Livdoc44

I've been thinking about this post most of the day, and keep coming back to "Neat. Now what?"
Which got me thinking about how other step changes in military capability were handled. The two obvious ones that come to mind are tanks in WWII, and airpower during the Cold War. Now, clearly, in both cases they existed early, but they only really became effective/worrisome/"game-changing" some decades after their entree to the battlefield.
For the infantry, in both cases, the response became basically the same: very small infantry units became fully capable of anti-ing the other thing, either anti-tank or anti-air.
During WWII anti-tank rifles, bazookas, fausts, shrecks, Piats and hearty grenades gave platoons and sections an ability to defend against or attack against tanks, pretty explicitly at the detriment to the nominal role of the infantry, which was to oppose and defeat enemy infantry. That trend was significantly enhanced during second half of last century with things like RPGs and M-72s. This is at the point now where with weapons like Javelin tanks perhaps have more to fear from infantry than the vice versa, even though lugging Javelin around is a royal PITA especially for light infantry.
The introduction of air power, and especially effective CAS, started us on the road to the fully illuminated battlefield, where nowhere is safe and to be seen is to die. During WWII the only real counter that the infantry had was to dig on, or hide, or both. But during the Cold War a lot of effort went into MANPADS, resulting in the Stinger in the 1980s and with other systems following soon after. Just like their anti tank weapons, lugging around anti-aircraft missiles is a PITA which detracts from the nominal role of engaging enemy infantry, not to mention the drain on budgets and training schedules. But on the other hand now every platoon and section is capable of destroying any tank or aircraft that wanders into it's little tactical AO. And once the air and armour battle is won - either locally or globally - then the rest is just mopping up. The degradation of the infantry platoon and section's ability in the infantry-battle doesn't really matter, since while that bit remains hard and unpleasant, it is incredibly harder and more unpleasant in the absence of either air or armoured support.
So you can probably see where this is going.
Assuming UAS remains in play (and why wouldn't it?), then the role of infantry platoons and sections will change again. Instead of being little nodes of anti-tank and anti-air goodness,with some residual anti-infantry capability, they will become little anti-UAS nodes, with the weapons, training, mindset and purpose to defeat enemy UAS in their local area, and also protect or project friendly UAS capability around themselves. If an enemy tank or aircraft turns up then the section or platoon mightn't be able to deal with it themselves, but they will be networked to someone who can - guns, missiles, friendly armour or air, or friendly UAS. And they'll still, you know, carry rifles. Mainly out of habit and tradition, as well as giving the NCOs something to inspect every day. But most of their weaponry, and sensors, and just the general claggage they're carting about will be geared towards winning the UAS fight, because winning that will mean that the rest is just mopping up.
In other words, the infantry will be able to concentrate physically and cognitively on the UAS battle because it won't be their role any more to win the tank, infantry, or local airspace battle.

Lol
 

Omnomnomnom the war eats it's children...
 

