rocketman

The floodgate between Kyiv reservoir and Irpin' river is open (or blew up?) The water gradually fill the valley of the river. Here is a map of flooding on 18th of March. The "big water" doesn't come yet to Hostomel area, where Russians can cross narrow part of the river
  

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.
 
 

We have cadre brigades of Reserve Corps, which activate during big war. They should have all equipment, like usual brigades (I hope). Also this mobilized go for reinforcement of existing brigades, involved to fight or for establishing of second-wave battalions of these brigades. Of course detailed information is classified, so I can tell here only that what some people are hinting in twitters.
4th Reserve Corps:
- 3rd, 4th, 5th tank brigades
- 60th, 63rd, 66th mech.brigades
- 38th, 45th artilelry brigades
Also probably 45th, 46th air-assault brigades, subordinated not to Reserve Corps but to Air-assault Comamnd  

Most of people which is enlisting now are so-called Operative Reserve 1  - those, who fought in Donbas and retired. We have more than 100 000 of OR1. Also there is limited enlistment of Operative Reserve 2 - people, who served in Army but w/o combat experience or gained military speciality in univercities. Also volunteers. 
Also about 320 000 Ukrainains turned back to Ukraine from EU and more than 2/3 are a men. There is now big queues in enlistment offices and many people got answer "we have your phone and we will call when this will be need". So, as I understand, first-wave mobilization already mostly completed and units is conducting trainings and combat coordination. There is a problem, how to move them to east and avoid strikes.  

This direction covered by units of 14th mech.brigade, 61st jager brigade, National Guard and Border Guard Service + TD units

Okay, let’s stick to his idiotic analysis of the war on the ground then.  This was from Feb. 27th:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-tv-tells-ukraine-to-listen-to-fox-news-guest-doug-macgregor-and-kneel-to-vladimir-putin

Low speed can be a problem for some systems. There is a real world anti-missile tactic of pilots called "going in to the notch" or "notching a missile", which basically involves turning to move at 90 degrees to the incoming missile and descending. This doesn't work against IR tracking missiles, but can be effective against radar tracked ones.
The reason this works (when it does) is because radar needs to filter out all of the crap in its field of view to decide which bit is the plane. One component of this is "Doppler filtering". This uses the Doppler effect, which is sensitive to the component of the objects speed along the line of sight. The idea is that all of the ground clutter (which is at a variety of distances, and so hard to filter on that basis) is all moving at the same speed relative to the plane (i.e. the ground is stationary). So everything that is moving at the same speed as the ground is filtered out, which in theory just leaves you the fast moving aircraft.
Except if the aircraft happens to be flying exactly across your line of sight, with no speed (relative to the ground) towards or away from you, when it also has the same Doppler speed as the background and gets filtered out, which makes it vanish as far as the tracking is concerned.
The reason to descend while doing this is so that the missile tracking you is above you, so that you are in front of the ground from its point of view. If you are above the missile, then the background to your aircraft is the sky, and that's not giving any Doppler return so the aircraft sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously ground based radar isn't going to be too affected by this - all the aircraft are above it.
A lot of modern missiles use radar within the missile for the final approach to target - they may be guided by the launching aircraft or ground station for most of the flight, but often the missile's radar takes over for the last few seconds, during which Doppler filtering can cause it to lose its tracking.
So its certainly plausible that a slow moving drone could get itself lost in the Doppler filtering for radar tracked missiles, depending on the nature of the attacking missile system. Missiles that gain altitude to take advantage of the reduced drag to increase speed and range will end up above the drone and if the have terminal self-guidance they could lose the drone in the background. But its going to do depend a lot on the nature of the tracking and the missile flight profile.

