dan/california

Ammo issue cuts both ways. It is a different kind of ammo, which is obviously bad, and introduces logistical complications. On the plus side it lets Ukraine draw from modern NATO ammo stocks. Hopefully including PGMs, if you have to ship it all the way across Ukraine in a hurry, you might as well send the good stuff. 

Two related things regarding the the Ukrainians on offense. First, their biggest problem is the air and missile defense they don't have. The Stingers have made close air support too expensive to conduct, but Russian SRBMs and cruise missiles in particular seem to get through, maybe not all the time, but enough of the time. This means the Ukrainians just CAN'T mass for an offensive in a concentrated way. To their credit, they have mostly had the sense not to try.
This leads to my second point, what the Ukrainians are doing on offense is more a form of focused attrition than an attempt to actually seize a given spot by force. Instead the Ukrainians pick a place, either because it is a good spot for them operationally, or a bad spot for the Russians, Like the critical road and bridge junctions northwest of Kyiv, and simply make it too expensive to be there. Eventually the Russians give up and evacuate the spot in question. The question I have not figured out is where it makes sense for the Ukrainians to apply this after Kherson. I am quite sure the very next thing the Ukrainians need to do is drop those two bridges feeding the Russians in Kherson, and then make being on that side of the river unbearable.
Obviously the best thing NATO can do for the Ukrainians is to SOLVE their air defense problem. Patriot/ThAAD batteries operated by "foreign  volunteers" needs to be a thing, YESTERDAY. We also need to give the Ukrainians some level of ~100 mile deep strike capability, so the Russians have to worry about THEIR concentrations at the operational level.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/12/pentagon-ukraine-weapons/?utm_source=reddit.com
I think whatever was left of the don't be too mean to the Russians faction in the Biden Administration has been conclusively routed.

Cześć, Huba! Welcome to the PutinIsSoScrewedGodWeHopeSo thread! 

Some, But especially this time of year any meaningful Russian force is completely road bound due weather/ground conditions. So it just isn't that hard to put blocking forces at all the significant road junctions in case they tried something like that. And the The Ukrainians essentially have interior lines all the way across the current front. So they don't have to move as far to block as the Russians do to attack. Again if the Russians actually thought about that they would just quit and go home.

To some extent they probably do. They seem to utterly lack the command and control capabilities to do much with in real time though. And in the earlier fighting around Kyiv, light infantry dug into an endless suburb with heavy forest cover would be about the hardest thing to see I can think of.

Wow I completely forgot about that. France is dearly protective of their defence industry, it must kill them to be so sidelined in Ukraine due to the election. Once the election ends, I would bet on big-ticket items being offered, the opportunity is just too great to let the U.S or Germany or the U.K to have all the money. Macron of course can't tout it too much, a lot of it will be free (till the war ends) but the long term advantage of securing a Eastern European state for armament sales is going to undoubtedly outweigh any prior Russian sales or other Russian anger.
Plus, while it is important to underscore that Russia is heavily disadvantaged and will lose this war in some factor, national survival being so important a factor in Ukrainian resolve and resistance, it is deeply important to emphasize that Russia's imperialist, colonial mindset in it's population and government will not disappear and die so easily. We saw in the 2nd Chechen War (that Putin made his bones on) Russian humiliation forged into revenge. Yes, Russia is gonna be screwed now, but regime change is impossible from the outside due to nukes, and impossible on the inside due to a somewhat docile population. (No offense to Russians but Maidan, the Orange Revolution illustrates Ukrainian civil society is very strong and active)
Ukraine will continue to maintain a active, upgraded and aware stance towards it's larger neighbor and that entails all the lovely money for Western armament sales. Looks like China will lose out. Ukrainian arms industry will certainly have some good selling points afterwards, I expect the Ukrainian arms industry to flourish in spite of NATO armaments as Ukraine will be undeniably worried about being left alone in a future fight.
Ukrainian civil society is also a deep important factor in Ukrainian civilian resolve and resistance, we now know that the U.S prewar warning that Russia prepped kill lists targeting Ukrainian government, civil society was true, and that decapitating the civil society was just as important as ending the Ukrainian government and destroying it's military.

They also just own Belarus now, and could base from there. In 2014 Lukashenko wasn't just a wholly owned Russian subsidiary.

If you're not versed in Polish internal politics it might sound serious, but it isn't. PiS (the current ruling party) blamed Russia and the then ruling Civic Platform for the crash in Smoleńsk since it happened, before any investigation started, and this conspiracy theory helped it grab the power in 2015.
After PiS came to power, this "special" commission was created as a away to keep the craziest of the leaders of PiS party, Macierewicz, busy so he didn't get in Kaczynskis' way. It existed for 7 years, siphoning money from the budget and at the moment nobody except the most hardcore loons treats it seriously. The commission made a bunch of accusations while producing no evidence whatsoever. The news of it finally finishing work didn't even made it to the headlines very much.
Also, as this is  my first post on this forum: Hello everyone  This thread was recommended to me as concentrated on analysis and not pointless feces throwing, and after reading a large part of it I have to say the the level of insight it provides is really impressive. 

