arestovich explained the steppes thing like this. digging in trenches in open space is suicide. they will end up resupplying the line of contact through mud and fields, while avoiding shelling. to hold territory you need to win settlements, and if the population is not friendly, you end up converting them to border outposts, while committing war crimes.
russia is quickly running out of winnable objectives. mariupol is one. all of Donetsk or Luhansk oblasts, could be plausibly achievable but harder/longer to break through over a larger area. besides that, Kherson is a very small center, and especially exposed to counteroffensives, but it would be considered another peoples republic like DNR/LNR. well it looks like russia will be leaving kherson in the next few days and possibly try to hold melitopol.
besides that, a land bridge to crimea, i would rate it as a very difficult and vulnerable objective. UA could cut off whole battalions by severing the stretch, and RU would need to resupply by sea, even harder than open space. UA and RU had a dispute over a water canal to Crimea, which UA closed off sometimes since 2014. that carries infrastructure value (perhaps second after an AES) but it’s not a sexy achievement.
gas fields is a mirage. they wouldn’t get developed for a decade even without sanctions.
Thanks. The gas and oil reserves, though at least concrete and real, have always seemed to me like far from sufficient reason for Putin to be taking such big risks.
I think basically the only Russian plan that makes any sense is to crush a big chunk of the Ukrainian army in the east, then grab everything up to the Dnieper south of Dnipro, then hold the line stretching from Dnipro to Kharkiv (or somewhere just south of there if they can’t take it). The Russians don’t have the troops to hold a line all the way across the country with no terrain to help. Let alone adding a goofy land bridge that’s a bunch of additional frontage covering very little territory.