DavidFields

Full territorial integrity...including Crimea.
Russian (and Belorussian) military units at least ~25 miles on the far side of their borders. Reparations. 
Then, after 2-5 years of "good behavior", signed off by Ukraine, international sanctions can be lifted.
(Yeah, I'm in a dream world.)

Mariupol is in ruins and I regret I never had the chance to visit south coast of Ukraine. The greek community there dates from the ancient times, and expanded after the fall of Constantinople and Byzantium from people that fled the ottoman purges. So much history lost in a few weeks, so sad. I wonder how trapped people there can still cope with no water, food or heating. The greek consul there was the last EU diplomat to leave Ukraine, and he compared Mariupol to cities that were wiped out from war, like Guernica, Aleppo Grozny, Stalingrad...

So this was from this board on 26 Feb:
"Overall Summary:  As of the first 72 hours of the war, it appears that the Russian military has overestimated its own capabilities and/or the capabilities of Ukrainian resistance and has not likely met the timelines it had set during pre-war planning.  The assessment is that the next 24-48 hours will be critical in the outcome of this war and if Russian forces are not about to take Kyiv and inflict some serious damage to the Ukrainian people's will, their own strategic center of gravity will become more vulnerable. "
That was 2 days into the entire thing.
Since then we have heard a lot of pundits and retired military folks try and wrestle with this whole thing.  I am not surprised formal DOD, MOD assessments are showing what they are to be honest because pretty much from the start of the this war just about everyone has been using macro-quantitative calculus to try and predict/model what has been going on. 
On a CNN video just a few days ago Gen Petraeus was describing the situation in Mariupol and why it matters.   He did a pretty good job describing the drive for a "land-bridge" between Crimea and the Donbas and why the Russians are trying so hard in this area.  Then he slipped right into the old macro-quantitative thinking.  He outlined how once Mariupol was taken it would free up Russian forces to advance north and cut off great swaths of Ukrainian in the East.  I have seen various predictions of Russian "pincer moves" and the like.  This all makes perfect sense if one is applying conventional warfare metrics, all largely based on macro-quantitative calculus of force sizes/ratios and combat power.
What they are missing, and frankly it is not surprising to see it emerge on a wargaming board, is a view through a lens of micro-qualitative calculus; playing CM, in all its versions, has changed the way we see warfare.   All CM veterans see the signs of something different at a micro-level: abandoned vehicles, loss of high value assets, loss of high level commanders, videos of embarrassing Russian cluster-f#cks and evidence of UA successes just about everywhere.  A lot of these metrics are qualitative and when combined with the macro-quantitative they create a very different picture. 
Social media has allowed us to see a macro - micro-qualitative view as well; we can basically upscale our micro-view through very wide sampling.  By doing this, a lot of us have noted that the texture of this war is looking very different.  It is one, for the Russians, of extreme friction caused by the UA approach.  The Russians are fighting in an operational tar pit, the entire battlespace is sticky for them.  Some of this is by their own shortfalls, while in many places it is by design by the defending forces. I do not know who the military master-mind is on the Ukrainian side but he has clearly been reading about Finland, Giap and the Comanches.  The UA has not only stopped the Russian military, they changed the fabric of the battlespace for them.
This thing is not over yet and will likely continue to evolve.  I am not entirely onboard with the Russian collapse scenario, but we are literally a couple key indicators away.