This is, IMO, also the solution to the long range ATGM threat (or at least a key part of it). It's clear that a 2-man AT team with some shoulder-lauched top-attack munitions is going to be hard to spot from the edge of its kill-zone. Drones, inexpensive quadcopter drones with a camera, are the new recon essential. They're ideal to accompany your recon elements to investigate tree lines and defilades and built up areas before you poke your main force's head up over the skyline you currently hold.
By the same token, counterdrone tech is going to be vital for staying alive in that defilade while your recon drones find the AT teams, since the enemy will be wanting to use their expert arty on your waiting heavy elements, spotted by drones of their own.
Information is going to be... emperor of the battlefield: it'll tell arty (king of the battlefield) and infantry (the queen) where it needs to go...

couple items/questions
1. US strategy would have been to first establish Air Supremacy.  That has been noted early on as not necessarily being Russian doctrine.  How much do you think that could alter this equation?  The Russians seem to have pretty much walked in blind and still seem to mostly be stumbling around in the dark.  Even target selection info is ridiculously poor.
2 There seems to have been no attempt to shut down Ukrainian communications networks even before Musk tossed in starlink. (Which honestly I am not even sure how much impact that is having as even here in it's commercial application there have been a lot of complaints).  As you have noted information has been a game changer.  That shouldn't be all that surprising in that we live in the information age of big data and machine learning (did I get all the main buzz words in there?).  Russia however seems to have completely conceded the information war.  Ukraine's advantages aren't just in drones - hell they have a web page for your average Ukrainian to dump info onto.  This is orders of magnitude better than any Afghan or Iraqis insurgent had.  How might this conflict have been affected if Russia had in the opening phase of the war targeted Ukraine's information network. (and managed to have a usable secure comms network for their own troops)
3 Boots on the ground? This is kind of the big one that seems to be gotten wrong most of the time.  The political/strategic reasons for actually putting ground forces in is typically flawed from the start.  We (the US) have made this error several times now.  Unrealistic plans for what we hope to achieve (Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan), an unrealistic appraisal of the social political forces in a country (Vietnam) are just a few examples.  Information proliferation is only going to get worse as is disinformation.  How do we get better at deciding NOT putting boots on the ground is the smarter option? Russia's decision to invade Ukraine has clearly been ridiculously flawed, but what it does show is what an unwelcome invading force will face.  NATO being a defense-oriented alliance normally should be on the favorable side of that information advantage. but invoking article 5 for Afghanistan kind of threw that advantage out the window.
 

It is the irritating super cut up style video, but it looks like what is says it is. Russian ISR and infantry situation have to improve if they want to even attempt to stay in this war. 

It is the irritating super cut up style video, but it looks like what is says it is. Russian ISR and infantry situation have to improve if they want to even attempt to stay in this war. 

It is the irritating super cut up style video, but it looks like what is says it is. Russian ISR and infantry situation have to improve if they want to even attempt to stay in this war. 

I sure did. And not just for humanitarian aid...
I don't even know if this is exactly legal in my country, but so far, no one has complained. 😄

I'm personally avoiding looking for UA offensives that are equivalent in type/look to RUS attacks.
To use a very silly metaphor, UA are very careful in their attacks, constantly eating with Smaller Wolf Bites, versus the RUS attempts at Great Big Bear Chomps. 
The Bear Chomps can do great damage if they connect, but they haven't (Kherson aside).
So they go all in RAWR, FULL BODY ASSAULT and...yet not equivalent damage for the amount of force put in. UA wolf is still there, still got both eyes, still got teeth.
UA bites are smaller but no less vicious. Plus they're going for the extremities, the eyes, the ears, the genitals. Absolutely no point going for the Russian body, it's mass.
Now with Donbass they're going RAWR all over again - but now theres two Wolves.
And they can bloody talk.
The UA not doing the same as RUS is a good thing. That's why they've won so far.
If they had done equivalent RUS defence in Wk 1, Zelensky would be a POW and Russia's border would be the Dniper.

