Fat Dave

So Kherson...ooo boy.  Well first off, I am buying off on the whole "traitor" theory that Kherson was likely sold-out, that or the UA simply got stretched too thin but this is the major southern axis so I do not see how they did not prioritize it - maybe they did and Russians down this way actually demonstrated talent.  Why?
Well because on paper this city should be damn near impossible to take from the South:

By my eyes there are roughly 5 crossing sites that one can pull from Google.  The Dnieper is a deep old river so I cannot tell if there are any fording sites but I doubt it.  Wiki says the Dnieper runs at about 1.5 m/sec which is fairly slow and easily swimmable and pontoon-able.  However, Kherson is right on a major delta stretch, to the point that a second river breaks out called the "Konka" (sp?).  Anyway this is a major water obstacle, like Rhine river "major".  The river itself ranges from 500-1000m but that is not the rub, it is the delta - that is a very angry and hungry looking swamp that looks like the mouth of a Dune Sandworm to mobility.  Sure you can pontoon the bridge but those wetlands look like they will eat Divisions, we are talking major road and causeway work in order to sustain.
As I said there are 5 possible crossing sites: 
-Starting on the far left, there is a possible amphibious run between Sofiivka and Rybal'Che but this is also a major undertaking.  That is a 12km run so we are basically talking D-Day but there is infrastructure on either side to support (I am not sure about the shoreline, would need to do an MSFS flight).
- Then we have the Antonovskiy Bridge that the UA is currently turning into swiss cheese.  That is a 1000m crossing without the bridge and a lot of greenish looking swamp hell on the N bank.  Tough.
- We then have what looks like a rail bridge called "Antonivsʹkyy Zaliznychnyy", not sure if it still up but it is about 6km upstream from the Antonovskiy.  If the UA did not blow that one up it will have to go as well (did a quick check but cannot see if it was already).
- Next is what I think is the only decent amphib/pontoon site along this gawd-awful shoreline.  Just on the western outskirts of L'vov about 34 km up from the Antonovskiy there is what looks like a viable crossing site.  The south bank aint great but this is a hydro-electric line crossing so road infrastructure is there (note would have to do a second small bridging op about 1km to the east on a small inlet), which takes one up to an old monastery in Korsunka.
- Last, is the road bridge at the Kakhovka hydro electrical station.  Looks modern and solid.
After that further upstream the Dnieper expands out and although one could find a decent shore line we are basically back to D-Day.
So What?  Well it is like Stalingrad, a city with it back to a major obstacle coming from the UA side.  All war is communication and retaking Kherson will send big political signals in all directions.  It would be a clear sign that the UA can do offensive in a major way, which should assist in shoring up the cottage-cheese spines of some in the West.  It would also be a major blow to Russia, effectively undeciding that entire front.  I am sure they will try and sell it as "we withdrew for the good of the people" noise but even the most doe-eyed Russian believer will have a seed of doubt planted.  
So to the big question: how does the UA take Kherson? Well a couple schools of thought, first a Western solution:

Coming from the Western School of Manoeuvre, the game here would be to cut off Kherson and choke it out, without having to do heavy urban combat.  So Shape, Manoeuvre, Isolate and Attrit would be the order of the day.  A big armored led spearhead thrust down from the North across all that wonderful tank country.  A bounce crossing on those two eastern sites, complete with SF, Airmobile snaps and then swing westward and cut the Russian LOCs completely.  Meanwhile keep the pressure on Kherson from the North, while using deep strike to Fix supporting forces.  Very nice, so long as one has air supremacy.  
I will say it now, if the UA can do this, the war will be over much sooner than anyone thinks. As I have noted before, I have grown allergic to big bold strokes in this war.  The biggest issue, beyond establishing pre-conditions, is time-space-force.  That is about a 130 km thunder run and would likely take a couple modern heavy divisions to pull off, maybe three.  I do not think the UA has that kind of force, nor are they going to get the pre-conditions to support it.  I have no doubt that pundits will start drawing stuff like this...use it for profiling purposes.  I pray to god that the UA could pull off this offensive but I also do not think he is listening...very unlikely.  So what could a UA offense look like?