So I think we are at the point that we can call it, I think the Russian strategic Offensive Phase of this war is pretty much at an end.  We went from Quick War, to Siege/Grinding War, to what is looking more like Balkan War as Russian forces appear to be 1) pulling back and consolidating and, 2) trying to assert control in the areas they do "control".  This does not mean we won't see offensive action at the tactical scale, in fact I suspect the Russians will burn assets and troops trying to take Mariupole and any other hub they can; however, the big red sweeps are likely over, at least for now.
So what happens next?  Or maybe what could happen next? 
- Strategic Pause.  The Russians almost look like they are trying to conduct a strategic pause, which is in effect and attempt to re-mobilize within political constraints/restraints.  Stories of troops being pulled in from the east and weird "contracts" are a possible sign that Russia is trying for a major re-org/re-boot before they would likely double down on Plan A.  Given how badly they have been chewed up this theory is not too far out there.  If Russia goes this way, it means they think they can sustain the war for months into the summer and make another run at Putin's Dream.  They will need to re-stock a lot of equipment and ammunition so there should be signals in strategic Russian production and pulling out of war stocks.  On the pers side we might see some sort of rumors of a Russian version of "stop-loss" as they start playing fast and loose with military contracts.  I don't think Putin has the backing to go full national mobilization (or he would have likely already done it), so this will be "as much as we can and still be able to call this a 'special operation' nonsense".
- Grab, Hold, Bargain.  More likely, but not exclusive of the Strategic Pause theory is that Russians are going to try to dig in and hold onto as much leverage as they can in order to shore up their position at the negotiating table.  This will likely see lots of medieval stuff to terrorize the UKR government into concessions.  We saw exactly the same ploys in the Bosnian War with Sarajevo (and Mariupole is starting to look worse than that).  The question will be how long this takes but it cedes the pressure back onto the UKR government in a typical extortionist/domestic abusers argument of "it is your own fault that I have to beat you". 
- Last Gasp.  Another option, and one I know favored by Steve, is that this is the beginning of the end for the Russian military in Ukraine.  What we are seeing is a lot of "scrambling for success" a the lower levels so that they can say "we did our part" while the higher levels are no doubt thinking about "alternative options".  The test as whether this is collapse or simply digging in will be how well the Russians can hold up to inevitable UA counter attacks.
So Whats?
    First off the Russian military has an enormous defensive problem, entirely of their own making.  By my rough measurements, by attacking along 4-5 separate operational axis of advance in an attempt to take the whole eastern part of the country, they now have a frontage of roughly 1400km+ to try and "defend".  That is roughly three times as long as the entire Western Front in WW1.  To make any areas they control even close to airtight, they are going to need hundreds of thousands of troops to do it.  Troops I am not sure they have, nor can equip, let alone conduct C2 for at this point.  If Russia is serious about Grab, Hold Bargain, they may have to simply wholesale abandon some axis and gains likely in the East in order to be able to create credible defensives and pressures.  We do know the UA has troops all along those 1300km frontage, they are either regular, hybrid, or resistance/territorial defence.  They know the ground intimately and are continuing to see a steady flow of weapons in from the west.  How the UA counter-offensive goes will be key to determining the actual situation of Russian forces.
    Second, without making the areas they defend "airtight" they will continue to be plagued by attacks along their LOCs.  The Russians might try to make ironclad support corridors but given the ranges of the UKR weapons systems this is a huge undertaking of interlinked strong points just to get the supplies to some sort of front.  This will make the logistics problem worse.  That, and defence still puts a lot of strain on logistical systems, but in different ways.  Ammunition, not gas becomes the central issue.  Field defence stores and landmines take a lot of truck space, so we should be seeing more of that, along with of course artillery and other ammunition.  That and now Russia needs a lot more manpower, which all need a lot more pers-based supplies such as food, water, clothing, sanitation (unless you want General Disease getting into the game) and medical.
    Third, C4ISR in the defensive is a bit of a nightmare.  Whereas in the offence you can prioritize your main efforts, in the defence you have to be able to see and coordinate fires everywhere at the same time.  Doing that along a 1300km frontage is...well, simply insane but hey here we are.  The UA, did a pretty good job of it but it was their ground, they had the HUMINT going their way, and very likely buckets of ISR feeds from the west.  The Russian architecture has not demonstrated they are set up for this.  Further, this is contested airspace so one cannot simply dig in and sit, they are going to have to keep high value assets moving, like artillery, all the time or it will get tagged and hit quickly.  This will mean that Russians will need to employ a dynamic manoeuvre defence, much like the UA did, and I am not seeing that within the Russian repertoire.
    The UA counter-offensive will be key.  I suspect they will stick with the game that has carried them this far and simply cut up Russian rear areas to isolate and then chop up slices piecemeal to keep making gains.  Their hybrid "sharp mass" has been extremely effective in the defence, we will see how it does in the offense but I give them good odds to be honest.  
   If the Russians can do a full Strategic re-set, a big ask, then we could see a Round 2 Offensive Phase of this thing but the odds of it success get worse everyday as the UA "beginners" are becoming veterans very widely.  Further they are likely refining C4ISR building on their successes and more and more lethal aid is pouring in from the west.  If the Russians cannot get back up and moving before that $800M from the US shows up, well they too deserve what happens next.   
   To be honest, if someone tasked me with shooting for a Russian Strategic re-set, I would tell them it is going to take years because whatever they came with in this "come as you are war" was a failure and we are talking about deep military reforms and training in order to re-build a force that could actually pull off what the aspiration of this thing.  In fact you might need to invent a military that does not exist on this planet.  In '03 the US had to advance roughly 500kms to Bagdad and they owned the sky and the sea, had set operational pre-conditions, massive C4ISR overmatch, and have some of the best military logistical systems on the planet.  It took the US 3 weeks to take Bagdad and they were fighting a eroded and beaten Iraqi military that had zero outside support.  The US did not try a 4-5 axis grab along a 1300km frontage because the military planners knew it was impossible with what they had, which was 2-3 times what the Russians brought to this fight (466K, over 500k with allies).  And, politics completely aside, Iraq '03 was not well thought of and still is not well thought of in professional military circles as it failed to secure the gains and led to a multi-year insurgency.  
   So as we proceed on this journey, I am wracking my brain to make a list of the "Dumbest Wars in History" but this one has to be on it and moving upwards rapidly.
 