It is not my "only" take but it is the most prominent one that is in my mind.  @Battlefront.com and @Combatintman have described both the differences between Russian BTG and Western BGs, which has to do with the framework under which they operate, along with qualitative internal aspects.  Further, the one major sin that I have not seen mentioned is the lack on ISR sharing between BTGs, normally done in a centralized ASIC (or pick your name) at the Brigade/formation level.  This means that each BTG is likely only seeing their world in a small patch in front of them.
Ok, I think we got it: Russian's suck.
My issue with this is that we have seen multiple assessments on this all over the place (no fault on you personally for posting, my frustration is with the mainstream military analysis) to the point they have become a self-reinforcing echo chamber in the making, all designed to explain why the Russians have failed, and likely will continue to fail.  Why this is dangerous:
- It creates a very convenient narrative that what we are seeing is "all on Russia doing it wrong".  There is truth here, do not misunderstand me on that point; however, it completely misses the fact that the Ukrainian's made the Russians do it more wrong. 
- By limiting the analysis and assessment to how poorly the Russian tactical and operational forces are not doing, we are risking the creation of a schadenfreude bubble that conveniently pins the phenomena we are seeing all on the Russians while risking some potentially incredibly significant implications on what the Ukrainian defenders are doing.  
- Further this sets us up to a post-slide into "well of course the Ukrainians won, we trained and equipped them".  This further sets us up to feel really good about this whole thing and avoid confronting "what really may have happened". 
We have seen this sort of effect repeatedly in the past.  The US Civil War, particularly towards the back end saw the mergence of trench warfare as more modern weaponry made manoeuvre much harder, particularly for cavalry.  European observers went "well, sure but these are backward colonials who are doing it wrong."  Then again during the Boer war with smokeless long range Mausers chopping up British (and Canadian) formations at range - "well those are rabble, who lost in the end".  WW1 Austro-Hungarian complete failures - blame the ethnics in the ranks....the list goes on.  
So What Happened?
  I am not sure and will likely spend a fair amount of time over the next decade trying to figure it out but there are some alarming trends that western militaries cannot avoid:
- Russian had the mass, Ukraine did not.  Not saying the conventional UA sat out the first phase of this war but a 1300km frontage was largely defended by a hybrid force built on a foundation of irregulars...and it just butchered Russian mass.  To the point of operational collapse.  The Russians had knives, Ukraine had pillows, and Ukraine won; this is not small.
- The Ukrainians appear to have done something to friction and might not even realize it.  Through a combination of information superiority - built largely on civilian infrastructure no less, and a shift in weapons effects, they were able to hit the entire length of the Russian forces, all the way back to the SLOC nodes.  All of this using a lot of unmanned, which we have discussed.  More to the point, they appear to have projected friction onto the Russian forces (already brittle for reasons presented) to the point that the Russians collapsed under their own weight. 
- Russian concepts of mass are not that different from our own.  We still rely on roughly the same organizational concepts.  We call them "tactically self-sufficient units", Battlegroups etc.  And yes they are set up differently, but I am not sure that would have made a difference, our tanks need gas too (and gawd help us if the RedBull supply is cut).  But we have pursued Adaptive Dispersed Operations at the tactical level as well (awkward crickets) - "oh but we would do it right" - would we?  Our LOCs are just as long as the Russians, our armour just as vulnerable and out combined arms concepts not too far distant.   "Well the Russians didn't know what to do with their infantry...we do".  Ok, so our Battlegroups do not have that much more infantry than a BTG and those Javelin systems really mean that your BG screen now needs to sweep every bush and henhouse out to 4000m(!) along the BG frontage or you are going to be trading burning vehicles for every km you advance.  Surprise is pretty much dead.  Unmanned is likely going to be everywhere...the list goes on.  This is not another "tanks are dead" issue, it is "is mass as we know it dead?" issue.
- Information.  There will be new fields of study created in military education based on this war on what just happened with respect to information in this war, from tactical-to-political.  If I had to pick one factor that tries to explain a lot of this it is information. The implications are, again significant, to say the least.
And all of this is based on what already happened.  The Russians and UA can redo Kursk down in the SE, and I am sure many in the west will go "well there is the war we know and love" but shocking stuff has already occurred in the first 45 days we cannot un-see.  
I get these are early days but I see an "easy out" bubble forming, and it is dangerous in more ways than most understand. That is what I took away from that thread.
  

Romanivka was not captured by Russian troops. Throughout the battle for Kyiv, a humanitarian corridor was organized there, which allowed the evacuation of civilians from Irpin Bucha and Gostomel. I myself evacuated along this route on 03/05/22, when the Russians entered Irpin and street fighting began. This route was under heavy artillery fire for about 3 weeks.

Most of Kherson is on the west side of the Dnipro River. If the Ukrainians could drop what looks like the one bridge that connects Kherson to the east side it seems to me that several Russian battle groups would be in a world of hurt very quickly.
At the same time I would mass whatever I free up now that the pressure is off Kyiv, and just try roll up the Russian line from the north.

NATO just needs get in this this, ALL THE WAY. START killing every Russian Vehicle in Ukraine, and spare few cruise missiles for the Presidential palace in Minsk. Lukashenko has his own bill to pay.

Maybe they’re off looking for washing machines and little boys and girls.

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Just found this.

Someone is doing their job on the higher level intel/political side. I know I am a broken record on this, but a successful rebellion in Belarus turns a grinding defeat of Russia into a complete rout. It totally changes what a post war settlement look like, too. This needs every possible lever pulled.
 
 

Just found this.