Attrition-to-Manoeuvre, not the other way around.  The UA could compress Kherson and pull in a lot of RA in reaction.  With their superior ISR and deep strike they could do a lot of damage in depth - given the ranges, this whole thing at Antonovskiy could be a setup for ATACMS arrival.  If they start hitting EW, then UAS are also back on the menu.  As they compress Kherson, their artillery will pull in range as well.  As they pull and bleed the RA, an opportunity to do a North South offensive opens up but only take it to the bridge at the hydro-plant, while cutting every crossing.  You might bag the RA forces to the east.
The major problem with this one is Kherson itself.  If the RA is trapped like rats, they will fight like them.  The UA could break itself in a city of that size (which they know after Mariupol).  My guess is that they will simply bleed the RA white here, hitting them once again along the entire length of the RA operational system.  This presents the modern dilemma of "stay and bleed out" or "withdraw, preserve force and lose the city", either way, so long as the UA can keep pulling the RA in and killing them in numbers while they try and hold onto Kherson it is a winnable situation.
Key will be setting operational conditions and holding onto them.  Deep strike, deep strike and deep strike.  They need to keep hitting RA logistics to keep the RA guns silent and then the UA guns can go to work on the rest without fearing overwhelming c-btty.
How is it actually going to go down...no idea.  In fact it might not happen at all, the whole thing could be a feint.  But one thing is for sure, it has got the Russians wondering.  And on the battlefield uncertainty on your opponent is a useful thing. 

Now Reuters reports that gas will flow to Germany after downtime (at 40%):
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-russia-seen-restarting-gas-exports-nord-stream-1-schedule-2022-07-19/
I think that must be Schrödingers gas - you only know when you see it.

Well it was a matter of time until someone brought this up.  Watching the video now and it kinda sounds like an academic semantics argument up to the 1 hour mark.  I really like the link back to the 19th century and colonial wars but did not hear the most interesting leap.  Auftragstaktik, as a concept as we envision it...no matter where it came from has a very long history in "the way of war of the savages".
If one studies pre-history warfare, indigenous warfare and/or war amongst horse borne tribes from the steppes to the American West, "mission command" was simply an extension of a way of life.  Warrior based culture did not have hierarchical chains of command we see in modern militaries.  For example, in the Comanche culture a war leader was followed only as long as he was winning, often by extended family members.  There was no legal constraints nor punishment for leaving a war party; there were for cowardice in battle, but this was a cultural stigma as opposed to a formal legal mechanism.
In Europe, Central Asia and the Far East as armies got bigger the ability to move and fight larger formations required a whole system of command, control and training - we invented "formation" so that mass human power could be marshalled, sustained and directed. To do this we had to remove human agency from those standing "on the line".  Tales of 19th century officer standing tall as cannon balls flew at their heads is a poignant example of the power of formation and conformity.  This system worked great for phalanx, pikes, muskets and rifles - mission command was relegated to the cavalry as an enabler arm for the most part.  And when cavalry was decisive it had to mass up old school regardless and take the guns to the front.
Then we ran head long into massed firepower and the whole thing came apart.  Mass was just a quick road to "mass death", as was proven repeatedly on the Western Front.  In WW2 we invented armor and mech and suddenly the main thrust of warfare could move, quickly.  So Mission Command, or at least the original idea was designed to build on this new ability to move and allow for initiative and agency in a hybrid modern military form.  I like to think we got the idea from the colonial wars of the 19th century and its philosophical influence on a generation of officers in the late 19th century. 
And then it got political.
My hypothesis is that modern "Mission Command" as a cornerstone of Manoeuvre Warfare a la Cold War was more sales job than actual military doctrine.  The idea is still seen in modern doctrine where Manoeuvre Warfare - empowered by Mission Command - allow friendly forces to exercise initiative [aside: it also plays well as an extension of 'democracy' but isn't] to go along with all that new found mobility.  This combination means much smaller (and affordable) forces can dance around and through much larger ones to create effect.  This whole thing built up into AirLand Battle as an idea; however, remained largely untested.  It did however become a cult as the entire west, following the US, bought into the uni-polar philosophy of Mission Command and Manoeuvre as how we will defeat a larger, dumber and more command constipated opponent.
As I said...where was the proof?  We got hints of it in the Arab-Israeli war, Gulf War and '03 but these were not definitive, particularly the last two as mass airpower appeared to play as much, or more a role than the land doctrines.  Then we had all sorts of COIN/interventions where nothing worked, Mission or Detail Command did about as much as air supremacy in Afghanistan.  The Taliban employed it far better and more than we did but it worked for an insurgency likely because of its root in tribal based warfare to start with.
And now we have this war, and why so many are watching so closely.  Is Mission Command delivering?  Is Manoeuvre War delivering?  What are the trends and where do thing seem to be going?  My guess today is "its complicated".  There are definitely signs the UA is employing a form of this to effect, we saw this in Phase I; however, there are also signs that on the digital battlefield higher may know more than lower due to modern ISR and as such Detail Command may be back on the rise.  Attrition warfare is clearly not going anywhere, so fast cheap and easy wars may have been a mirage all along.
So what?  Well what we do not know about warfare as a result of what we are seeing in Ukraine is growing, not shrinking.  I do not know if Mission Command and Manoeuvre Warfare will survive as concepts - we will definitely hold onto them tightly as we have invested a lot into them.  My sense is that something else is emerging from this war that we can only see peeks, shades and outlines of based on events so far.