 

As I noted earlier in this thread, analyses of the long war possibilities tend to be woefully lacking in taking into account the economic dimensions Russia is facing. It's partly understandable because Putin has been quite adept at maintaining and using frozen conflicts to pursue his agenda and observers are still somewhat mesmerized by the experience. This time, the pressures are going to be quite extraordinarily different I and personally doubt that Ukraine's ability to fight the war runs out before Moscow's does.

If a) is correct then why did they not use them before now?

Leaves you with b) as the most reasonable answer, given all the other indications that Russian combat power is on the backfoot and there appears to have been a dramatic fall in use of Kalibr missiles. But "running out of everything else" also critically includes IDEAS.

In addition there are plenty of political indications that Putin knows full well that the special operation is not working out, and there could be all kinds of other ramifications coming down the track if it's not over soon. As posted by Steve:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/17/putin-russia-state-tv-news-00018304

And to underscore the point quoted from the article:
 

I think so. Having access to Ukrainian airspace shouldn't even be a question 24 days into an offensive campaign, so if the aim here is posturing (and it probably is, in some manner), then this is presumably an expensive and extreme way to do that.

Whether that posturing is "we can get into your airspace", "look at our advanced kit" or even "imagine this was carrying an NBC warhead" - any of those options are pretty desperate.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-planned-taiwan-invasion-fall-alleged-russian-intel-leak-claims-1688449
Apparently Xi and Putin were thinking about a one two punch to put the West out of business.  The minute the Ukrainians run out of Russian vehicles to kill we need to start pumping them into Taiwan at at least same rate. Actually we need to help the Taiwanese set up their own production lines. Twenty thousand Javelins, and ten thousand stingers and the island is just not getting conqured . A bunch of the bigger vehicle mounted stuff too obviously.

Even with an official peace you might still have Ukrainians in the “occupied territories” willing to carry out an insurgency with support of Ukrainians in unoccupied Ukraine for some time. Just because the State negotiations a ceasefire to the war doesn’t mean local Ukrainian patriots can’t source an RPG and AK to continue the war on their own terms.

Yes, but it was never about NATO expanding east, it was countries that happened to be east of the NATO group of the time that felt threatened by a future Russia and wanting to join.
There's no reason to join a defensive organisation unless you distrust your neighbour  - and given Russian behaviour, they weren't wrong to want to join.
Do you really think that Russia wouldn't be bullying the Baltics just as in Georgia, Moldova etc. if those countries had stayed out of NATO ?

Except that if Baltic states weren't in NATO he'd probably be picking them off one at a time right now and tackling Ukraine later.  The reality is that Putin is a threat to the freedom and sovereignity of former USSR nations (and others) and the only thing keeping him on any kind of leash was fear of NATO article 5.  Like w Hitler, he pushed and got away with it, did it again, and again, and so decided he was a genius and west was weak.  Ooopsy.

