rocketman

And proper supporting equipment is even more important than the actual manpower. If Russia is out of jammers, out of artillery that put a round within a kilometer of the aim point, and out of counter-battery radar, heavily manned trenches just run up the casualty count. I still think Ukraine has gotten it more right than wrong, concentrating to soon and to obviously just lets the the Russians concentrate as well.
I will also point out that Ukraine and the U.S. have run at least one first class info op about how the Ukrainians were going to attack in this one place, and only this one place...

Another note re logistics -  in response to HIMARS et al Russia's has dispersed and atomised its supply. No large convoys,  just 1-2 trucks,  in relays,  fast moving, short drop off/load up. 
This is fine when the front is slow but if it kicks off into a sudden surge throughput then RuA logistics could suddenly start failing in cascade because its not able to concentrate sufficient quantities in short enough time, and when it tries to it gets HIMARS up the wazoo. 
UKR strikes have deformed local RUS logistics into a weird, situation specific  and reactive shape, away from an organizationally deep and somewhat operationally sound form. This has created a seemingly flexible approach but it possibly has no sustained surge capacity if the front is suddenly over matched. 
I don't think UKR will be able to out run RUS logs but overwhelm it with a widespread demand it cannot meet. 
I wonder how this would manifest... 

It's interesting how of us have mentioned the possibility of a second Wagner rebellion - we've all just assumed that minus Prigozhin & Utkin Wagner is impotent/directionless. Perhaps Putin made the same assumptions. 
But per @sburke it might not be. Perhaps Prigozhin's implanted ideology has a life of its own... 
Wouldn't that be a poison pill par excellence...
 

They sure do, and they rewrite them every few years.

WOW ! 
UKR GUR forces has landed on Tarkhankut cape in Crimea and reportedly destroyed long-range radars of 3rd radiotechnical regiment of Air-Space Forces near Mayak village. About this told press-secreter of GUR Andriy Yusov. Ukr forces used boats and aviation for support. In present time clashes are continuing
 
Local Russian TG claims "10 UKR diversants on two boats approached to camping of tourists and shelled it with firearms, then retreated. Tourists heard sounds of presumably RPG shooting at 3:50 of morning and came out to see what's going on"

Russian milblogger writes:
Nobody was eliminated. UKR diversion group withdrew without losses. 

Russian TG VChK-OGPU claims Prigozhyn urgenty left Africa and arrived to Moscow, because he found out that the deputy chief  - chief of special activity department of GU GSh (former GRU)  Andrey Averyanov begins to implement the plan of substitution of PMC Wagner forces in Africa for "African Army Corps" in 20 000 men, which should be enlisted soon and start training. Prigozhyn tried to interfere these plans. Averyanov is known as author of such operations like Solsberry poisoning, explosions on Vrbetitse ammo dump in Czech Republic, poisining of Bulgarian weapon trader Yemelyan Gebriev. 

Western Crimea, Tarkhankut cape. Olenivka (rus. Yelenovka). No information to this time what's happened.

 

Yea, I think its easy to view the land bridge as a particularly large piece of land but it doesn't take that much to start to cut it by fire. Which I think speaks to the reason for the Russians defending forward so much. Currently they can still traverse the area by rail and can house supply in a fairly concentrated manner throughout the length of the land bridge. But its only a matter of 25-30km for that to no longer be true.

Once Ukraine achieves that the bridge comes under fire of the relatively more numerous HIMARS (compared to Storm Shadow or other options). The marshaling yards at Melitopol come under fire. Even more weight will be placed on Russia's truck fleet. And Ukraine opens up its strategic options.
 
I might be getting too "lines on a map" but compare the option Ukraine had to what it could have if it took Tokmak and solidified lines along natural boundaries. This presumes a certain amount of Russian abandonment of nearby areas as Ukraine gets closer to Tokmak. But Ukraine goes from essentially having a set of "into the teeth" options to being able to put Russia into a defensive dilemma.

Next UKR drone attack on Russian airfield of strategic bombers. Russin TG claims Shaikovka airfield in Kaluga oblast was attacked by the drone and allegedly one "unused" plane was damaged.  Shaikovka is a base of 52nd heavy bomber regiment, armed with Tu-22M3 planes. Resently governor of Kaluga oblast told an UAV attack was repelled.
Later UKR GUR confirmed attack and damaging of one aircraft. "There were people, who in coordinatin with GUR came from central Russia, have worked out and returned back. Like and in other сases GUR continues to execute tasks, i.e. on the territory of agressor state" - commented GUR representateive Andriy Yusov
 

The failure of the moon mission might not get much attention in the west, but in russian circles it will be seen as a major defeat for Putin and his circle and a humiliation for russia.  Russians believe that the prowess in space is the leading indicator of their scientific advancement and ability to exceed the west.  Now it is revealed that Putin is not able to do what the soviets achieved in 1976.  This is as big a blow as losing another town in occupied Ukraine.  The Tsar is wearing no clothes.

