For all the posting of individual units being killed by Russian lancets; artillery smacking tanks and buildings; and whatnot, why has there not been a significant *Russian* offensive?
I see daily posts on Ukrainian telegrams of various strikes on Russian equipment as well. The war of attrition is not one sided at all.
The Russians went into Ukraine with 190k (at most) in 130 BTG. We know the Russians reinforced with other units as some of the originals were chewed on. Plus the PMCs are there. The Russians called up 300k troops. Furthermore, the called-up 300k should give them another 205 BTG assuming they can be equipped. I'd speculate Russia may have 3x the original number of troops now in Ukraine.
There isn't a "pool" of men being assigned into "BTGs". Some units are fighting as tactical company units, other are re-organized into larger regiment sized formations.
The BTG moniker is no longer useful, as the Russian Army is significantly re-organized due to the on-going war, it's a bit of an ad-hoc effort.
The 205 to 335 BTG is a lot more than the 20 brigades the Ukrainians have pulled together for their offensive, if and when and ever that happens.
So why are the Russians not concentrating at least a the force equivalent of a combined arms army and punching through the Ukrainian lines at a particular point? The Ukrainians can't be strong everywhere all the time.
This front is thousands of kilometers wide. The only reason Ukrainians "broke through" in Kharkiv for example, is because of how thinly Russians spread their troops (not to mention that NATO hand-held Ukraine through it the entire time. They gave Intelligence and helped craft the operation). Russia does not have the numbers it wants.
I can speculate:
1. logistical problems - not a problem with having the material so much as being able to resupply the units on offensive. There has been speculation from the start the Russians had issues going past a truck ride from a rail head since nearly the beginning.
This just isn't true. Russians have shown the ability to lay down enormous firepower down when they needed to. You can't do that with shit logistics.
2. The russians have a serious ISR problem and can't figure out if the Ukrainians have a weak point or not. Given the number of drones involved - Ukrainians saying they lose 10k per month - I have doubts about this.
Ukrainians are getting intelligence from NATO.
3. Casualties are a lot worse than people think and the battle hardened, professional troops are in bad shape. The others need a lot more seasoning before they can be used on a significant offensive.
4. Risk aversion. No commander in the Russian army wants to get blamed for a major failure. The sacking of generals has been a lot more than I'd have expected already and the ones left are not willing to risk a failure - even if slight - or worse, the Ukrainians taking advantage and pulling off another Kharkov offensive.
5. Possibly they tried and failed in the winter. I've heard this a few times now, but...unless the Russian army is a lot worse than I think it is or the Ukrainians a lot better, then ... I have doubts?
Why are we seeing tactics used that look more like the terminal Korean War attacks by the UN/American troops than an actual offensive? Why haven't we seen a new kessel since Mauripol? Even in Bakmut, the Ukrainians were able to retreat in good enough order to prevent encirclement?
Why haven't we seen a major offensive?
The Russian Army has chronic manpower shortages. They've compensated using superior firepower, but boots on the ground are what take and hold ground.
Russians don't have the ISR complex or the air superiority to make do with limited forces. I also have suspicions that they lack specialists like Air Combat Controllers in sufficient numbers to co-ordinate an air campaign of a large size. This is just my hypothesis, unsubstantiated by any real information.
However, I believe everything comes back to lack of manpower. We have very limited information about how many men RuAF actually has, but casualties have been on-going throughout the entire war. While Ukraine is essentially in a state of mass mobilization, Russia is not. They don't even have partial mobilization, they only made one large call-up.
