, and some Russian milbloggers denounced the Ukrainian announcement of the counteroffensive as “propaganda.”
Many Russian milbloggers nevertheless reported a wide variety of Ukrainian attacks along the entire line of contact, and the information space will likely become confused for a time due to panic among Russian sources. Russian outlets have also vaguely mentioned evacuations of civilians from Kherson Oblast, but then noted that occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are calling on residents to seek shelter rather than flee. ISW will report on the Ukrainian counteroffensive in a new section below.
Let’s snip to that.
Ukrainian military officials announced that Ukrainian forces began a counteroffensive operation in Kherson Oblast on August 29 after severely disrupting Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) for weeks. Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Nataliya Gumenyuk stated that Ukrainian forces “began counteroffensive actions in many directions” and have broken through the first line of defense in an unspecified area. The Ukrainian operational group “Kakhovka” stated that Ukrainian forces have cut Russian GLOCs across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast and called the situation a “brilliant chance to return [Ukrainian] territories.” The “Kakhovka” group also reported that the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 109th Regiment and Russian airborne troops have left their positions in an unspecified area of Kherson Oblast, and Ukrainian wires claimed that these elements withdrew from their positions around Kherson City. The DNR 109th Regiment had previously published an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin in late June identifying itself as a forcibly mobilized unit, complaining that it had not been rotated away from the front line for rest, and decrying poor conditions on the frontlines. Ukrainian military officials also released a DNR document dated July 24 that ordered the redeployment of the 109th, 113th, and 125th DNR regiments to Arkhanhelske, Vysokopillya, Zolota Balka, and Davydiv Brid in northwestern Kherson Oblast. “Kakhovka” also shared footage reportedly of a Russian serviceman seeking shelter on the ground amidst heavy artillery shelling while saying that Ukrainian forces have broken the first line of defense on August 29. Ukrainian officials did not discuss the directionality of Ukrainian counteroffensives.
Ukrainian and Russian officials called for civilians to evacuate or seek shelter in western Kherson Oblast on August 28-29. Ukrainian Kherson Oblast officials called on civilians to leave Kherson Oblast to get out of the way of Ukrainian forces and directed those choosing to stay in Kherson Oblast to seek shelter away from Russian military equipment. Occupation authorities of Nova Kakhkovka, where Ukrainian forces have frequently targeted Russian military infrastructure and GLOCS, called on civilians to seek shelter due to extensive Ukrainian strikes on August 28-29. Russian sources reported that Nova Kakhova occupation authorities do not plan to issue evacuation orders. Ukrainian Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov stated that Russian forces evacuated their military hospital in Melitopol on August 29, indicating further fear of intensified Ukrainian activity even in rear occupied areas.
Paragraph of Russian “counteroffensive failed, everything is fine, nothing to see here, return to your homes” blather snipped.
Russian and Western sources claimed that Ukrainian forces liberated five settlements during the first day of the counteroffensive, but Ukrainian sources have not announced the liberation of any settlements at the time of this publication. An unnamed military official of an unspecified country told CNN that Ukrainian forces liberated Pravdyne (approximately 34km northwest of Kherson City), Novodmytrivka, and Tomyna Balka (both about 23km due west of Kherson City). The official also stated that Ukrainian forces liberated Arkhanhelske on the eastern bank of Inhulets River and south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border. ISW cannot independently verify CNN’s report and will update its maps if and when more sources confirm the report. The Ukrainian official report about the withdrawal of the 109th regiment that operates in northwestern Kherson Oblast may suggest that Ukrainians have crossed the Inhulets River into Arkhanhelske. Several Russian milbloggers amplified a report from the Telegram-based milblogger Grey Zone (about 276,000 followers) that Ukrainian forces advanced 6km from their bridgehead over the Inhulets River and seized the Sukhyi Stavok settlement (approximately 7km west of Russian GLOCs along the T2207 highway). Ukrainian Former Head of Foreign Intelligence Service Mykola Malomuzh made similar remarks about the liberation of Sukhyi Stavok.
Ukrainian forces also continued to conduct missile strikes on Russian ammunition depots, GLOCs, and strongholds on August 28 and August 29. Beryslav Raion Military Administration Head Volodymyr Litvinov reported that Ukrainian forces struck Russian manpower and equipment concentration point at the Beryslav Machine-Building Plant, resulting in a large fire at the plant. Odesa Oblast Military Administration Spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk also reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian command post near the North Crimean Canal just east of Nova Kakhovka, a Russian river crossing in Lvove (west of Nova Kakhovka along the Dnipro River), and an ammunition depot in Havrylivka (approximately 33km south of the Kherson-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border). Ukrainian Telegram channels also published footage reportedly showing a strike on the Antonivsky Bridge and a nearby barge. Social media users published footage of reportedly Ukrainian strikes on a Russian ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command noted that Ukrainian forces launched eight airstrikes at Russian strongholds and manpower and equipment concentration points along the line of contact on August 28.