Ru talks indeed indicate their intent is to hold Kherson. 
It is not just propaganda. While their max goal is destruction of UKR they do not plan to capture all of UKR. The realistic goal is to cut UKR from Black Sea and create land corridor to Transnistria. The western part of UKR is considered too hostile to RU, so they dream Poland will annex it (because they are heinous foreigners). And while Kiev region capture is desirable it is not strongly necessary - after RU and Poland cut significant portions of UKR land remaining UKR will cease to exist as independent nation. 
But the whole plan rests on RU ability to hold Kherson. Either they hold Kherson, or the war is lost because practically they will be back to where they started - extended LDNR does not help much in advancing toward Transnistria.

At 3:30 of morning Russian ammo dump was HIMARSed in Stakhanov (Kadiivka). Detonations are continiung now
Also yesterdays late evening three lesser ammo dumps were hit in Kherson oblast - Snihurivka, Chornobaivka area (but not airfield) and in 16 km west from Nova Mayachka on the right bank of Dnieper

I'll throw my theory into the ring on why Putin pulled the trigger:  because he was convinced his plan would work.  If the assassinations/treason weren't completely successful, he'd have the hostemel airport and would be flying in reinforcements.  Those troops would take the stunned capital ~day 2.  Then by day 3 the armored column would arrive so the light troops would only have to hold for a day or so.  Putin believed his plan was failsafe because he had multiple layers of increasing force, meaning he didn't need the plan to be perfect to work.  I think Putin really thought his plan simply couldn't fail because he believed it was so very robust, so he chose to go -- what's the risk when you can't conceivably fail? 

You guys remember that quote from the UA solider in the field early on in this thing?  "I can't believe how f#cking stupid they are?"
I keep coming back to this at a strategic level.  I have gone on at length that the Western Strategic Centre of Gravity (CoG) is unity and resolve, if that falters this could all end badly.  So, Russia being a sophisticated nation and a master of the art of strategic narrative would try and take the high road with respect to ROEs in this war. To demonstrate that they will play by the rules even if the Nazi-whatever-the-hell-Putin-was-going-on-abouts are the true villains.  This play could plant a small seed of doubt that if nurtured could erode the Allied CoG - "look this is an Eastern European border skrimish" etc
Or....
Toss missiles around like a drunken frat boy demonstrating that he can both hurl empty beer bottles and throw up on himself simultaneously.  Now maybe Russia is full-on "no body likes me, everybody hates me, so I am gonna eat worms...and commit egregious war crimes anyway."  But all of this is actually reinforcing their opponents strategic center of gravity...it is shoring up the resolve of the West.  A dead soldier is supposed to happen, a dead little girl with blue running shoes is not.  Russia's inability to "get with the program" is frankly baffling.  
Collateral damage happens, it is the tragic truth of warfare since the beginning; however, nations are judged on how hard they work to avoid it.  And as far as I can tell right now Russia hasn't tried at all.  This on top of the pretty obvious war crimes that happened already in this war is literally guaranteeing that 1) more weapons, money and munitions keep flowing from the West, and 2) there is no renormalization after this...so enjoy being a rump state of China...seriously, start teaching your kids Mandarin.  
I can't believe how f#cking stupid they are, indeed.

