most military analysis that is paying attention to personnel issues on both sides are describing two kinds of bottlenecks. russia still has lots of armored vehicles/howitzers and artillery shells/ammunition they could send to the war. they are having real troubles finding willing infantry to get into trenches.
ukraine has the opposite problem, they are in the midst of a huge mobilization that has now swelled its army to largest in europe, but they lack attacking weapons to recapture fortified positions. they did lose perhaps ~10-20 of some ~125-150 m777s total, and there are also caesars, etc, but overall they likely need 500-600 such artillery systems to conduct breakthroughs along the whole line of contact.
I actually think your assessment is optimistic for Ukraine. If Ukraine retakes Kherson (a big lift), I think Russia will entrench and maybe move to something like carpet bombing if it can (maybe it can’t) and maybe full mobilization. They will get more creative if they believe they are losing. I see no end soon, but I do see the everyday life of Russians continuing to get worse.
The huge advantage Russia has that they normally wouldn’t in a conventional historical war is Russia can essentially hide on their own side of the border. Let’s say Ukraine pushes them back all the way to the border in the NE, they can’t essentially keep going and encircle the Russians or the West would withhold weapons.
The Russians can retreat to the border and then redeploy all units further South essentially leaving the border unguarded while Ukraine has to keep defensive positions there in case Russia counters.
Yeah, that fact is bad for Ukraine. Ukraine needs to retake Kherson, cut off Crimea water, blow the bridge to Russia and get creative with inflicting more damage to Russia, which may not be doable.
Really interesting to see someone with this interpretation because like 7 weeks ago I was thinking this is going to be some grinding battle of attrition with Russia gradually progressing toward a bitter victory. And then, basically since the HIMARS came and Ukraine starting hitting the ammo dumps and command posts way behind the front lines, it has seemed like a steady tide of positive news building for the Ukrainian side. Like they now seem confident they can drive Russian army out of Crimea as well as what territory was captured since February. I think there is a good chance Russia can be pushed out to the pre 2014 borders by the one year anniversary of this invasion.
The most worrisome question to me is, would that end the war or will Russia go back behind their borders and regroup and launch another attack, with more evil tactics and weapons? I don’t see Putin allowing the war to end in a defeat while he is in power, so it really depends on how strong Putin’s hold on things and local propaganda machine are.
I guess there is some conceivable perspective where it is in Russia’s geopolitical interest to negotiate and end to hostilities for an end to sanctions at that point, but I am not going to be dumb like Mearsheimer and pretend that matters when all that really matters is what Putin perceives to be his personal best interest and I can’t see that ever being taking the L for Russia. His whole regime is propped up on the image of strength, if that is cracked he’s got nothing.
I don’t think Ukraine is going to be rushed into NATO after like 30 days of cease fire either, so it’s not like they can just push Russia out and then declare NATO membership and be protected from the next invasion. For them to attain true long term security from Russian aggression they need to defeat the invasion and secure their borders for a few years and hope Democrats remain in power in USA so they can continue to get the equipment and arms they need.
i think the battle for Kherson is going to be a huge flashpoint, but i also think most signs point to Ukraine being able to retake it eventually.
russia has pulled back command posts to the left bank of Dniepr, a big admission on their part that it is vulnerable.
the three lines of russian defenses on the right bank had plenty of time to get set, and so far noone talks about them being impressive. they brought in concrete outposts, a ww2 tactic. a few trains with tanks and armored vehicles, but few rocket systems.
essentially trying and failing to draw the fight into Donetsk oblast’ fizzled out initiative from russians. meanwhile ukraine created the theater around Kherson and the occupying force had to cancel the referendum and relatively urgently reinforce the garrison.
virtuallly no S300 or S400 deployments in south ukraine outside of crimea. in fact, we’ve even seen aircraft moving stations to the russian coast of the black sea. that removes air cover from kherson, where ukraine has been seen conducting air missions.
ukraine countryside south of kherson is empty steppe. conventional wisdom says that just like the forests north of Kyiv are impossible to attack, open steppes between towns are impossible to hold. so, if kherson fell, the outposts between crimea and melitopol and berdyansk are at best contested, and at worst dominoes.
hypothetically, in some magic butterfly reality, ukraine has pushed out russia to feb-24th lines, it will take another X months or year to stand up a permanent, NATO-standard equipped army, with significantly more beefed up air defense and air force. which, even without formal documents, will make them a significant ally for anyone to have, e.g. nato members in baltics/scandinavia/balkans. Which is almost as good because conceivably MNNA status or NATO membership is not far down the road.
Winter is going to be a very interesting time. Those Russian soldiers around Kherson are difficult to relief and supply while the Ukrainians can rotate troops without issues. Those Russian soldiers were not motivated during summer imagine what they will feel like freezing cold in hostile territory. Pretty optimistic Ukraine can take Kherson and the south back but I have no idea how they can take back territory in the east. Those positions Russia should be able to defend and only the sanctions could change that.
seeing some disturbing early reports from journalists in kherson about the ukrainian population there. russian forces had months to do what they did in bucha. many people who were suspected of leading resistance were arrested, held in makeshift prisons, tortured, and disappeared. gotta be ready emotionally in case another round of atrocities gets revealed. a speculation is that some explosions will occur to cover up the evidence if/when AFU goes in
a CNN article mentioned that pentagon helped AFU with counteroffensive planning and battlefield simulations. that’s in addition to coordinating what type of weapons usa is going to provide with counteroffensive in mind. that’s gotta be a huge help to their chances.
just FYI, ISW isn’t really an institute or thinktank or affiliated with any known military org. it’s an aggregator of other research on some subject. CIT cites them with a disclaimer that they never publicly published any of their own analysis.
I’m not seeing details and I don’t know if they know specifics they aren’t sharing but the tenor implies that things may not be going well for the Ukrainians so far. I get a similar feeling from the other usual twitter sources. Maybe it’s just anxiety from not knowing.
@VoteForSocialists Understood. It’s been a decent source for casual observers afaik.