Breaking news from Ukraine

Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Ukraine took the city of Kupyansk overnight, cutting off supply lines to the south. The New York Times just reported that Ukraine’s offensive pushed all the way south to Izyum and took that key Russian stronghold, too. The Times called the Ukraine offensive “a dramatic new phase in the more than six-month war. The loss of Izyum — a strategically important railway hub that Russian forces seized in March after a bloody weekslong battle — could mark a turning point in the war, dwarfed only by Russia’s humiliating defeat around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in the spring.”

Russian forces were seen raising a white flag over the Izyum railroad station, according to the Times. Russia had held the city since March. The Institute for the Study of war estimated yesterday that Ukraine has driven Russian military forces from from 2500 square kilometers of land in the area south and east of Kharkiv. Ukraine’s push into Kupyansk last night and Izyum today adds significantly to the territory Ukraine has regained in just 24 hours.

Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told the Times that the Ukrainian offensive “looks like a very effective combined arms operation with tanks, mechanized infantry, Special Operations forces, air defenses, artillery and other systems.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense, which was claiming yesterday it was pouring reinforcements into its front lines in the east, announced that Russia had pulled its forces from Izyum as part of “a preplanned move, intended to strengthen its efforts in the east where its army has been bogged down for weeks,” according to the Times.

To this grizzled former war correspondent and soldier, that sounds suspiciously like spin.

Watch this space.