Ok, time to swing back to this one.  This guy sounds like he knows what he is talking about to me.  A few points that I am not sure I am comfortable with:
- He does not really use "shaping" correctly, or at least in terms as we understand the term in the west.  Shaping operations are defined as "an operation that establishes condition for decisive operation through effects on the enemy, other actors, and terrain." (https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-0.pdf)  What Russia did at the beginning of the Donbas phase does not really fit any of those criteria.  His description sounds more like positioning.
- Three guys walking down a road, somewhere, is not a rout.  The UA had weeks to decide to get out of "the cauldron" as the RA was moving by inches.  If units got caught or were sacrificed, that is one thing, but nothing in the RA rate of advance speaks to conditions for an uncontrolled withdrawal.  Nor have we seen any evidence on open source to back this up - large amounts of Russians with trophy equipment, or PoWs.  So I challenge that assumption right up front.  
- The defensive lines he draws pretty much match our own here, and make sense.  
- I am allergic to bold drawn arrows in this war; I have been let down too many times.  Neither side has been able to make large muscle movements since March (with the possible exception of Kharkiv), so the idea that "this is it, the Russians will now spring the trap!" is not credible until we see some actual success.
- Force ratios.  Seriously, what is wrong with the professional military community?  They keep turning to these quantitative-only force ratio assessments, even though they completely failed us in this war to-date.  And here on an analysis/assessment video on 08 Jul , I am still seeing "this many Bns vs this many BTGs" and we are supposed to take something from it.  What is the qualitative assessment?  I don't care if Russia has 4 times the numbers of troops, if those troops are all old men and scared kids with three weeks training, no radios, no cas evac, scrounging locally for food and unable to employ heavy weapons effectively; those are not troops, they are a uniformed mob waiting to die.  The good analyst here even points to the increasing "Russian forces vs dwindling Ukrainian ones" as a concern...but what are those increasing Russian forces made up of?
Other points:
- M777 losses are concerning as they are supposed to outrange Russian guns for the most part.  I have to wonder if there is a problem with positioning within the UA, or is this just the cost of doing business.  Russian c-battery seems to be pretty quick, which leaves me wondering why their offensive fires are so "not".  From what we have seen the Russians have basically gone WW1 on massed fires, while c-bty in seconds minutes takes pretty powerful ISR (detection and ranging) support; however, I would let the arty specialist weigh in on this one.  I also take UA messaging carefully, at the levels talking there is a strategic narrative to continue to push the west to strengthen support and provide help.  Problem is that if Ukraine cries for help too loudly, or amplifies things, the West will get nervous and wonder if we have backed the right horse...and we have a bad history with backing the wrong horses. 
-This video is from 08 Jul, so we now know that Russia has been in at least a week long operational pause.  We have yet to see Russia able to keep anything that resembles a threatening operational tempo, this is a very slow grind.  It works, but so slow and costly.
As to long war, short war.  Well at coming up to 5 months, this war is already longish by western standards when compared to its intensity.  The answer is that both are possible at this point but there are a lot of unknowns.  I would boil it down to Western Will vs Russian Will - and here I mean the will of actual Russians, not Putin and his cronies.  Western Will is fiscal, self-centered and frankly has the resolve of a skittish milk maid on a good day.  I have zero doubts about Ukraine, it has mobilized, to the point that killing Russians has taken on cultural significance - the Ukraine after this war will not be the same one that went in. 
The West, if it keeps pushing weapons, ISR and money, can keep this going forever...but, it may have to actually make some sacrifices to do so, and that does have me worried.  We are not really good at sacrifice on a large scale right now, and have not been since the 60s in reality.  We got burned, and lied to by leadership back then, and ever since we have a weird relationship with sacrifice.  "Sure I support Ukrainians...just don't ask me to do anything about it." is a disturbing trend.  This is not new, just look at GWOT and how the US had to tie itself in knots to avoid anything that hinted at conscription in Iraq and Afghanistan (e.g. stop-loss, etc).  At the beginning of this war the amount of unity was refreshing but whether we have the attention span and will to keep doing this is not a done deal.  I suspect we are in too deep to pull out now and every time the Russians are dumb enough to commit war crimes it helps us keep that unity; however, as the costs continue to rise, it is a concern moving forward.   That said, some things are already too big to back away from, such as the momentum NATO has right now.  So if asked I will always list Western Will as a concern but signs are pointing to us remaining unified and "all in", at least for now.
Russian Will is another beast altogether.  Putin and his gang are like the US back in '06, they are doing everything possible not to mobilize, while mobilizing.  They are doing so for a reason, and that reason is that Russian Will for this war is very likely not homogeneous, not solid across the entire federation.  Russia has almost adopted a Western proxy position by pushing as many LNR/DNR conscripts, and contractors into the fight as possible in order to minimize the effect on the Homefront.  But high intensity warfare is just to big to hide, the losses from this war already make it the most high intensity conflict of the 21st century, so how long is Russia willing to do this?  How long will they support Putin in doing this?  This is the calculus that is not on Putin's side.
So back to long vs short war.  My guess is that if this war does not slow down, it will likely still be short; either the West or Russia (likely Russia) will run out of runway on this thing at this rate of burn.  [Note the Ukrainians are not part of this calculus as far as I can tell, they are totally in it regardless...and who can blame them].  If this war slows its burn down, say to the sort of thing we saw in the Donbas before this whole thing, then long becomes a real possibility.  If the UA cannot solve for offence, that is a real possibility...but I am thinking that once the RA runs out of gas, or calls a political "win" the UA will then start going to work on them. 
Of course, back to a point we have made from way back...at this point when the war ends is really moot, which is sad really.  Russia has already lost any initial strategic objectives except regime survival, which is also a maybe.  In fact it has lost so much political strategic ground by this point that even if they somehow took all of Ukraine, this would still be a loss (see: loss of credible power, sanctions, isolation, Sweden and Finland/NATO, etc).  Which makes this whole fiasco so tragic as people keep dying, well past a rational point.

HIMARS is really spooking RU.  Girkin advises to read the article HIMARS – just MLRS, [or] a new generation weapon, or a Doomsday machine?
Reference to article describing HIMARS Confirming conclusions of the article Claim that current RU artillerymen are incompetent  
The article itself. It is just an educational article. Funny - it took them multiply HIMARS missiles to the face to realize that it is not just MLRS and to start respecting it. 
 