It appears that you have not kept up on this war.  We are not seeing a "few recon drones spotting" -  which will still be a serious problem with this sort of SHORAD system because LOS (with camera magnification) is much father than these systems can likely reach.  We are starting to see drones being employed en masse on the sorts of scales that these systems cannot deal with. They are not solely being used for recon, but now strike.  Production is reaching massive scales (e.g. reports of 100k per month).
This is not "perfect so we shouldn't bother", it is "expensive and not useful for the environment."  We have gone down this path before and wind up getting into trouble every time - let's send tanks to a COIN fight...anyone?  Massed UAS are not a SHORAD problem, or at least one it can solve.  But that wont stop big business from trying to convince us otherwise.
Here is a scenario - 100 FPVs being driven by 10 crews with repeaters.  These are not even fully autonomous, which we know is coming.  They are EW hardened but we can even accept 50% attrition, so now 50 FPVs are coming in and attacking a position.  These large SHORAD systems now need to track and engage small fast moving UAS capable of treetop and below.  Assuming you have submunitions (which there is no evidence of), and each missile can engage 5 drones effectively - hell give them 100 percent; based on the photos, 5 Coyote systems needed to counter this one attack.  Ok, doesn't sound too bad.  Except for the fact that these FPVs are not working alone.  They are linked into supporting fires.  So as soon as those Coyotes start firing they are going to get lit up and engaged by PGM indirect fires.  But these are trained crews and are scooting, so maybe you only lose half of them, lets say 2 out of 5.
So how many Coyotes do we have in a Bde?  Because the enemy has another 150 FPVs...for todays attack alone.  You basically need to stick one or two in every platoon...fantastic, exactly what Raytheon wants.  And here is the thing...it will not work.  First problem will be clutter.  The enemy will fill the sky with all sorts of junk to toss off detection.  Fire control and coordination will be a nightmare.  And now on a battlefield where everyone is whispering for fear of getting picked up by sound detection, we are going to have dozens of these missiles firing off all over the place.  So we have solved the recon UAS problem by making ourselves visible from freakin space.  And finally sustainment; the enemy is losing ammunition, we are losing platforms.  We cannot keep that up over any period of time.  Like other high end western equipment, we will run out and politicians will never sign off on massive "what if" production capacity.
But let's put this all aside or the moment, this approach will not only be challenged by current reality, it will not solve for what is coming next. UAS are going to get cheaper and more distributed.  They will combine with UGVs so you can lay them like mines and suddenly have them pop up a few meters away.  Drone swarms will be in the hundreds with EFP and launchable sub-munitions of their own.  So while we are investing billions in SHORAD as a solution, we are going to find out it was a half-measure, at best. 
We are so addicted to big, few and expensive platforms, that our solution to their possible extinction on the battlefield is, more big expensive platforms.
So what is the solution?  Cheap and many.  I want a C-UAS weapon that fits under the barrel of a rifle like a GL but has a 1-2 km range and high Pk - so better than a shotgun.  I want UAS, that hunt and kill other UAS.  I want direct fire support on lighter unmanned platforms that do not drink a swimming pools worth of gas per km, and are big and hot. I want infantry that can carry more, move faster and go for days without resupply.   What I do not want are more big, loud expensive platforms to protect my already big, loud and expensive platforms.

I have to admit, one thing that did make me nervous in the second year of this war is a complete lack of a coherent western strategy with respect to this war.  We throw stuff at Ukraine until their military looks like a traveling circus.  We have never articulated strategic objectives nor really outlined how we intend to achieve them.  And we definitely do not have a coherent 2-4 year plan on how to outlast Russia.  I suspect we applied western lenses (again) to last years summer offensive and assumed victory.  This makes me very nervous for post-war reconstruction, which may very well be just as messy and ad hoc.
This whole thing feels very “making it up as we go along” and we need to change that.

I mean these are fair points, and I am not in the "Yay us!" camp.  But frankly it is a small miracle that anything happened at all.  The West was woefully unprepared for this entire thing, and that is on us.
As for Ukraine.  Well if we are dolling out harsh but fair truths, they definitely could have been better prepared as well.  If I were living next door to Russia, I would make damned sure I had security guarantees that matter (oh wait, I do and we did).  I would also be working very hard, like Finland and Sweden just did, to make sure if I needed a quick entry into the western fold that I was ready for that.  Corruption and dithering happened inside the Ukraine government as well.
I think that no one on this side of this war was truly ready for what actually happened.  The West rallied and frankly pulled off the impossible, as did Ukraine - how quickly we forget the miracles of Mar '22.  I do not think it is fair to flush all that down the toilet now with revisionist history and hysteria.
The West continues to support Ukraine.  Billions in aid are still moving.  The US is putting on a shameful display of just how fragile its democracy is right now, and ignorant power hungry politicians are exploiting it for personal gain.  But I remain confident that 1) Ukraine will adapt.  They are leading modern warfare right now and learning incredibly fast, 2) The US and West will eventually get there - democracy does suck at times, but it is the best we have, and 3) Russian decline is occurring as a direct result of #1 and #2.  Their ability to be a threat is declining in the conventional space.
Hopefully this is a "darkest before dawn" situation and not the abyss that some insist it has become. 

11 th! 
This is nuts. 
 

