I like Kofman, but I really do feel like that his crew has gathered a bit of a worship cult, where people treat his analysis as gospel. He has obvious biases.
The air power argument is completely misplaced. It repeats the erroneous assumption that air power plays a
necessary role in actual US Army doctrine for a similar scenario. It ignores Ukraine's inability to meaningfully challenge Russian air force and army air defenses with small number of F-16s. It also ignores the issue of survivability of hypothetical Ukrainian F-16 fleet against Russian offensive counter air operations.
Ukraine would struggle to reach beyond Kherson oblast due to lack of infrastructure that could be somewhat protected against Russian attack. Currently the remnant of UAF can operate because the cost and risk of eliminating it is completely disproportional to the cost of allowing the few aircraft to keep flying. There's a quantitative threshold corresponding to the initial force/infrastructure size below which destroying aircraft becomes impractically difficult and Ukraine has reached it. Bringing F-16s would paradoxically shift the balance back in Russia's favour.
That's likely the main reason why Ukraine hasn't received the planes.
Russian efforts to marginally improve their positions in the anticipation of Ukraine's Spring Offensive (which was delayed to Summer due to the Battle of Bakhmut) have been successful
Russian actions in the winter resulted in no meaningful gains and depleted resources. Russian artillery operates at reduced volume. The notion that the offensive wore out Ukrainian manpower and unit availability is erroneous because defenses in the south are so dense that no amount of experienced units would make a difference. Ukraine needed a completely different approach and interestingly - this is precisely what the data on losses demonstrates.
I made a comparison of Ukrainian and Russian losses in the south along the two main directions: Orikhiv (O) and Velika Novosilka (VN). This is a screenshot of a spreadsheet so each cell represents one lost tank/ifv/artillery. I also divided the offensive into five arbitrary phases reflecting activity on the battlefield measured by losses.
Ukrainian losses by day: all equipment types combined, red indicates days with high activity/losses, black days with any recorded losses, grey days with no recorded losses.
Russian losses by phase: red is MBTs, green is IFVs/APCs, yello is arty. Phase 5 for O is missing.
This shows that while the opening days of the offensive were disastrous in terms of number of vehicles lost by Ukraine, the shift in tactics on the Novosilka axis has completely inverted the loss dynamic that continues on Orikhiv axis.
| losses @ direction | MBT / AFV | IFV / APC / IMV | arty |
| UA @ Orikhiv | 31 | 110 | 8 |
| RU @ Orikhiv | 16 | 23 | 24 |
| UA / RU @ Orikhiv | 2:1 | 5:1 | 1:3 |
| UA @ Velika Novosilka | 8 | 65 | 2 |
| RU @ Velika Novosilka | 31 | 58 | 30 |
| UA / RU @ Velika Novosilka | 1:4 | 1:1 (1:2 w/o 37th assault on 4-7 Jun) | 1:15 |
The initial assault was conducted by 37th marine brigade and it followed no "NATO doctrine" of any kind, especially that it used AMX-10RC completely against French tactics for the vehicle. The lost vehicles were mostly IMVs (MaxxPro, Kirpi, Husky) so no great loss.
As soon as 35th and 36th marine brigades took over we have a shift to minimal losses that is maintained and consistent if limited gains. After two months UA is approaching a key town of Staromlynikva which if captured will disrupt communications (green line on map) and collapse the entire forward line of defense for Russia and will enable Ukraine to directly attack the main line of defense which lies ~10km south of Staromlynivka.
Note the amount of units defending - entire 127 MR Division (4 rgts), at least five brigades and one VDV regiment. According to the map Ukrainian forces are technically
inferior on this axis despite advancing. Also Russian HQ assigned 5th, 29th, 35th and 36th Armies to defense of this sector so there are four arty brigades supporting the defense.
UA must be doing
something right even if they don't know what it is. Or perhaps Russia is doing something very wrong as some Ru channels say.
Compare this to the absolutely idiotic approach on Orikhiv axis where UA does nothing right and in fact
everything wrong as Kofman implied and to no effect because their failure allows RU to defend at O with smaller force than at VN - nominally just 58th Army.
Concentration of artillery on a single axis wouldn't do much because it would only play a role in a massed breakthrough which is impossible due to ridiculously dense and extensive RU minefields. VN approach is most effective but potentially because the advance occurs along a stretch of built-up areas and with river separating RU forces.
Therefore Kofman's argument that Bakhmut is presently advantageous to UA as there are no prepared defenses may hold true. Bradleys would be better used there rather than Orikhiv but Orikhiv axis seems mostly political and politics gives bad advice in war. Was meant to produce propaganda victory for NATO summit on 11-12 July and produced propaganda defeat. Choice of Bradleys for 47th may have been a "US vehicle doing triumph in Tokmak" type of wishful thinking. Instead we got 8th of June and on repeat.
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There's been a successful USV attack at Novorossiysk, hitting a landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyk and causing it to list due to flooding.
That's really far from Odessa, wonder how those USVs got there.
Those drones are likely Turkish-made. Ukraine has no tech or resources but Turkey does.
Nothing official yet but possibly the "hybrid air defence system" with 4 AESA radars, 1 FCR, 1 35mm gun, 4x sungur MANPADS and 4x SAM. We'll probably soon hear more about it. And it's called GÜRZ ASELSAN will take down the enemy with GÜRZ ASELSAN's innovative air and missile defense...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
@sequ - any comment on that? How likely?
Ukrainian operators can launch them from anywhere outside of NATO territory so logically someone should check maritime traffic in recent days to see if there's a suspicious ship near Georgian waters as that would be closest to that base as well as to the Crimean bridge. Or perhaps straight from the shore.
I would even expect it to be deliberate so as to force Russia to send ships to check civilian ships as possible threats further exposing them to attack.
Also:
A list on 775 is not good. This class was made in Poland. They are large LST for cold war amphibious assault. Huge empty space inside with few watertight compartments. Not very survivable either. Required very thorough minesweeping.
But if the attack occurred near the base it may be towed back to port and salvaged there.
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Takeaway:
Total budget spending plan for 2023 was 29,05 trillion roubles with 9,7 trillion on defense (33,4%). In first half it was 5,59 tn roubles (37%). The total budget spending in first half of 2023 was also 2,44 tn higher than same period in 2022 of which 97% of increase was in defense. Funding for defense was financed by cuts in social services.
Unofficially 1 trillion (17,9% of defense spending) was spent on military salaries in the first half which is 0,54 bn more than in same period of 2022.
Military industry is running at full capacity with very little room for further growth.
Military production is primary driver of GDP growth in 2023, compared to 2,1% contraction in 2022. Bank of Russia forecasts 1,5% GDP growth meaning civilian economy is contracting still. As soon as fiscal stimulus stops the contraction in civilian sectors will sharply increase due to structural causes.
Also: the current account surplus for second quarter is only $5,4bn compared to $76bn in 2022.
All in all the current economic situation won't affect the war effort in the short run but will cripple Russia in strategic terms in the long run. So far 2 years of 2+% civilian GDP drop with third year likely and no path to easy additional revenue from energy sales. If war ended in 2024 it would likely still mean a de-facto drop in GDP in the following year. 3-4 years of negative GDP will translate to "great depression" type of structural crisis over the decade with no easy out as the need to recover military potential will sap funding.
Sustaining war with Ukraine short-term efficiently bleeds Russia's potential long term because of cascade effect which is why US will continue to provide military aid to prolong the conflict regardless of viability of positive outcome for Ukraine.
Russia is in an impossible place where continuing war is fatal for the country but stopping war is fatal for the government.
