The recent proliferation of guided bombs shows Ukrainian anti-air network has finally been worn down. There seems to be no shot down yet compared to previous attempt. The new guidance kit has some reliability issues but war is the quickest way to improve weapons. With VKS finally able to function properly tide should begin to turn in Russian favor. Ukrainian counter attack without anti-air network would be suicide.
On the Russian side the status quo is favorable. If this continues it would be a favourable trade to eventually exhaust Ukrainian military and western economy. Not much else needs to be said.
On the Ukrainian side western arsenal is running out of vital supplies, they must expand the scope of support if they want Ukraine to stay in the fight. Some people said South Korean artillery shells which could be a game changer. Otherwise US needs to expand scope of their involvement by providing weapons like F-16, and possibly get Israel on board as part of supply chain. All of those plans have costs. It would weaken American might in Asia and Middle East, and possibly escalate response from Russian side.
On the American side they need to rethink their strategy. The idea of out trading Russia by pitting Ukraine against them paid off at first. Russian took a lot of sanctions, and US was harmed less. Even if they minimized support after 3 month the outcome would be a favorable trade. However politically giving up Ukraine just is not viable, so the support needs extension. First Europeans paid the cost and managed to keep Ukraine in the first for another year. The trade was not as favorable as before. Now Europeans ran out of old stocks American face a harsh decision. Either give up and accept the damage was inflicted enough, or go in even further long past the favorable trade. Harvesting South Korea and Israel stockpile is the last low hanging fruit. Any further would be buying new weapons and paying full price for Ukraine and it will quickly become unaffordable.
I think it is massively premature to say Ukraine AD are exhausted at this point. Degraded and depleted certainly, but I think we are still a long way off from the kind of air superiority you speak of. Especially deeper behind the lines.
Already, the VKS being able to do consistent air strikes in meaningful volumes on the front line will be a game changer in and of itself. But I think they are a very long way off from being able to conduct deep penetration strikes using aircraft and bombs to seriously threaten Ukrainian logistics and deep staging zones, which means this will continue to be a slow grind rather than the start of a total collapse as would be the case if the VKS was able to achieve full air superiority.
In addition, the opening up of the skies over the frontlines could, and likely is, a result of a combination of many factors, not all of it within Russian control. For example, it is possible, likely even, that a major reason the VKS has been able to make glide bomb attacks without opposition is because Ukraine has been pulling its mobile air defence assets from the front, both as a result of Lancet attacks, but also in preparation for their long planned spring/summer major offensive.
There is also the distinct possibility that the Ukrainians are baiting the VKS by pulling defences and allowing them to pound the conscripts at the front to lull them into a false sense of security so they can try and bag themselves some more flanker kills and the VKS start to push deeper behind the lines.
But as things stand, this is a slow motion defeat for the West and Ukraine, because they are still trying to have their cake and eat it as well. They are now in a war of attrition, but refuse to take the economic and political pain needed to boost weapons and munitions production to fight such a war, and are instead slowly but steadily running down the reserves they inherited and built up over years and decades. All the while holding back and actively preparing for a hot war against China in Asia and again doing not even close to the bear minimum needed to actually prepare for it.
The fundamental problem for the west is that they have grown used to fighting goat farms with AKs where they can be at war yet not have it materially impact on their lives back home. They expect this same level of comfort and convenience fighting Russia and China and are so desperately focused on manufacturing consent to start the war(s) that they cannot let slip the truth of the colossal and fundamental way such wars will change the daily lives of all their citizens. Because no one remotely sane will want to go out of their way to choose such a drastically damaging and dangerous path.
The warmongers in the west are essentially insane zealots who are so convinced of the manifest destiny promised and the unchallengeable superiority of their race and system that they think they will automatically win any war they get into. Thus they do not waste any of their time and energy in thinking if or how they will actually win the wars they want to start, those are just ‘little details’ that the rest of society will sort out in due course and quick order once they are forced to get onboard with the programme.
The logistics and supply issues faced by the Ukrainians are a direct result of this line of magical thinking and the fundamental failure of western elites and leaders to face up to the reality of what it is they have gotten themselves into, never mind take any meaningful steps to start to address these problems and challenges.
Everything done thus far to support Ukraine by the west are essentially bandaid solutions able to help mitigate some of the most immediate and obvious symptoms, but do little to nothing to address the deep rooted fundamental causes.
As things stand, every day that passes is a day Russia gets stronger and Ukraine weaker. In this broader strategic context, it’s easy to see why the Russians are in no hurry to launch a massive, risky and costly general offensive while those in Ukraine who still have a handle on the pulse of the situation are so desperate to launch their own offensive ASAP to try to break out of the slow motion strangulation they find themselves trapped in.
One of the apparent tactics is to continue to shell Russian controlled population centres in Ukraine to try to create enough political pressure to force the Russians to go on the offensive. I think this is part of the reason both for why the Russians and Ukrainians are fighting so hard and bleeding so much for places like Bakhmut against almost all conventional reason and logic.
Taking such places is the first and most important step in Russia pushing the Ukrainians out of artillery range of key captured population centres. If and when that happens, Ukraine will loose their main leverage to try to force the Russians into a major general offensive as the Russians will be able to just slow grind their way forwards and be under almost no time pressure. Once that happens, it’s basically game over for Ukraine. They cannot win the slow grind, their only chance at an overall strategic victory is if they can take advantage of Russia’s manpower limitation. I think this is where Ukraine high command is caught in two minds. They cannot decide if the best strategy to try to force the Russians to launch an offensive via shelling of population centres to try to get them to overreach and hit them on the counter, or to launch their own offensive to try to brute force their way through Russian defensive lines.
Right now, they are doing both and thus making it more likely they will achieve neither objective.