Interesting thread from UKR serviceman from engineer-position building unit of engineer brigade (these units subordinated to Support Troops Command, not to Ground Forces Command) about why unlike Russians UKR forces have so poor fortifications (if they were built after the big war started), which often dig hastily with shovels and limided engineer means of brigades instead to be prepared beforehand by engineer troops of Support Command.
1. Why we have so small number of useful fortifications. According to General Staff directive of Marh 11 2016 the infantry unit, seizing area of defense is a disposer of defense lines, and the performer of works of building and equipping of this defense line is Support Forces, which have to do it according to requests of infantry brigades engineer service chiefs.
2. Many of chiefs of infantry brigade engineer services do not know how to plan ahead and send requests to Support Command untimely. When I arrive on the place, I have neither a map nor enginner justification of positions. As a rule I hear some sort: "Dig here from the stump to tree-plant". But this is not work in this way. The defense must be continous. Ше must have a depth and the enemy hadn't to bypass it. But infantry engineers in stupid way don't know how to plan this and we have to do it themselves or even to shut up and to gig there, where they to tell, because your business is to shut up and execute.
3. Why is thete no concrete? According to the order of Engineer Troops Chief and a resolution of Chief-in -Command of July 4 2017, the character of defensive positions determinates by Operative Tactical Groupment Commands - OTU (wood cladding) and Operative Strategical Troops Groupment Commands - OSUV (pouring with a concrete) after appropriate request of the infantry unit, seizing defense area.  Wood is provided by Engineer seervice of OTU, and concrete and technic are provided by OSUV. The second defense line have to be cladded with a wood and the thired defense line with a concrete. Why there is no this, because, again, brigade's engineer services have no will to denand this and OTU have no money, because deals (author used a word more corresponding to "frauds") with a wood is a separate theme. 
4.Concerning a concrete - I report. There is no one engineer unit doesn't supply with corrwsponding technic (like and NATO too). These works performs civilian technic, but this is contracts with business. Moscovites just rob technic for works, but we can't do in such way. And again - where is third defense line should be? No one infantry brigade on East didn't provide a project.
5. Where are the tractors? According to numerous directives, orders, normative documents to maintain the defense line have to a units of Support Forces with a supply of infantry units. Alas, an excavator doesn't work on the water - it needs a diesel, and soldier, who works in it have to rest somewhere and to eat something, 
6. As result - with all my respects to engineer services of 110th, 47th, 53rd brigades, you guys are guilty themselves, that your troops hadn't proper trenches. And to all other collegues in Twitetr I recommend to study documents and contact the proper address.    
7. Concering to our work. We work from 6:00 to 17:00 and build continuosly, having more poor funding and more vulnerable technic. Pay attantion, there are many fundrising requestes, but no one engineer unit doesn't ask about a tractor or excavator. Because we undcerstand - the needs of infantry is more important. But instead the infantry for some reasons considers us as useless appendage 
    

https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1762413281933709718?t=p1K73kamQpdNPgK7p9QpfQ&s=19
Singing the CV90s praises. The barracuda coating works. 
Western tech living up to the promises. 

Disappointing does not even begin to describe that the AFU has to plan for this. it is good that they are letting the world know they will have a plan to continue fighting, regardless what happens in D.C. 
 
 

