You have to look at this from a strategic point of view, what is the goal of Russia.
1. We are seeing the Ukrainians switching from a purely defensive stance to going on the attack on many fronts after Severodonetsk. In the north, they were successful. In fact, I think the kill ratios have come down compared to the defensive fronts where the Ukrainians were getting pummeled with artillery for weeks before the Russians try to take the place. The attack on the North represented the best trade in kill ratio with the exception that Ukraine has lost a lot of armor and tanks in the attack. However, given that the Russians have fortified their lines, this trade seems no longer available. The Ukrainians are talking about an attack from Zaporizhzhia, we will see if they are able to have anywhere near the success as the attack from the North.
2. In Kherson, attacks from Ukraine were all repelled with heavy losses for the Ukrainian. Here, Ukraine lost both men and armor. I don't buy the argument that the Russians were not able to supply their troops. Earlier in the year, before mud season, the Russians were able to support both their troops and a sizeable civilian population.
If the Russians just wanted to occupy the East side of the Dnipro, they would just blow up all the bridges along the river and all the fighting East of the Dnipro will come quickly to a grinding halt. However, you will end up with a Ukraine on the West of the Dnipro which will get armed by NATO and a number of years from now, will see the conflict reignited. While the Russians are paying the price of sanctions which may not come off for years to come, they need to get to a place where Ukraine is unable to post a threat to East Ukraine even if they wanted to fight again. This means a long grinding war to
1. Take out the Ukrainian military.
2. Depopulate Western Ukraine
3. Bring pain to NATO during the time when Russia is fighting this war.
4. Wait to see if things change in the fickle Democracy in the West.
The Ukrainian military is quite huge, so to truly remove them you need a lot of time and you need to have a favorable exchange ratio both in men and equipment. This is why Russia retreated to the East of the Dnipro in Kherson. Much better supply lines means you will have a much better kill ratio even if Ukraine attack in large numbers. You are also making the Ukrainians fight with a long and uncertain supply line. It is also the reason after Lysychansk, the Russians have not made much progress in conquering the cities. Their focus is to take out the Ukrainian military with very favorable kill ratio. Taking the cities must be subservient to this goal. If a city is a hard nut to crack, they will do everything to cut them off instead of charging in. If we see this war as a multi-year endeavor, with the first priority in taking out the Ukrainian military, we will be less critical of the lack of territorial progress.
Some were comparing Ukraine to Vietnam and say that Ukraine has virtually inexhaustible manpower based on the population size. I think there are flaws to this logic.
1. Along with men, you also lose equipment. Unless the West is willing to supply Ukraine with M1s and F-16s, we are running out of Soviet era tanks to send Ukraine. We can see this in the recent attacks Ukraine did. A group of people on foot around a single tank, riding in technicals and other civilian vehicles. In particular, the Ukrainians seems to be running out of tanks and cannons. We see that even when there is a city to hide in, the fight need to have a lot of armor as today, people no longer just charge into the cities. It is mainly about cutting the city off from reinforcement which happens outside the protection of the cities. I just don't see the U.S. wanting to send the M1 and F-16's. That is because our MIC will want to retain the image of invincibility for their hardware. If an M1 can just as easily be taken out by a cannon as a T62, that image will be tarnished and we can't have that.
2. As more and more cities like Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv are taken, along with the population already in the five provinces, Ukraine has lost a big portion of their population. The refugees are mainly younger people, so they have lost a great deal of people in the right age to be in the military and will continue to drain people due to refugees in the future. Indeed, we are seeing that in the latest mobilization, Ukraine is only going to mobilize 100K people when Russia is mobilizing 300K. In addition, they are mobilizing women, which is a desperate move. Also we are seeing in many areas of fighting today, they are increasingly relying on mercenaries from abroad. All these are signs pointing to exhaustion of manpower for Ukraine. Russia has the option later of much more mobilization. Things will get a lot worse in a couple of years.
3. NCOs are depleted at a rate that is not replaceable. It normally take years to train one. You can't just promote someone to this position after six months training. Without well trained NCOs, the unit is not effective.
We can see that in two to three years, Ukraine will get to a point where,
1. they lost all the fortifications that took years to build like in Donbass.
2. They no longer have cannons and armor to fight a proper mechanized war.
3. They have lost most of their well trained NCOs.
It will become more of a one sided slaughter at that point.
The Russians can at least attempt to cut all the bridges along the Dnipro and finish the Eastern Ukraine war in the last few months. That they have not done so thus far must be for a good reason. We can sit here and say Putin is a dump shit, but we don't appreciate all the angles and considerations that he must think through.