It's claimed Russian Tu-22M3 bomber in fire after yesterday attack on Soltsy-2 airfield in 680 km north from Ukriane.


 

Swedes for the win!

More about how drones with thermal camera can help to detect minefields in hot summer
 

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

Amusing.
Last year people in this thread were saying exactly the same thing "lol, silly Russians. The Ukrainians will blow past that in a day." And yet, 11 months later, here we are.
I assume that even the Russians are professional enough to recognise that ditches across open paddocks aren't the only element of a defence line they are going to need. The funny thing about ditches under tree cover is that they're not very photogenic.
The tricky aspect of photographic analysis is interpreting what you can't see from the things you can. The Luftwaffe radar installation at Bruneval, for instance, was first identified because of long grass of all things. The Germans had ringed the site with barbed wire because they were worried about a ground attack or raid, or randos wandered up and having a butchers. The problem with barbed wire is that it's really hard to mow the grass in and around it, so over the course of six months or so a distinctive ring of tall grass sprouted up in the middle of an otherwise nondescript paddock in front of the manor house. "Now why would that happen" the British photo interpreters asked themselves, and working from there - and combining their suspicions with other intelligence threads - realised that they'd found a Würzburg , which led to Op BITING.
IIRC, a similar process was used to delimit the boundaries a number of the minefields in Normandy before D-Day.
Interpreting what you can't see based on what you can is also one of the reasons so much effort is put into studying enemy doctrine.
So, putting all that together, and relating it to 2023: we can see ditches. Great, in themselves they're no great shakes. But based on doctrine and experience over the last 6-12 months, what else should the Ukrainians expect on and around these new positions.
Ditches which are in the middle of open paddocks and perpendicular to the expected axis of advance are probably pretty dumb. The only thing dumber than that would be to assume that ditches in the middle of open paddocks perpendicular to the expected axis of advance are the only things the Russians are building.

Ukrainian manpower has been at “a breaking point” for about 18 months now.  Do we have any actual evidence of the state of Ukraine force generation, or are we seeing doom and gloom?
The obstacle dynamic is interesting.  Minefields are supposed to be useless unless “covered”.  What appears to have changed is what it takes to “cover” a given obstacle.  It used to be dug in troop organizations, now it is UAS and ATGMs linked to artillery.  So the bill for effective coverage has gone down significantly.
This is all starting to add up to the blindingly obvious - this is not a shift to Defence Primacy, it is a shift to Denial Primacy.  We have been seeing denial in the air and on land (now projected onto the sea).  Denial effectively raises the cost of action to a level that is unsustainable.  One does not “hold ground” one simply makes the cost per foot too high.  We appear to be entering into an age of denial.  Closely linked to corrosive warfare concepts as Denial essentially is very expensive friction, the question remains whether or not the UA can overcome and project its own level of friction back onto the RA at a rate higher than the RA can sustain.
It has been a summer of slow grinding and not many signs of success but remember the metrics are not territory as much as they are systemic erosion.  Which side is eroding faster?  I do not know if the UA can reach a tipping point that leads to major advances.  We have until about Nov and then the whole thing will peeter out, if last Fall is an indication.  If the UA cannot achieve a major breakout by then, well there will have to be some difficult conversations I expect.

UKR officials claimed, today's morning Russian HQ was struck in Yuryivka village on the coast of Azov sea (between Berdiansk and Mariupol). Loclas clarified there were two explosions on the territory of recreational complex, where Russians established vehicle repairing base and deployment of personnel. It's unknown if any high-ranked officers were among them. 
 

79 air-assault brigade destroyed Russian UR-77 MICLIC with a grenade, dropped from the drone. Maryinka area.
 

This retired infantryman says, not only no, but HELL no. Why? You ask. Darn near every soldier on the ground has an automatic weapon. If a group of those "grunt copters" flies over or attempts to land near an enemy position, they will be massacred before they hit the ground. 

Strictly speaking, Kinzhal is not a classical ballistic missile, though this is really air-launch version of Iskander-M. MiG-31K accelerates itself on altitude 12-15 km and launches the missile, and all way further Kinzhal flies on gradually descending trajectory. Russian Wiki writes, UKR Petriot operators claimed, the velocity of Kinzhal on final stage of trajectory before interception was 1240 m/s (about 3M) - this is in three times less, than claimed by RU MoD. But in today's attack, when missiles entered in our airspace, Kyiv wasn't their target, so their velocity had to be much higher.   

The plot twists in the story of Wagner are just hilariously bad writing... 
 

there are several videos near that factory that show 120mm shells casually lying around, apparently getting thrown away by the explosion

Who in their right mind manufactures ammunition at the same plant that is making precision optics? What the actual fudge?!
The Russian strategic reserves of stupidity are not at any risk of running out, it seems.

There was a popular joke during communism about a worker in a sewing machine factory, who was stealing parts from work and bringing them home to build a sewing machine for himself. Except he could not, because every time he tried to put the parts together he came up with a machine gun.
It was funny because it was true -there is a factory in Radom where they used to manufacture literally both weapons and sewing machines