Important to note that statement about Donbas being such and such of Ukrainian GDP is most likely incorrect. China and I assume the other country is India? While both are happy to purchase Russian resources, their response to supporting Russia otherwise has been tepid at best, useless at worse. The problem is, it looks like China, despite being supportive of Russia undertaking this war, was not expecting 1. Western resolve to be this firm. 2. Ukrainian resolve to not break. 3. Russia to get bogged down in a conflict absolutely unbecoming of its prior invasion supposed military strength. 
Before the invasion, the popular refrain was Russian tanks to Berlin. The failure of Russia to destroy the Ukrainian Air Force, destroy Ukrainian infrastructure, supply their armies enough to push into Kiev, and this months long slog in the Donbas more akin to the western front of WWI is entirely unbecoming of Russia’s supposed military prowess before the invasion. Prowess Russia itself asserted was true. Therefore, to say Russia sucks at war is 100% true.
When comparing the Effort to control Afghanistan with Ukraine, it would be potent to remember Russia does not equal the Soviet Union, and obviously the USSR included Ukraine. To conflate the Soviet Union capabilities, with Russian capabilities is frankly probably why Russia, and the world has underestimated Ukraine so much and overrated Russia. So much of Soviet strength and power was from her other republics other than Russia, and Ukraine was a essential part of that strength. Without Ukraine, Russia cannot be a Great Power, I believe Putin stated that? Whoever stated that, I think it’s completely true. 

This could mean bye-bye for most Russian military airfields, black sea fleet in harbor and Kerch Strait bridge.

Let’s Use Chicago Rules to Beat Russia
Why the U.S. adversary is a lot like Al Capone
By Eliot A. Cohen
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/madrid-nato-summit-2022-russia-ukraine/661494/
 
 

Todays Russian storages being hit
Velykyi Burluk, Kharkiv oblast - reportedly large logistic center of Russian troops
Donetsk. Oil storage
Donetsk. Ammunition starage
 
Makiivka (Khanzenkove railroad station area), ammunition storage and logistic center
 

They have scraped the bottom of barrel, then cut up the barrel with a torch and thrown the pieces into the fight. When that couldn't keep up with the cargo 200 coming back by the trainload, or just being burned in pits, they got out an excavator and started digging a hole where the barrel used to be, sort of, maybe. 