+1

I will leave it to Steve and BFCElvis to determine what is, or is not, acceptable on their own forum. 
I can only judge Col (or is it LCol?) Macgregor on what he presented, which was "different" to say the least.  His assessment that "Russia has already won" is definitely contrary to most mainstream military assessment, or media for that matter.  However, Col M argues that Ukrainians are "cut off" and "in cauldrons", near a total collapse tipping point.  Further he argues that the Ukrainians are only capable of "pin pricks" against the Russian offensive.   His noted reason for the slow Russian advance is based on strict ROEs from Putin to "avoid/limit damaging Ukraine" as much as possible, so humanitarian bascially .
So, ok, that is one point of view.  I am left wondering where Col M is getting his information to build this picture because it clearly does not match what we have been seeing - the "so what?" here is that clearly either he is very wrong or mainstream analysis/assessment is very wrong, not a lot of middle ground here.  Thoughts:
- We have a very bad habit of "lack of accountability" for what gets said on the internet.  Once the smoke clears on all this I can only hope that credibility of sources are held to account (faint hope).  We have politicians who have said things, pundits who have said things and that needs to be remembered and assessed after this is over.  If Col M is correct, or even just mostly correct, then we clearly missed some big signs or were totally taken astray, and by "we" I mean just about every mainstream venue.
-  Based on what we have seen on social media, a steady stream of open source information, Col M's thesis appears the total opposite to observation.  If this is all "fake news", then it merits as one of the largest and most thorough disinformation campaigns in human history.  If the Ukrainians, who are according to Col M on their last legs, have managed to create enough "fakes" to show over 1500 lost Russian vehicles, and Russian damage to civilian centers rivalling the invasion of Poland, this is an incredible feat of information warfare and I am talking one that dwarfs Chinese capability.  There is "fake news" and then there is mountains of "fake news".
- If Col Ms assessment of Russians adhering to strict ROEs to the point that they have delayed operational advances to the amount we have seen, then the Russian military is likely be best disciplined military force in human history.  They have literally violated almost every doctrinal principle of warfare in order to meet the demands of the political level.  For a professional military, in the middle of a major invasion, to delay offensive action - particularly against an opponent on their last legs - is one of the most breathtaking displays of military discipline I have ever heard of.  The military risks associated with doing this are extreme, not the least of which is allowing time and space for a western-backed resistance to arm and organize.  Many Russian soldiers will die because of this "restraint".  Problem here is that the Russian military does not appear well disciplined; egregious attacks on civilians, videos of looting, abandoned vehicles, radio intercepts and "lost" PWs point the exact opposite way - unless of course this is also "fake news", and we are back to "how the hell did the Ukrainians pull that off?!".
So these are just a few of Col Ms points that I walked away with and I gotta say that if he is correct well we know that this has been a war changing use of information warfare on the part of the Ukrainians, and the Russian military is nearing Spartan levels of control and discipline.  However, I have to quote Carl Sagan here "the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness" and one retired Col's "say so" is not enough to go on.
Finally as to "why Ukraine matters?"  Well I am not going to get drawn into a country-specific political debate; however, the simple reasons are 1) it is inhumane; however that is a little to "hippy dippy" for some, 2) there is no more "over there" in a globalized world and 3) Russia has fundamentally challenged the global system that has made all of us in the west, rich, powerful, entitled and frankly "dumb and lazy". 
Let's explore that last one.
The global system that our grandparents/great-grandparents fought and died for and despite all its inequities -there are many- it resulted in massive and persistent stability (crazy but true) and economic, population and technological growth orders of magnitude higher and faster than any point in human history.  This did not happen because a god(s) in heaven ordained it, or weird racial theories that still float out there, it happened because we built it and defended it.  Russia's actions in Ukraine are a threat to security because they challenge that system, they got out of line and they are (or at least were) a global power.  Such actions do nothing for all that stability I mentioned, in fact they act as a global disruptor, and that is definitely a threat to us all.  If anyone is too ignorant or thinks this is some sort of political leverage issue, they frankly deserve what happens next if we let this slide. And what happens next is a new global order being written by someone else while we most likely stand around and blame each other for it.
 
 

LOL well you have 265 pages to go and not to blow the ending for ya, but almost everything you said is wrong.  But keep reading lots of good stuff in there.

How about start thinking?

Think again.

Why would they not ensure air superiority?
Why would they ensure information/comms superiority?
Why does Ukraine still have a functioning C2 structure?
Why would they not ensure logistical superiority?
Why would they not cut off Western Ukraine from western support as a priority?
This and a whole lotta other operational pre-conditions....?
 