I don’t think anyone of serious power in the West wants a full Russian collapse.  The overall Western grand strategy since the end of the Cold War has been “stable status quo”.  We have spent the last 33 years pretty much working on all fronts to sustain “the system”.  We toss scarfs and hats on it but at its core is a central unchanging stability.  Why?  Because stability is good business.  The West, with the US at the centre built the scheme that “won” the Cold War and want that party to keep going because we get very rich off it.  The rest of the world makes our stuff for cheap, while also buying our other stuff.  
But pretty much from Day 1 “the others” pushed back.  First was the intra-war years, interventions and then terrorism.  Now this has upscaled to “revisionist states” and “power competition”.  Russia invaded Ukraine for several reasons but one of them definitely was to demonstrate that they are not going to be bound by western rules (Hell, Putin said exactly this in that speech back in Sep ‘22).  This puts the West in a dilemma, they can either do too little and Russia threatens the system, or they crush Russia…and it threatens the system.  So they appear to have chosen the middle path, which of course is getting hijacked by the internal movements who want to…wait for it…change the system.  MAGA, alt-right, nationalists, whatever, all disagree with “the system” even though it has made everyone richer.  The reality is that it did not make everyone equally rich so discontent is natural.  Worse, power spheres exploit this so they can get more powerful (and richer).  So Rust-Belt yokels eat this stuff up and start to dismantle “the system”, which includes democracy apparently.  The reality is Trump is a symptom, not a cause and I am not sure even they realize how dangerous this game they are playing is.
So Ukraine happens and becomes a symbol of a “war for, and against, the system.”  It isn’t about the fact that killing innocent Ukrainians is wrong - hell if morales like human life mattered we wouldn’t have Gaza.  No, Ukraine is all about “the system” and both sides appear to be waging it viewed through that lens.  Russia needs to show that they are going to play by their own rules, but not completely break themselves.  One could ask “why is Russia fighting this war by half measures?”  Do they enjoy a quagmire?  No, Putin understands what he has gotten himself into and is adopting a slow burn strategy, hoping we will get distracted and caught up in our own nonsense…and he might be right.
The rest of the West is trying to step up, but frankly we have grown awfully fat, dumb and happy on the back of the US - who now is having a bipolar fit.  In the end, we can live with a fallen Ukraine.  We can shore up the borders and lock Russia out.  We can live with a partial victory in Ukraine, do we really care about Crimea, LNR and DNR?  No, we did not in ‘14 and we don’t now.  We can’t live with a completely imploded Russia.  Those are where the real risks lie.  Too many unknowns that could really break the system.  So we wind up with a half hearted war designed to punish Russia for challenging the system but not destroy them.  Ukraine is, and I am being brutally honest here, is almost secondary to the entire conversation.  It was simply a very unfortunate country where both sides could try and prove a point.  We love Ukraine all of a sudden because they are an opportunity to show that 1) Russia was wrong to challenge the system, and 2) the system still works.  
I strongly suspect this is why this war is also so muddled in military circles.  We are watching a war to defend the system..that is demonstrating the weaknesses of our own military system at the same time.  So we put blinders on and try to pretend it isn’t happening.  Our military power has to still be relevant…otherwise how can we defend the system?
So to answer your question, “yes, the US and the West know exactly how important Ukraine really is and are fighting this war based on that calculus.”  The answer however is “somewhat important”.  We care and feel bad, but care much more about our own issues.  Putin read the short game about as wrong as one can.  He may have read the long game extremely well.  The way to beat the West is not outright confrontation, it is apathy.  2 years is forever for a culture addicted to clicks and flashing lights.  Putin’s off ramp is being able to draw a victory line somewhere of his choosing and he is shooting for that.  And we might just let him get there.
Now I would not start freaking out and worry about a second attack on Kyiv.  Something that dramatic might actually get our attention again.  No, this needs to become a boring war - I am starting to think Putin’s Tucker Carlson interview was smarter than we thought.  What better way to get Western audiences to yawn and start to change the channel than a history lesson?

Yeah, no way it was West.
I think this really really shows the disconnect in thinking between Russia and the West.
Putin is already saying this is existential war for Russia, he is already saying his objective is to destroy the West, and his people - whether random Russians or weirdos and traitors and useful idiots everwhere in the world - are already believing it. He is already doing everything in his power to do that too - from propaganda to interfering with elections to financing fascist parties to helping Hamas to working with Iran and China to assassinating people in other countries to attacking food to cause famine in Africa because refugee crisis empower Western Fascist to whatever else I have lost track.
Russia already escalated as high as they dared. If they could do worse, if they could do something more despicable, if they could do something more monstrous, they would have done it years ago.
I remember all these red lines - nuclear war if West gives Ukraine Javelins, nuclear war if West gives Ukraine tanks, nuclear war if West gives Ukraine planes, nuclear West gives Ukraine gets HIMARS, nuclear war if Ukraine attacks Russian warships, nuclear war if Ukraine fires missiles into Russia ... So really I think if West shot down Russian plane they would do nothing like every time before.
At the same time, the Western decision makers think (or behave as if they thought) that Russia is a country and not a mafia, and that they are not actually at (hybrid) war with us, and that they can be reasoned with and that keeping some kind of "civilized behavior" with Russia is something that makes sense. This is of course wrong - Russia only understands strength and considers humanity a weakness to be exploited - being civilized or nice only makes you hurt.
So no way it really was West - if West had balls to engage Russia directly, our current conversation topic on this forum would be "do you think the warlord Ivanov will also take south of Moscow?" and not "it's not good that Ukraine is losing ground and people because West decided to not supply them with enough ammo but what can you do, it could be worse".
...
Anyway, one thing I wanted to say: This actually is an existential war for Russia in a way. It is existential for Putin, sure, but as we came to understood during the war and as we discussed a few times, the common (but by no means only) mindset in common Russians is "things are ****, they used to get better and now they don't, but you know what, at least we are a badass empire". They might be even deluding themselves into thinking that things being bad is a voluntary sacrifice for that badass empire. Lot of people are willing to suffer a lot for being part of something they consider greater than themselves.
Being decisively shown that Russia is not in fact a cool badass empire they be proud of even if they don't themselves have indoor toilets might really break their worlds. Whatever comes out of that would not be Russia as we know it anymore. This is not existential war for Russia because they will end up in mass graves or enslaved if they lose (like it is for Ukrainians), but it is existential for the Russian imperial mindset.