Russian forces are continuing efforts to restore their damaged GLOCs over the Dnipro River. Satellite imagery shows that Russian forces are attempting to build a pontoon crossing near the Antonivsky Bridge, which appeared to be halfway finished as of August 27. Geolocated satellite imagery also showed that the Kakhovka Bridge is still out of service with strike holes on the critical junctures of the bridge. Satellite imagery indicated that Russian forces are continuing to move military equipment mostly north toward Kherson City via the pontoon ferry. Satellite imagery showed the movement of 100 Russian military vehicles as of August 25, with few moving south. Such transfer of equipment via ferries is inefficient and vulnerable to further Ukrainian strikes. Russian forces reportedly continue to experience difficulties maintaining other GLOCs to southern Ukraine. Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko stated that Russian logistics efforts relying on Mariupol rail transit will likely falter in the following days due to lack of electricity, damage to station cranes, and flooding that hinders rail operation in Mariupol.
Deutches Welle has a meaty segment on the conflict:
Some takeaways:
Ukraine seem to have three main prongs for their counterattack:
West of Kherson
The land bridge that collects it to Mykolaiv
“Further north, near the Kakhovka dam.” (For certain values of “near.”)
Still shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. (Lots of time spent on this.)
Germany is sending Ukraine Vulcano (though the DW announcers pronounce it “volcano”) high precision artillery shells.
Ukrainian commander Yurii Bereza says that HIMARS and precision howitzer munitions have been a great equalizer.
More than 90 billion Euros pledged to Ukraine. Biggest donors are 1. U.S. (far and away the biggest), 2. UK, 3. EU, 4. Poland, 5. Germany. (Yeah, I know the last two are in the EU.)
There’s a lot of talk over Germany going soft due to gas shortages, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sounds pretty hardline here, talking about “Russia’s brutal war of aggression.”
Private foreign donors have also allowed Ukraine to buy millions in drones.
Concerns over rapid depletion of EU weapons supplies. (Also a concern in the US.)
Ben Hedges, former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, thinks Ukraine has done a good job of shaping the battlespace and building up forces for the counteroffensive.
“The Russians have not yet fixed the many problems [that] were on display back in February and March. Especially their command and control framework …It’s still a mess.”
“The logistical system is fragile, it’s exhausted, it’s gotten weaker by the week.”
On Putin announcing a 10% increase in troop levels: “I’d bet a large sum of money that there’s not 137,000 Russians willing to step up and join the military.”
“There’s a history in Russia of serious inflation in numbers. They’ve never had what they said they had. This is a classic means of corruption, to claim a certain number to draw salaries, when in fact you’re only paying half to three-quarters of that.”
“It’s an unhealthy population decreasing in size.”
Even if Putin gets the additional troops he wants, it will be months before they show up with equipment.
Not only was the Antonivsky Bridge hit again, but the in-progress pontoon bridge was also hit, as was a ferry.
OFFICIAL UPDATE from the #Ukraine's South Command on the offensive on the south: The UAF destroyed the Russian makeshift evacuation/supply bridge across the Dnipro river near Lvove village in Beryslav district of Kherson province. [Thread⬇️] pic.twitter.com/GEkAbZId2t
Ukraine says that all the bridges across the Dnipro River near Kherson are “unusable.” They do appear to have been badly damaged, but I’d take “unusable” with a grain of salt.
In-cockpit combat aircraft footage from a Ukrainian Mig-29 in Kherson theater:
Some tweets:
⚡️ Russia suffers heavy losses in southern Ukraine.
Operational Command “South” reported that they killed 82 Russian soldiers and destroyed 30 units of equipment, including tanks, howitzers, missile systems, self-propelled guns, armored vehicles, and other weapons.
KHERSON /0200 UTC 30 AUG/ UKR forces are maintaining a coordinated offensive along a broad front West of Kherson. UKR task units south of the M-14 HWY are said to have advanced as far as Tomnya Balka. RU telegram channels report that local occupation forces are in disarray. pic.twitter.com/eZal6TNj6g
This morning I’m seeing a lot of reports that that long-rumored Kherson counteroffensive is finally beginning.
The Odesa-based newspaper Dumskaya reports that the Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine concentrated in the southern direction have launched a counteroffensive at night on the right bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson Oblast.
Dumskaya says that soldiers deployed on the front lines informed the newspaper that they have already managed to liberate several settlements and advance in the direction of Kherson.
This information, however, hasn’t yet been confirmed by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Update:
The Command of the Ukrainian operational group of troops Kakhovka reported that a Ukrainian counterattack knocked out the 109th regiment of the “people’s militia” of the so-called “DNR” from its defensive positions. The Russian paratroopers, who were sent to help them, reportedly fled from the battlefield under the pressure of Ukrainian troops.
The Kakhovka group command also noted that the Russian forces in Kherson Oblast have been cut off from the supply of weapons and troops from the territory of occupied Crimea.
Update:
According to information available to Dumskaya, Ukrainian troops are advancing in at least two directions towards Kherson.