John, take a hint - you are derailing this topic with these unhinged rants of yours. Either take it to PMs or better, just zip it already. You aren't contributing anything to the conversation.

Did you read the article? He goes on how the UA is done,  a bunch surrounded and will probably surrender soon and they are only able to do "pin pricks" to the RA. Then he goes on how everything is going according to plan and the reason the RA is making such slow progress is they are trying to not cause civilian casualties. I don't think there was a single thing he said that coincides with what we have seen in the video evidence just here in this thread. And of course he hammers Washington and hints to all this being NATO's fault.
So a simple google search on the Colonel shows that he has been on RUSSIAN TV multiple times. Starting back during Kosovo where he was against the west interfering in the area and then in 2014 saying that Russia should be able to take any parts of Ukraine it wants. 
Seems like an unbiased analyst that is only presenting the facts with no political agenda. (Yes, this sentence is highly sarcastic.) I wonder what his salary in rubbles is??

They have fought like Spartans but smarter. Just saw a credible report that the French Foreign Ministry thinks the Russians are not negotiating seriously. I wonder if Putin's on generals know that, I wonder if the colonels do. Because the upper midlevel command on the ground must have pretty good idea how badly they NEED to be negotiating. The four dead generals and twenty odd other senior officers being exhibit A. the Ukrainians need to start putting it out there that the first couple of senior officers to surrender their whole units get an apartment in Brazil, a Ukrainian passport, and some cash.

yeah I know and I only picked your post as it was the last one that mentioned it.  it wasn't really specifically directed at you.  Sorry.  😬   I just wanted to tackle the point that we don't necessarily need the UA map and all the UKR videos to know with certainty that Russia's plan went out the window .. like within the first day or two.
I don't know what the current plan is and sadly for them, I don't think the Russians do either.  They didn't include a plan B.  Incredible as it might sound, they went with the most over the top ridiculously optimistic scenario and just said, meh we don't need an alternate.  Within all the other dumb a55 things they have done, that has to rank right about near the top.  Now they are stuck.  UKR is in control of the negotiations whether Putin wants to recognize it or not.  There is a lot of talk in the West about giving Russia an off ramp.  I don't hear that coming from the Ukrainians.  I think more or less that is Kraze's position.  The only off ramp he wants to hear about is one that leads to hell for Russia.  can't say I blame him.

Can you imagine the pressure Zelensky is under. He is 96% percent sure he is winning, but he can't be sure how many days/weeks it will take to actually win. Everyone of those days probably cost a thousand civilian lives with 100 of them children, every day is at least another 100,000 refugees, and, and...  And he soldiers on acting like a sane person. If He has made bad call since the Russian tanks rolled I don't know what it was. Just incredible!

Very astute.

I think it's important for him diplomatically and politically to signal that he is open to negotiations. Whether he really is, I don't know.