Excellent observations and questions.  Like a lot of things about this war - we simply do not know, let alone understand a lot of what is happening, let alone why, air competition is just one more.
A lot of this was has been about denial, in fact it often looks more like a competition of denial than anything else we recognize at times.  Denial - a defensive strategy designed to make it prohibitively difficult for an opponent to achieve objectives (https://www.britannica.com/topic/denial-military-strategy), which is a sub-strategy of the broader strategy of exhaustion.  Ukraine has elevated Denial to a strategic level, in a modern context, and frankly we are still trying to figure out the implications.
How did they do it?  That is the first question.  As far as we can tell from the evidence, my guess is that they quickly adapted C4ISR and the benefits of the modern weaponry they had to create very broad denial effects across the Russian capability portfolio, while the Russians have relied on traditional mass based systems, which are extremely expensive but can create a Denial effect for the Ukrainians as well.  Ukrainian defence has leveraged some major changes in modern technology on a broad scale and that applies in the air as well. 
Suppression of Enemy AD (SEAD) - so this is more than a single capability, it is an entire system.  It encompassed a massive C4ISR effort, air platforms that rely heavily on stealth, and even integrates SOF; it is a lot more than HARMs and Growlers.  In many ways SEAD is an entire specialized operation in itself, aimed at clearing and sustaining clearance of Integrated AD Systems (IADS).  IADS is an umbrella term; however, it leans towards large multi-layered integrated systems that link C4ISR to a network of AD systems designed to cover from the ground up (even into space).
The issue modern IADS have is UAS.  IADS were designed with large manned aircraft systems in mind form tac aviation to higher altitudes.  UAS bend these systems that by being extremely small and hard to detect, able to "pop-up" without any infrastructure needed to support them beyond two guys and some batteries, and low cost = every-freakin-where: we designed IADs to hit eagles, not sand-flies.  The most powerful thing UAS bring to the battlefield is ISR.  Strike is nice but the ability to extend the range of tactical ISR, and then integrate it into an operational system is one of the key takeaways from this war: seeing beats flanking.  Further, the RA reliance on concentrated mass makes them very vulnerable to this because it is very hard to hide a BTG.
The last brick in the wall are MANPADs.  A lot of the next gen MANPADs are passive and as the name suggests "man portable".  The reality is that MANPADs were always a problem for SEAD, no military has a baked in capability to counter two guys in a bush with a Stinger.  This is where air-land integration was supposed to come in, the land forces could support the air through control and sweeping of MANPAD threats (little threats), while air supported them by hitting the big stuff - a mutually supporting system.  Within SEAD, MANPADs were also a managed threat.  The theory was that if you blinded an enemy IADs system and took out the big radar guided systems, MANPADs would be minor nuisance, largely isolated and with limited range and altitude (5000 feet).  More something for tac aviation to worry about, and why we up-armoured stuff like Apaches. 
So UAS and real-time space based ISR and communications on the back of redundant civilian systems (including space based) makes the "blinding portion" really hard, maybe impossible.  I have no doubt in Ukraine we have distributed forces with UAS seeing CAS much farther out, handing off to others which then link back to MANPADs who can now position to wait for the aircraft - this is not even considering satellite based stuff being fed by the US.  And then MANPADs did not get the memo on "5000 feet", some of these systems can hit up to medium altitudes (e.g. star streak = 16k).  Finally, those traditional IADs are still integrated but not how we thought.  A higher altitude capable SAM that employs radar can now hide in silence, wait until the distributed C4ISR system picks up the fast movers and turn on at the last minute....like a big ass MANPAD.
Note that the above is what I think we are seeing in the UA system.  The RA is relying on traditional AD but the UA does not have a lot - so this is really air self-denial by virtue of very limited Ukrainian air capability.
So What?  Well we have air parity, largely through denial on both sides.   Ukraine has far too little, and generating massive airpower takes years.  Russia has significant capability but it was never set up for this environment, no one was.  I am not sure NATO could handle what is happening to be honest.   We would make something work but the costs would be much higher than we are used to and we would have to accept loss of air superiority at some altitudes as a basic assumption going in.  The Russians could likely achieve local air superiority above 20k right now but it would be very costly.  Going below 20k feet is very dangerous as we have flooded the UA with MANPADs, and the C4ISR thing I was talking about.  I expect they are saving it for an operational emergency or for the UA to put enough density in one place to make the effort worth it - trading a fighter-bomber for a single tank is not a good equation.
As to offence-defence.  Well Ukraine made defence offensive in the first phase of this war as Russian over-extension collapsed in the north.  I think they are doing versions of this right now in the Donbas as we have entered into an attrition-based contest.  Russia's answer to this has been to devolve in terms of warfare, falling back on a very old form of over-mass.  The only report of the Russians stopping the UA unmanned-indirect fire- infantry system has been in Severodonetsk, and they did so through extremely high concentrations of forces. That mass of Russian EW did nothing against space-based assets, so we do not know how badly they got mauled, nor Russian artillery.  Russia did show that if you push enough into a small space you can advance by inches - we do not know what it cost them nor how long they can sustain it.
This leads to some fundamental and big questions:  What does modern mass look like (sburke, don't do it!)?  Is manoeuvre warfare in trouble?  Is offence in trouble?  Is a principle of war - surprise, dead?  What does modern C4ISR really look like?  Hell, we are questioning Mission Command because in this environment higher commander may very well know much more, in higher resolution, than lower commanders.  
Nothing is definitive, but a whole lot is on the auction block right now and implications are pretty big if even a few of them are confirmed. 
I would close that the Russo-Ukraine war is an indicator of change but it is likely showing the tips of icebergs.  For example, we have not really seen what self-loitering can (or cannot) do in this war.  We know the US sent the smaller Switchblades, but I have seen no reports of significant numbers of the 600 series which can hit and kill with a Javelin warhead at the same ranges as the HIMARs.  We have not see NLOS ATGM or anti-vehicle systems like Spike.  We have not seen military grade micro and small UAS.  Sticking some grenades onto a few commercial drones is one thing, a swarm of military grade micro-drones that cannot be jammed, all armed with precision DPICM is something else entirely - and we have that technology right now.  Same goes for C4ISR, this is what Ukraine could do with a fairly ad hoc civilian backbone, some of the stuff being developed is truly impressive - and we have not even started to see the effects of AI/ML.
The Crimean War of 1854 is often referred to as the "First Modern War", well history is a circle, and I suspect the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 will likely go down in history as the "The First Future War". 
 

DMS, Russia has started the most unnecessary war in approximately forever. Then proceeded to wage it with a unique blend of genocidal barbarity and complete incompetence. Russia then turns around and tries to play the victim, and claim everyone is out to get them. To put it mildly that isn't going to work. Russia has managed to focus at  least two continents on ensuring that Russia can't do this again for generations. I mean what did you expect would happen? Putin's fantasy of a quick victory and a parade in Kyiv? That ship hasn't just sailed, it sunk with all hands
I ma going to repeat Von Rundstet's quote to the German high command when it became clear D-Day had been a success. "Make peace, you fools". It was good advice then, and even better advice now. Because if Putin ruins the ENTIRE Russsian army in pursuit of his Ukrainian fantasy Russia will find out how much of its outer reaches are unhappy with Moscow's less than enlightened ruling style. You won't like the answer very much.