Two years ago. How it begins. Hostomel
 

A-50 and IL-22 were hit in a previous incident.

 
Yesterday, only A-50 was hit:

Yesterday, there was confusion over the number of planes and helicopters hit because initial yesterday's videos showed two separate fires and one witness claimed that one fire was caused by a helicopter.
Separately, some UKR channels claimed that IL-22 was also downed but later these claims disappeared (probably confused it with previous incident). Nobody else claimed IL-22 or anything else was hit. 
There is a small probability that the second fire was from another plane. But it is small.
Ae you sure you are capable of judging other's work if you missed these basic things? 

Friday's Su34 of choice confirmed. 
 

Lol
 

I don't remember seeing Abrams yet:
Hard to tell exactly what's doing the fighting later on in the video- or if it's Abrams shooting at stuff- but it looks a lot like Abrams in CMBS shooting straight through things.

True, but I suspect this is where things are at.  Any ISR on the breach will mean PGM artillery and long range loitering munitions.  A lone ATGM team with a modern system can take out lead vehicles.  And standoff tac aviation has demonstrated what it can do.
To be perfectly honest our entire mechanical/explosive breaching tactic has only ever been done in one war that I can think of, Gulf War.  And we essentially did all the pre-conditions I am talking about with air power…and Blind Pew and his dog rolled right through them.  We never actually did live opposed minefield breaching operations.  We exercised them for decades and always “won” but never under real battlefield conditions, let alone modern ones.
The very uncomfortable truth of this war is that there is a whole lotta stuff we have only ever exercised going back into the Cold War.  ATGMs, air parity, denied environments, firepower parity, EW.  All things we practiced but never had our assumptions tested.  Gulf War looked like a validation but that war had specific context.  We assumed every war would be like that one and ‘03 reinforced that idea, even though the hints were starting to show up.
Then this war comes along and presents some major counter evidence that our tactics work at all.  So we say “Russia Sux”, “Ukraine Sux” “but we are good” like a benediction.  Worse we are tying the narrative to all of this.  If Ukraine can’t “win like we would”, well then it is on them.  The reality is that we had (have) a bunch of assumptions that have never really been tested and I suspect they are being tested in this war.  Some are enduring, like training quality, infantry and precision.  Others are not holding up too well at all, and it is making us very uncomfortable.  “Well we would roll over those minefields just like we did back in ‘91”.  Well this is not ‘91, and it is not that war.  This one has the look and feel of Korea, with 21st century technology.  

Our tactics underpin our operational constructs (manoeuvre and Mission Command), which all support our military strategy (short sharp wars of massive overmatch), which all feed into funding and spending in the trillions.  So when a war comes along that suggests we might be in the wrong movie, you can easily see people start getting their backs up. “Aw unmanned is a flash in the pan.  Someone will invent counters and things will go back to the way they were.”  But the evidence is piling up.  It is not just unmanned.  Precision weapons like the Javelin or artillery fires.  C4ISR that pretty much anyone can cobble together, including the Russians.  Denial, which will impact us as well.  It is all adding up to something shifting but most do not want it to shift too much.
Basically we are at the situation where if the enemy Blind Pew and his dog can see that minefield while we are breaching it, and they have a few precision smart weapons in range…the breach will likely fail because that breach is reliant on maybe 6-10 critical systems that can be hit very accurately by a number of systems we cannot fully deny.  We put APS on the breaching teams and PGM artillery drops on them.  We push back the artillery and UAS come in with more mines and reseed the breach.  We do everything right and the enemy has c-moves ready to bottle up the breach.  And this is before the real stuff that can defeat our defensive systems has even shown up (stand off EFP, ATGM sub munitions and mines with legs).
We need to start coming up with new ideas, not stuff to bolt on our old ones to try and keep them alive.
 