Heard this multiple times here and elsewhere so I think it is time for us to have a Pause talk.  We pretty much know the Russians have pretty much halted operational level offensives and are stalled, that is all over the place and even mainstream media has picked it up.  So the theories on what is happening to the Russian forces now are roughly assembling around 3 possibilities:
- Stopped, cannot start so digging in for a long haul, which will see broad operational defensive operations with limited tactical offensive actions designed to terrorize the population.
- Stopped, will never re-start and are heading towards total collapse.
- Stopped, conducting an operational pause to consolidate/re-org before re-starting the massive offensive to surround major cities and begin the Russian Grind strategy. 
I am going to leave off the first two and focus on that third one.  A military war machine is a really big system built in layers, we do this for both C2/span of control and sustainment reasons.  Normally a modern military will lay itself out in echelons of some shape or size in depth, the Soviets had a really organized system for this, the Wests was a bit more fluid but we all are set up to fight in what are essentially structures waves since the Roman legions (somebody google the opening of the HBO Rome series and you can see it in action).
For arguments sake let's go with the rule of three and say the Russians are setup in three tactical layers (the West kind of does it as well with "2 up, 1 back and the last one as "Reserve", bit more of a pyramid scheme).  The first tactical layer will be given main objectives and then some stretch ones, unless they are using mission-command then it gets a bit more opportunistic, but the concept is the same; whistle blows first wave into the breach. 
That echelon/wave is expected to be able to fight for a certain period of time based on a lot of factors like attrition, distance, logistical consumption; however, the old rule is that in human based systems you can get about 72-96 hours of action (i.e. little to no sleep) before people start to break down ("beware the 5th day" by Moltke (I think)).  So that first wave can theoretically do up to 4 days of intense action before it needs to be relieved by the second wave.  This can change based on conditions but it is important to understand that it can get shorter but not longer because we are still fighting with human beings as the basis of the system.  So no matter how tough the guys might think they are, or how many chin ups they can do, after 4 days without sleep their brains start to shut down (trust me, been there and done it).
Then the second wave is supposed to conduct some sort of passage of lines and process continues for another 72-96, and then the third wave (if you have one).  While the second and third are doing their thing the first wave is supposed to be going through a tactical consolidation which include resupply/reinforcements/replacements and reorganization.  This is also when things like vehicle and weapons systems maintenance happens because vehicles will break down like people.
Now that whole system, which for arguments sake we can call the "operational system" is designed to be able to keep this up for weeks to months.  However after a certain amount of time all the losses and wear & tear start to add up and you need...wait for it...an operational pause.  [Aside: eventually, all these operational pauses add up and you see a strategic pause but that can take much longer].  This pause is basically an entire system overhaul to do all sorts of things that look like refitting a ship.  Replacements, rotations and re-organization of tactical units.  Planning and boring stuff like orders.  A lot of logistical and ISR scene setting for the next phase, and lastly...don't let your opponent know you are doing an operational pause until it is over.  So you will still see tactical action such as feints, tactical offensives but with short small gains - more jabs than actual punches - are often employed to try and make it hard for an opponent to figure out that you are in fact pausing...why?  We will come back to that.
Ok, so how does that apply to the current situation.  Let's accept that this is an operational pause for a moment and the big nasty Russian Bear is just cleaning the blood out of its fur before going back to ravaging Ukrainian bunnies.  Well first off it was not a planned pause, it happened too quickly.  Based on the big maps and overall tempo, it appears like the Russians were really advancing hard for the first 3-4 days.  We did see a likely echelon flip on the next 3-4 days as they pushed depth forward but by about day 10 of this thing everyone was starting to notice that the big red blotches on the map had stopped moving.  So let's give the Russian the benefit of the doubt and say they actually managed to use all three echelons effectively, well what likely did not happen was that 1st wave reloaded while waves 2 and 3 continued.  Remember formations are designed to be able to do this for weeks and out to months if the situation allows. So having the whole operational system come to a stop in 10 days is a very good indication that this was not in the plan.
10 days into this war was 5 March, a week and half ago.  Even the most uninformed journalist (and here I cast a baleful eye at our own CBC because it is harder to find a more uninformed bunch when it comes to warfare) is getting the drift that the Russians are not moving.  Now remember when I said "don't let your opponent know you are pausing"?  The reason for this is that you do not what them to try and grab the operational initiative, it is bad if they do because you are now on the defensive pretty much by definition.  Now if you plan for this, you can do all sorts of clever things like pull you opponent into over reaching etc, not sure I see a masterful design on the Russian side here.  But the UA has shown more offensive actions and c-attacks.  We have all been talking about a big UA operational strike, not sure if it will happen but the Russians are leaving the door open to one because of this pregnant operational pause. 
So to summarize, the Russian operational pause: 1) came much earlier than it should have, why?, 2) has lasted the length of an Old Testament reading in modern warfare timelines, and 3) is handing initiative over to their opponent.
So what?  Well if this is a Russian operational pause (at this rate, and with rumors of those other 40 BTGs it could be strategic) it is not a good one.  The conditions that led to that are very likely really poor pre-planning, ample evidence of that, and systemic failures that happened very quickly.  This speaks to a brittle operational system that they are having to almost re-tool from the ground up.  I have serious doubts that the Russians, who have lost some of their best troops, can come out of this as a new "super-force" able to mass joint effects and cut through the UA in days.  The types of planning and quality organization/preparations, from logistics to C4ISR, that a military force needs to do in order to pull off what the Russians are attempting takes years to prepare and build.
So if this is an operational pause, it is probably a master class in "how not to do this" and I doubt it will solve much for the Russian forces who are now coming up on two weeks of time they have given their opponent to prepare, supply and continue to hit them as they are pausing.