This is an interesting, and potentially escalatory situation (I am unfortunately out of likes today). Turkey's enforcement of keeping the straits closed would be an unprecedented event: They have only been closed in the past during WW2, but then the German and Italian navies never attempted to enter the Black Sea through the straits.
As the ships appear to be carrying vehicles, an airlift from Syria makes little sense: The same airlift would have been possible from Vladivostok, and much more sensible to send them by rail. I am thinking about two scenarios:
1- The vehicles are reloaded onto civilian ships in Syria. It is not clear to me if Turkey would then still be able to block passage through the straits.
2- This could give Russia its infamous 'escalate to deescalate' card. The ships could steam towards the Dardanelles, with Russia stating that Turkey has to let them through since there has been no declaration of war, that hitting the ships is a casus belli, and that Russia would have the right to retaliate with tactical nukes. This could then force NATO to the negotiating table to pressure Ukraine to cede territories, or at least agree to a ceasefire leading to a frozen war.

So I gotta start by asking: are you honestly engaging in a discussion here and want to explore ideas?  Because you are coming across as a guy whose mind is made up and no amount of rational discussion is going to matter.  I am honestly going to try here, you get exactly one shot based on your tone so far:
1 - Absolutely true, plans definitely do not survive contact, as old as warfare.  However, what is important is how fast one can re-plan and pivot.  In this the Russians have not demonstrated an ability to come up with a "new plan" and re-org to it.  They have had a pregnant pause which has allowed their opponent to organize/mobilize, arm up, dig in, dominate the narrative, and access billions in military support.  And then there is the quality of that initial plan.  Failing to establish some key operational pre-conditions (e.g. why does the internet still work for Ukraine?) is also not a very good sign. So let's see the quality of the second (or third) plan and then we might now better what is going on.
2 - You said "The Russians have taken losses, but they remain free to operate combat aircraft and helicopters over most of the country." That is not true, in fact it is very not true below about 10k feet.  The fact that Russian forces did not set the basic pre-condition of gaining air superiority is a demonstration of their problem, not Ukraine's.  Plenty of evidence of Ukrainian UAV strikes online to demonstrate that we really are in more of an airpower stalemate and that is bad for an invading force.
3 - The Russian Navy is definitely still a factor.  They have sea control and are hitting with missiles but 1) like everything else the Russians are doing, there appears little integration between naval, air and land power at this point and 2) the Russian amphibious capability is in serious question. If for the sole question, "why have they not used it yet?  that said sea control will likely not be decisive, nor has it been decisive so far.
4- Evidence of defeat (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html), so that is coming up on 24 BTGs of tanks, look at the logistics vehicle, coming up on 485...that is bad.  But even if you refuse to believe this, then one has to ask "what losing looks like".  Over to you as you asked the question.  However, it is a layered issue.  Political defeat, military defeat, economic defeat - if we are talking military defeat, well then an inability to influence or shape negotiations in the direction of national interest is near the top for me.  And as we watch the bubble slide on the Russian side of the table, it is not looking good, but I will give you that the jury is still out. 
5- Well backwards, as on a map, is kind of a one dimensional view to be honest. The primary way Russia has "gone backwards" is in the will of the Ukrainian people.  This is not about terrain, it is about their willingness to fight.  I think if Russian had one a quick and fairly clean fight that will might have stayed relatively dormant; however, that "plan did not survive" and now the entire nation is galvanized in an existential fight...that is definitely "backwards" from a Russian perspective.  Economically, narrative and just about any other non-military metric you want to apply Russia has gone backwards severely and let's not even start on the diplomatic front as it has been a complete disaster.  But if you only want to measure ground, then I guess we have to see.
So we have discussed a lot on forces and comparisons.  Right now, conservative estimate is that UA and Russian manpower is pretty near parity in theatre.  Russia does have equipment advantage but it has failed to be able to really leverage that.  Why?  Well that is a million dollar question.  What we have seen is that Russian mass is not working, if it was that map would look a lot different.  I suspect it is either because the Russian war machine simply is not setup for this complexity and has fallen under its own weight, and the Ukrainians help them along with that.
You are correct on one point, this is coming down to Will.  The Russians can keep pouring men into this fight, even if they are dismounted and have no ammo or food but if they have the Will that is an option.  What you seem to be sidestepping is the other issue, the Ukrainian Will to fight.  They see this as existential and are acting as such, so that is a problem right there for the Russians, unless they want a decades old resistance blowing up in their face but frankly I can't even seeing them getting that far as that would mean the Russians actually have to control the entire country and not about 15% of it.  Until then arms and support will flow in from the west and Russians will bleed...but we will see who blinks first.
 Lemme just close with a very important point - this is not an internet argument that anyone can "win".  I know the reflex is there to play forum games and try to "out argue each other" but that is not what is happening here.  For the most part no one really has a full picture of that is going on so we are sharing information and trying to build the best picture we can.  So the usual internet argument games do not apply here.  If you have a different assessment based on information you have, present it and we can all get a better picture.  This is a real war and people are dying in droves, so I frankly do not care who is "right or wrong" on a given Thurs because the situation is too dynamic.  But if you honestly want to contribute then do so, but this is not a contest...it is a really violent and scary puzzle.  Finally, there are people posting here who are actually in range of all those guns so let's also try and keep that in mind.