Nataliia Humeniuk, Head of the United Coordination Press Center of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine, says that “the offensive actions are being carried out in many directions in the south of Ukraine.”
“The counteroffensive has been going on for a long time — it is exhausting the enemy and not giving him the opportunity to advance. And today we started offensive actions in different directions, including in Kherson Oblast,” Nataliia Humeniuk said.
Sources of Ukrainska Pravda in the Ukrainians Armed Forces stationed in the south note that in some areas there was a breakthrough of the Russian first line of defense, but “it’s too early to say anything concrete, the front is big.”
Update 13:48
Oleh Bratchuk, the Odesa Oblast Military Administration’s spokesman, says that so far today the Ukrainian troops hit the following facilities in occupied Kherson Oblast in the Russian rear:
Machine-building factory in Beryslav that was used as a Russian base
Having repeatedly announced plans for a counterattack on Kherson, it seems that today the Ukrainian army has begun implementing orders to liberate the South of Ukraine from Russian occupiers.
According to an operational group of Ukrainian troops, “Kakhovka,” on August 29, the Armed Forces of Ukraine broke through the occupying force’s first line of defense near Kherson, and the 109th DPR regiment withdrew from its positions. Russian paratroopers, who were the DPR regiment’s support, also fled the battlefield.
“Ukraine has a brilliant chance to regain the territories, with the help of HIMARS. Almost all the large bridges in Kherson have already been destroyed – the Russian army have been cut off from the supply of weapons and personnel from Crimea,” the message stated.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have launched offensive actions in many directions in the south of Ukraine, the head of the joint press center of the Security and Defense Forces “South”, Nataliya Humenyuk, announced on Ukrainian T.V. news.
Explosions can be heard throughout Kherson region. Massive attacks on Russian bases in Beryslav and Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Region, have been recorded. There are also reports of strikes on Russian infantry.
Here’s a quick video from Suchomimus, a YouTuber who generally concentrates on analyzing weapon footage from the war:
He notes the reports of HIMARS hitting Russian infantry positions, something we haven’t seen before and which suggest a counteroffensive is indeed underway. Plus a video of a single Russian soldier freaking out and reporting that Ukraine troops are attacking in force.
Some relevant tweets:
So – the Ukrainian military has launched multiple attacks on Russian positions in the Kherson region. We’ll see how huge the situation is.
Something very serious is definitely happening in the Kherson direction. I do not remember such an intense flow of information about explosions and attacks on Russian positions during the entire war. There are also serious reports about a counteroffensive operations .
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 29, 2022
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have breached the occupiers' first line of defence near Kherson. They believe that Ukraine has a real chance to get back its occupied territories, especially considering the very successful use of Western weapons by the Ukrainian army.
This footage of Ukrainian planes pounding Russian positions is all over Twitter:
Ukrainian aviation covers the positions of the occupiers in the Kherson direction, video from a soldier from the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade. pic.twitter.com/DpiqeXcSXx
This is one of those crime stories that make your jaw drop at the audacity. Jeffrey Allen Manchester, AKA “Roofman,” AKA “Rooftop Robber,” made his name by cutting down through the roofs of McDonalds restaurants, hitting “over 40 stores in nine different states” from 1998-2000. He usually hit his restaurants right before they opened or after they closed. “Everyone noted he was exceptionally polite.” He was finally caught May 20, 2000, after robbing a McDonalds in Belmont, North Carolina, after having hit another McDonalds 10 mile away just a few hours before. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
And that’s when the story gets weird.
Some highlights:
On June 15, 2004, after four years as a model prisoner, he used his job in the metal shop to fabricate a panel to lay under the rails of the truck that picked up finished metal goods from the ship, letting him escape Brown Creek Correctional in Polkton, North Carolina.
Though he had family in California, he only went as far as Charlotte.
There, he managed to carve out a living space inside a Toys “R” Us store behind a bike rack.
He subsisted on baby food from the store. Honestly, I’m not seeing this setup as much preferable to prison.
He kept tabs on store personnel using baby monitors.
He tunneled into the abandoned Circuit City next door at set up a larger hidden space there, with Spiderman posters on the wall and a DVD player. He even slept on Spiderman sheets.
During this time he got bolder, and started eating at a nearby Red Lobster. (Don’t know how he got the money; maybe fenced merchandise from the store?)
He joined a local Presbyterian church and started dating a woman in the congregation. Not exactly “keep a low profile” behavior.
Naturally, he always spent time at her place. His excuse? “He had a government job that he couldn’t tell anyone about and that his accommodations were in a sterile and uncomfortable office-type building.”
He finally held up the Toys “R” Us the day after Christmas, but two employees managed to slip away and alert police.
“Things went even further sideways when an off-duty sheriff’s deputy arrived at the scene, Manchester responded by punching her, stealing her gun and running away.”
Police finally caught him by luring him to his girlfriend’s place for supposed party.
I’m surprised they haven’t already made a movie about him…