TLDR: 
 

@Battlefront.com
Here is some recommendations from UKR frontline soldier for your collection
ATTENTION TO ALL, WHO FIRST TIME COMES TO EASTERN FRONT
1. Enemy has significant advantage in aviation and artillery.
2. There are no more stupid conscripts, but really trainned murderers, whick know own work
3. Our positions have been betraying by locals and drones ajust fire
4. Vehicles are target #1
RECOMMENDAIONS FOR DOGFACE
1. Dig in deep, but never wide.
2. Dig in in the places with additional protection (tree) or with obstacles for enemy artillery (hill,railwau embarkment)
3. Dig several positions, join its after in the trench (if enemy allow you to do this)
4. Do not concentrate many people in one shelter - no more 2-3
5. For rest and cover to dig a grave. Yes, a grave with steps (on the photo) for two. While the first on position, the second rests in the grave, then change.
6. Evacuation point must be maximally hidden, to make a pathway and the hole for aid. In the hole only combat medic have to work, you shouldn't be there.
7. Do not bring with you neither too much ammunitions nor any other supply - its betrays you. Get out the trash - bury even cigarette butts.
8. Prepare good off-road jeep, take away all superflous, take away lights and give NV device to the driver. Let he stays in 5 km from your positions. This will save most of your WIAs.
9. Ammunition and supply delivers when jeep drives to take WIAs or if you have a need in resupply. Two days reserve of ammunition and supply for comany have to be always near the jeep. 
10. BMPs and BTRs are also have to be in the rear, dug in deeply and disguished or hidden. They drive to the battle only and dont's carry people! Your trucks you can shot out yourself, thus will be less victims. But better hand over its to artillerists. 
11. Comms, steady encriptes comms and interaction with tanks and artillery. Infantry finds targets, recons ajust arty with drones, arty fires. But artillerists are people too and they also primary target for the enemy. They will not stand-by continuously and they also have a limit of ammunition and supply. 
12. Do not deploy on infantry positions ATGMs or MANPADs. Deployits aside or behind, but never on positions. If this stuff works at least once, your position will grounded.  
13. Most important!!!! The time for supply it's twilight (dawn or dusk). Safe time you will understand yourself.  And do this with jeeps with engine volume no more 2,5 l
14. Despite on written above, the war is dictating own rules. At this war the best are speed and mobility. And remember - they don't know how much of you, until you expose yourself. And during this time eliminate as more of orcs as possible, while they will be probe. Best way - to shot, when you see the enemy, and not hear his bullets. In this way they check your nerves. When the come close, try to kill as more as possible in order they will not call or adjust own artillery, because without accurate adjustment their arty is skew and only something random can hit your positin.   
 
The "grave with steps" for R&R
 

Non-professional?!  Bil,..ouch.  Unpaid maybe.  There is a lot of professionals from a lot of fields here, it is what makes this whole thing work in my opinion.  That and "the professionals" really haven't done much better as far as I can tell...and I am being kind in some examples.

Well when you put it that way it seems like a silly thing to get heated up over.  
Pulling this back to the topic at hand; what this vignette does show is effective integration of systems within the UA- indirect fires, infantry/recce and ISR - no matter what we call it.  This has been a theme since pretty early on, while the RA has noted shortfalls doing the same.
This gets me thinking about metrics again and the tension between old ones and new ones.  We discussed firepower and mass, which has been the primary driver in a lot of mainstream assessment.  To which I added smartness and distribution.  We should now add integration to that list - which is not new in the least but must be part of the mix when assessing forces.
Finally, this seems to be a quality in the UA at the operational and strategic levels as well.  While the RA has seemed disjointed and counter-purpose: this is like watching the biggest guy in the bar trying to fight while having a seizure.  So building a working theory here - the UA was able to apply friction/attrition on the RA operational system, which was already prone to self-dislocation, and widened those fractures to the point of breaking across all levels of warfare.  The UA did so by distributing the forces they had across a very wide area in a self-synchronizing C2 model, empowered with significant ISR advantage, and integrated those systems...frankly brilliantly...in order to overwhelm/overheat the Russian system.
This forced the RA to concentrate mass to pre-mechanized warfare levels, largely artillery/EW/AD based, in order to re-establish equilibrium in a much smaller area.  Further ceding initiative to the UA, who now appear to be doing lateral c-moves to push and pull Russian forces horizontally...further stressing their system.
So What?  What is critical here is "how fast can the Russian's learn", or "Can the Russians learn fast enough?"  A major LOO/objective in the UA op design has to be "keep Russians stupid", which I would pay good money to get a peek at.