You wanna back that up with some expertise or are we just gonna sling stuff here?
This has been one helluva "temporary".  Those maps have not moved in coming up on two weeks. Why don't you go back a few pages and read my post on what an operational pause actually is (or is not) and then come back.
As demonstrated by the dozens of abandoned vehicles, you know easy to replace stuff.
True, at least not entirely; however, the Russian's can't either.  This has led to an air parity situation.  Russians can and have been using air power but it is limited and has not been effective in interdicting western support or internal Ukrainina logistics.
I would love to see the Russians try an amphibious operation.  So far easy stuff like heliborne and basic mechanized has eluded them completely, so why not go for an amphibious landing to round out the experience.  Based on what I have seen they will die on the beach, if they can even make it that far.
They already have.  The US just announced $800 million of lethal aid, is that just window dressing?  You can google the aid coming in from Europe
 Ah, now I get it.  You are that guy, one in every bar.

Why on earth are you dragging up posts from near the end of last month, especially when it looks like you're just trying to poke someone in the face and say "haha, I told you so!" Skip to about page 270 and join the rest of us in the current time.

Think again.

Thats it. Pack it in. When youve Arnie turns against you thats it. 
(Sorry if this was posted before) 

**** me, Zelensky's video he's showing to Congress. Seeing it all aggregated in one video.
All those kids.
 
MOTHER****ERS!
 

I'm actually Chinese, and my observation of Chinese netizens' reaction is actually very much the opposite.  The great majority of ordinary Chinese citizens seem to buy into Russia's propaganda (b/c that's what they are fed on Chinese media) and many are very pro-Putin.  They lay the blame at Ukraine and the West's doorstep, and feel that Russia is helping China by checking the West's expansionism and disrupting their containment of China's own rise.  The strong nationalist sentiment that Xi Jinping has been cultivating through propaganda and autocratic leadership is very worrying...

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.

Perhaps the best 'big picture' read I've found on where this is and where it's going: 
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-bankrupt-colonialist?utm_source=twitter&s=r

There is so many Canadian volunteers over there, they have their own brigade.  Reportedly in the Kyiv area.  Here is their arm patch.  Five Hundred and Fifty in number so far and growing daily.

