There is something strange and wholly counter intuitive about the events we are seeing on the ground.
If you were to break down the conflict in terms of a separate front for each of the newly incorporated republics and list them from most to least exposed you would write it as thus
Kherson
Zhaphorisia
Donetsk
Lughansk
Kherson - a very long flat front with little but villages and open fields. Its the furthest point in terms of supply, relying on the potential choke point out of Crimea, and the bridges over the Dnieper. It is the most Western of the Fronts and closest to the open Heartland of the Ukraine and the easiest for the Ukraine to reinforce and resupply.
Zhaphorisia - another long front of flat land with not that many large towns in much of the territory. Also mainly dependent on supplies coming out of Crimea. For the Ukrainians this is a front easily reached and resupplied and the depth of the territory to the Sea of Azov is not particularly great, meaning that a strike capable of dividing the Russian territory is feasible.
Donetsk - Highly Urbanised and Fortified, Russian supplies come in direct from the Russian mainland. Same situation for the Ukrainians but very difficult for either side to make rapid advances.
Lughansk - The ideal territory for the Russians to defend. Its hilly, heavily wooded, deep river valleys, good sized towns and very close to the Russian mainland for not only resupply and reinforcements, but also easy long range artillery and aviation support. For the Ukrainains all the opposite is true, stretched lines due to poor road and rail connections, hard terrain to attack and front most adjacent to a very long and wide Russian homeland border.
Yet in reality
Kherson - Russia has stopped a major Ukrainian counter offensive waged against it for over a month, and prepared for over a much longer time beforehand. The Ukrainians were not able to disable the bridges over the Dnieper, there offensives were turned into traps and they have lost massive quantities of men and material for the sake of gaining a few small towns and villages.
Zhaphorisia - Whatever offensive was planned here never had the chance to start. We can only assume that forces intended were redirected elsewhere, presumably to the North for the current ongoing Ukrainian offensive.
Donetsk - No major offensive apparently planned or initiated on this front. hardly a surprise given what the cost would be to achieve a breakthrough in a head on assault.
Lughansk - The scene of a very successful Ukrainian counter offensive, with the Russians retreating eastwards rather than take advantage of the terrain or the proximity of the homeland. The Ukraine has responded by moving all its available and most combat capable units to this front to maintain the pressure and momentum against the failing Russian defense.
Well something here clearly does not add up. How is it that a Russian army that can perform so well in its most vulnerable front suddenly makes every tactical and operational mistake on the front that should be the most secure and easy to defend.
Sometimes things are exactly what they seem and no amount of cope or wishful thinking will change that.
On the other hand I cannot discount how this is such an almost ludicrous reversal of outcome, that I cannot but start to speculate about the circumstances that have persuaded the Ukrainians to commit there most combat capable units to a front which is potentially the most perilous for them.....
So Massive Foul up or Cunning Trap?
You tell me.....
Do you know what the most interesting aspect of all these Ukrainian deep breakthrough ‘sweeping victories’ are to me? That they have yet to engage and defeat any meaningfully sized Russian formations.
There are heavy engagements at times, but it’s always a case of the Russians withdrawing of their own accord rather than breaking and fleeing as the pro-Ukrainian twitterverse would have you believe.
There are just the same scale of losses of a handful of Russians dead here and abandoned vehicle there that we have seen before. If not for all the tongue-wagging online, and if we were to just look at verifiable Russian battlefield losses, would anyone really see evidence of a significant uptick in Russian losses, as one would expect from the amount of territory they have lost?
The Ukrainians are undoubtedly gaining group, a lot of ground. But they are paying for that ground dearly with blood and equipment and munitions and not being able as yet to pin down and destroy any meaningful Russian strengths. All the while pushing their best forces deeper and deeper into Russian held territory and extending their supply lines and getting far from their trenches, fortifications and civilian human shields. Worst of all, they are doing it at the wrong time of year.
If the Ukrainians are not very careful, they can very easily find themselves in a situation where general mud and frost arrives and bogs down much of their forces along a long and wide exposed front, far from supplies and stripped of the vegetation cover they have thus far replied upon so heavily to escape Russian firepower.
The Russian artillery have a hard time hitting mobile forces on the move, but even they will have no problems pounding columns bogged down in the mud.
With the leaves gone, the current MIA Russian fixed-wing TacAir might at last make an appearance.
This whole ‘collapse’ just screams danger, yet the Ukrainians are going all in. That screams the worst kind of incompetence and desperation to me.
Just think about it, if the Russians are truly hard pressed, they have hundreds of thousands of standing force strengths they can immediately deploy. They have a hell of a lot of top tier aviation and ground forces in Syria they could redeploy. They have a lot of forces that were just doing war games they could redeploy. Yet instead of doing any of that, they are calling up conscripts.
As far as I can see, the greatest value in the Russian partial mobilisation is in silencing the doubters in Ukraine and the west and to convince them that Russia is indeed on the ropes so they continue with their current mass offensives instead to looking to try to consolidate their gains and actually hold onto any of it.
I foresee a couple of months where the worsening weather bogs down the Ukrainian advance and essentially traps them in place for Russian artillery and aviation to work relentlessly on until the weather gets cold enough to freeze the ground and allow tanks and heavy vehicles to pass unimpeded once more. Then the Russians will launch their winter offensives with the professional soldiers spearheading the attack while the freshly raised conscripts are used to bulk up their numbers where needed, and to hold ground behind the front lines.
The biggest questions are just how much of Ukraine’s best forces they can pin and destroy before to make that offensive as easy and cheap as possible for them.