I wouldn't necessarily say they are painful setbacks.  A Russian advance is not a setback in the sense that it is expected.  The issue is the cost of that advance and it's strategic or even operational relevance.  This push by Russia has none of the above other than cost.  While we'd all love Ukraine to be hammering the Russians and advancing that isn't the current strategic situation.  Patience

The Russian offensive looks more like a single operation aimed at Lyschansk, while the UA c-offensives are separate operations in themselves.
This reinforces the idea that the UA is stressing and testing the RA horizontally by forcing them to shift to react.  This does take pressure off of the Severodonetsk-Lyschansk fight but I think we are all focusing too much on that engagement.  By forcing the RA to pulling forces to-and-fro across broad ranges, this creates offensive pressure on the Russian operational system through its own organic internal friction.

The only takeaway lesson from this war I am drawing is - nothing is working like it was supposed to.  Airpower, cyber, armor/mech, and yes, artillery have not performed anywhere near what we thought going into this war.  No matter how hard we try and tie reality into knots to explain it, we likely will not know why for some time...and even then we will likely ignore it if history is any indication. 
Worse, I am hearing this is in military circles and moves to tie this to military procurement as politicians scramble to "spend more" in order to demonstrate collective resolve.  While military services are using this war as justification for stuff they have been wanting to buy for years without actually looking at what is happening on the ground.
Let's take artillery - "the king of battle" (talk about 'presents well'), no it has not been the ruling monarch in this war.  It has been the "king of attrition" but it has not been decisive in the least.  If massed artillery fires were still decisive the Russians would have taken Kyiv by now, let alone this small rump in the Donbas.  If "more guns" was the solution then Russia would have already taken their operational objectives instead of this war-by-inches bleeding out.  The one instance we did see decisive use of artillery was in the first phase of this war by the Ukrainians, and that wasn't any of that sexy western stuff.  It was highly integrated and linked to a superior UA C4ISR/information system so that the smaller artillery was hitting the right targets to cause the most stress to the Russian system - decisive attrition has been the "king of battle" if anything has been in this war so far, and even that is weird because we were supposed to be seeing the dominance of manoeuvre a la Gulf War.
Back to procurement; we are already hearing services drooling over "investment" in "new capabilities" we have had since WW2 and using this was as "proof".  Right now the only "proof" I have seen is for: unmanned like crazy including all forms of next gen ATGM/MANPAD systems (NLOS, self-loitering etc), dispersed light infantry that one can generate from reservists very quickly,  resilient and pervasive battlefield communications systems that include crowdsourcing, new forms of logistical systems that look more like Amazon than what we have, C4ISR that includes space-based assets to tie it all together rapidly.  And all that will buy you is an ability for large scale defence-thru-denial that may force an opponent's system to collapse under its own weight.  We have no idea what works for offensive operations because neither side has been able to do it yet.
"Tanks, guns, IFVs, F-35" are what are being pitched right now and that is billions of dollars into tools that Ukraine did not employ decisively to defeat the RA, but they are the capabilities that Russia invested heavily in, brought to this war, and are now scattered all over the Ukrainian countryside. 
One thing I am seeing out of all this is "we have to understand what 'fighting smarter' really means".  And it does not appear to be more expensive singular platform centric-warfare.  This is like France '40 - the French had more, better tanks but they had not created a smarter integrated tank-system - the Germans did (often in spite of themselves).  All domain systems integration, while denying the same to your opponent may be the future "king of battle" [when you really think about it, maybe it always has been] but again we have only see it work decisively on the defensive, so the jury is still out. 
I am hoping that the UA is employing this whole Severodonetsk thing as an attritional honeypot to bleed the Russians white in order to open up options for some old-school operational manoeuvre in Phase 3 of this thing.  My guess is this may occur in the western side of this theatre around Kherson-Melitopol as the Russians over-commit more and more to this baffling fight in the Donbas - "Lure your enemy onto the roof, then take away the ladder."
 

I just read this.
I will only say that I agree that Geopolitical forces push nations in certain directions. The personalities of the leaders are irrelevant. Hence my push whenever I see the opposite being posited.
The exception, of course, is lunacy...such as Putin.
I'll respect your wishes. Your forum.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/trump-administration-broke-law-in-withholding-ukraine-aid.html
I'm sorry but that's an absurd statement. Russia didn't decide to invade because Biden was weak kneed on Ukraine. In fact, Biden has been seen as a hawk in DC on the topic since at least 2008 or so. Russia invaded because before his administration Putin had successfully out maneuvered Bush and Obama while Trump was fairly actively his acolyte. The good times were over, American military aid was about to ramp up and the Ukrainian government was no longer as amenable to pressure. In short, Ukraine was about to become much harder to swallow up (if not as easy as the FSB imagined).