Steve made this point with the T-14, but I will reinforce it. You cannot mass produce modern weapons. This is one of the biggest differences from WWII to today. In WWII every side was able to convert factories over from making civilian goods like cars, trains, etc. into making tanks, planes, engines, and rifles. Today you could do that, but the bottleneck isn't how quickly plants can do the work to produce a new weapon. Limitations are more fundamental and are driven by the exotic and unusual components needed to go into you cool hightech toy. Modern fighters wont fly without sophisticated silicone avionics, they cant fight without radars, and then you need to build the missiles which need a similar tech package, but of course have no parts in common. A T-72/T-90 has a sophisticated fire control computer, the APS, and ERA blocks which are wonders of physics and also very delicate to produce. And the tungsten rods needed for the ammo, its not like thats an easy or common material to mine and manufacture. And the armor what with its ceramic inserts and exotic materials. In WWII all this was easy to scale and civilian manufacturing helped provide a foundation which military production could leapfrog off of. But during the Cold War that relationship was broken, you dont really need many steel plates to make an Abrams and you cant go up to Detroit and just ask GM to double its production of Chobham car bodies. 
The same is true of drafted soldiers too, btw. Part of the systemic failure were seeing with the Russian Army today IMO is the use of conscript manpower rather than a more modern long-term enlistment approach. In the same way you really cant just go buy an SU-27 off the shelf, you also cant just go get a pilot for it either. Someone with the experience of the Ghost of Kyiv or other UAF pilots would just eat them alive. This was the experience of USAF pilots in Desert Storm, the USAF had trained so hard in programs like REDFLAG that their pilots knew the capabilities of the enemy planes better than the enemy pilots did. The same is true of tank teams who need constant practice to work their stations, AD operators to use and maintain their sophisticated hardware, and even infantry who have to commit their maneuvers and habits to muscle memory. This training can take a year to make a quality recruit at the short end, 2-3 more typically, and a decade or more in the case of a fighter pilot. 
You see on certain forums (Reddit/Twitter) this fear that the US or EU or Russia will reinstate the draft. That the next war will be WWIII, which coincidentally looks a lot like WWII. It wont. Every nation is now in a situation where they either win the war with what they have on hand, or they wont win at all. Russia, IMO, is more likely to escalate to WMDs than to try and mass produce T-72s like they did the T-34. IMO this is also the biggest reason why we havn't seen conscription or manpower mobilization. Where would these guys go and what would they do? You wouldn't just toss them into the meat grinder, but that means training them for months to get up to speed on any given job. And probably that would produce a worse soldier than even the conscript soldiers who went in on day 1 with at least a year training and a big exercise behind them. The UA, btw, is a bit different because theyre freedom fighters. You dont need as much training to throw a molotov to defend your home. 
This subject has always been a pet peeve of mine. 

Russian occupants: "We prohibit any demonstartions"
Ukrainians in Kherson and Melitopol: f..k you!
 

The help of our ancestors. It's became knowingly, several days ago Russian forward groups, searching the ways couldn't overcome ancient Serpent Ramparts (ukr. Zmiyevi valy) near Bilihorodka village,west from Kyiv. Theese ramparts were built in 10-11th centuries against steppe nomads attacks on the base of more early fortifiacations.
They girds Kyiv outskirts from the west to southern east in several lines. This was huge alot of work in that times. Now many of them plowed up, but theese save itself and came useful again since 1000 years
   

So we are probably overdue on a discussion on what is going on at the tactical level.  I have held off trying to do an analysis because things were simply too turbulent to draw any real conclusions, still are in fact.  However, I  will offer a hypothesis of what I think is occurring and we can try and go from there.
In the west we have been watching these "Russian wars" with a lot of interest over the last 8 years. The reason for this is that we are all very paranoid of becoming a 21st century version of the WW1 generals - discovering on the battlefield that our doctrine has become completely obsolete.  In WWI at the tactical level it was machine guns and fast firing artillery at long ranges, at the operational and strategic it was railways, telegraph wires and canned food preservation.  They all added up to totally different war than anyone was expecting that included the end of some pretty major stuff like cavalry.
So in this war we have all been watching and scratching our heads as to "what just happened?"  At the tactical level back in 2014, and was confirmed in the short Azer-Armenian war, that something had changed.  The Russians had linked UAVs and massed fires at the tactical level, the Azerbaijanians mimicked this in 2020, and the effect was to be able to crush massed enemy armor formations over the horizon and then move in mechanized forces for what was essentially a "sweep up" close battle.  Everyone was expecting the same for this war.
The Ukrainians, being at the receiving end in 2014 have likely figured out that playing by the old rulebook will not work.  So my hypothesis is 1) the Russians have been trying to follow their doctrine of long range Find, Mass Fires Fix/Attrit and Heavy Close clean up to Finish, but 2) The Ukrainians have adopted tactics that negate #1.
The evidence for #1 is the fact that the Russians have appeared to stick with the BTG which is a concept with massed fires at the tactical level baked-in:
  
(https://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/images/btg-image01.jpg|||Battalion Tactical Group)
In western doctrine a BG will have integral mortars and likely a Arty Bn in close support.  The Russians added 6 x MLRS to this mix and if you look at Soviet doctrine, MLRS are normally at Regimental/Div level.  This matched what we saw in the field in 2014 and 2020 very closely.
The evidence for #2 is all over social media.  The Ukrainians, learning quickly from 2014, look like they have dis-aggregated. More importantly and to the point, they have largely abandoned defensive mass but have not lost lethality.  I think the Ukrainians are still forming mass for offensive actions but the defensive is a lot of small units dispersed all over the place with weapon systems that are light, portable and have really extended range and reach; they have become the swarm the Russians are trying to hit with a shotgun.  Further, by dis-aggregating the Ukrainians look like they have turned some ideas about maneuver on its head.  Rear areas are not not "rear" anymore, it is all FEBA because small units with next gen ATGMs are cutting Russian logistics to pieces, making all the Russian mass heavily dislocated (or perhaps contributing to Russian mess ups).
We spend a lot of time slagging Russian failures, and there are quite a few and well earned, but we should also keep an eye on Ukrainian victories, because they might very well be happening on their own merits and not all on Russian screw ups.  For example, we may be seeing a lot of abandoned Russian MBTs because there are no refueling or recovery assets left due to Ukrainians adopting a new path very effectively.
So what?  Well the question is, "are we seeing an anomaly or trend?"  As we look over at our own heavy steel, we have to ask ourselves "what if our next opponent looks and fights like the Ukrainians and not the Russians?"   The answer to that question may be a blip in military force development but is also may be a signpost much in the same way 1914 was because the technology that enables the Ukrainian tactics is accelerating - smart, very long range autonomous systems that can overwhelm current mechanized protection/shield at a system level.  
Personally, I think it is too soon to call it.  There may be times ahead where mass demonstrates it merits and they may be decisive; however, it is all worth watching closely because none of us want to the a "horse cavalry commander" in the next war. 

No she didn’t, and spreading Russian and Chinese disinformation here is not welcome.

I cant add any reactions to your posts anymore, Ill just say stay safe! Well wishes to you and your family. 

Lots of people here and in the media are talking about a possible siege of Kyiv.
It appears that the Ukrainians have been launching small localized counter-attacks and even pushed back the Russian forces in a few areas. But it still looks like the Russian forces might be inching closer to the city even if their supply lines are not secured and control of the territory they presently occupy is only partial at best.
However they're not quite there yet. And while still possible in theory, it is rather doubtful whether they can even manage to fully encircle the Ukrainian capital.
However what if Putin decided that instead of launching an assault a la Grozny on Kyiv once it is surrounded, to just shell it out of spite, not unlike what happened in Sarajevo, in order to exert political pressure and force the Ukrainian government to the negotiation table in order to get more favourable terms?
First in this scenario you wouldn't even need to fully encircle the city. Since the goal wouldn't be to trap Ukrainian forces inside a cauldron nor to cut the city off completely, leaving a corridor open for civilian to evacuate would actually be a good idea from the Russian perspective, as long as the corridor could potentially be brought under artillery fire.
Of course that would be really ugly and cause even more civilian casualties and international condemnation of the Putin regime. But then again one could ask what more have the Russians got to fear in the way of sanctions that hasn't already been imposed on them?
Militarily the Russians probably can't win this war. But the problem is that I don't see how Putin can afford to lose this war politically either. It would be disastrous for him. He basically has his back against the wall, he can't simply call it quits and needs some sort of face saving solution.
Ukrainian resolve looks really strong right now and justifiably so but how likely is it that if Putin follows this course of action and the situation just degenerates into a long stalemate with less offensive operations, that Zelensky decides to tap out out in the end and agree to territorial concessions in order to spare civilian lives and avoid senseless destruction?