Excellent Heart of Darkness reference, I remember reading that Joseph Conrad novel back when I was a school kid. 🙂
Anyway on to the subject. I do find it interesting how the usual pro-Russian suspects like that lowlife David Sacks as well as the convicted sex offender Scott Ritter( I hope you read this David and Scott, I know this topic gets around to some interesting places 😎), are gloating about Avdiivka.
Yet an actual Russian source who is much more familiar and connected to the war, literally killed himself over this great Russian victory.
 

Ok, enough banter.  Time for serious talk. You have probably noticed that you are not that popular here?  Now I am sure you are telling yourself is is because you are “too real” and enjoy flying by to shake up the “liberals and Europeans”.  But that isn’t why people don’t like you.  No, they don’t like you because you really don’t add anything to the discussion.
You see, people here do a lot of things.  Some are really good at collecting information very quickly.  Others ask really good questions and some of us try and make sense out of this whole crazy thing because we have spent decades in the war business and can contribute that experience - and I do not just mean military vets, I mean dedicated wargamers who are all historians, theorists and philosophers to some extent.
So what this thread is trying to do is understand better.  Before when I poked you to find examples of me “being wrong” about a prediction, well it was a trick question.  I rarely ever make firm predictions because frankly things are simply too dynamic.  I see trends, big ones.  Trends that are becoming unavoidably large and looming.  These trends point to the fact that we are very likely within an RMA right now.  It started back in the early 90s and has been progressing for 30 years.  The effects that information technology, miniaturization and energy density - along with dozens of others, all have on warfare is emerging with increasing speed and impact.  So when I say “unmanned systems are not a temporary thing” well you can take it or leave it but that judgement is based on about 35 years of observations on the changes within military affairs.
Your problem is that you do not come with new information.  You do not come with good questions.  You don’t even come with good analysis and arguments to back things up.  You come with opinion and positions.  And the come on this thread like an evangelist - this is not discourse, it is preaching.  You are trying to make a lab into a chapel and it just makes people angry.
But we should be about forgiveness.  So here is a fun thing we can try: what don’t you know?  What questions do you have about this war that you do not understand?  Maybe we can start there and help you understand better.  Because right now it really looks like a lot of very uninformed “well let me tell you college boy” BS.  You want to make an argument that unmanned systems are a flash in the pan? Why not go out and find some actual analysis that supports that.  We have got hundreds of pages of social media videos, professional analysis links and expertise that disagrees with you.  But do some proof of work and come back with some solid analysis and assessment and we can discuss.
If not, well there are a lot of other forums on the internet where everyone will agree with you, or really lose their minds if that is your kink.
Finally as to the point at hand…the issue is not “counter-drone gear”.  Of course counter-systems will be introduced, and the  counter-counter systems as we will see primacy shift back and forth.  The issue is that this competition will profoundly change how we wage war, it already has.  Data superiority, AI superiority, Silencing, deception, redesign of land units and formations for the first time since WW2…these are all on the table.  We cannot assume dominance based on where we were..we will need to earn that dominance and frankly accept that we won’t always have it.  This will mean hard fights and harsh calculus.  The lazy days of air supremacy are likely over as a minimum. Bilindc noted that one would need to “Deny ISR”, he is right, and I have no idea how to do that on the modern battlefield.  And trust me, if I don’t, you don’t either.  So we can discuss how that could happen or you can keep hand waving and going “aw shucks…airplanes”.  Or you can keep getting tossed onto everyone’s ignore list until Steve comes along and chases you away again.

Nothing like flying drones inside buildings:

Shades of the Battle of Hampton Roads.

I think Avdiivka itself was not very important to UKR. 
I feel we got too fixated on Avdiivka. I believe the intent of the RU command was a significantly more ambitious, which explains the UKR command's unwillingness to commit large forces to the defense of Avdiivka. RU generals are fond of ambitious encircling operations. What if RU intended to attract UKR reserves to the defense of Avdiivka, smash them there, rupture UKR defenses, and simultaneously attack from Avdiivka, Zaporojye, and possibly Bakmut (according to UKR reports, RU has begun to push there as well) to encircle and destroy a significant portion of AFU formations?
It explains:
Why RU kept significant mech force not far from Avdiivka Why UKR command committed so few lightly armed forces to the defense Why Abrams and Bradly equipped units did not counter-attacked RU units when they started to advance toward Lastochkino Why Patriot arrived only now Recent UKR reports from Rabotny that RU are preparing something big Adviivka's battle was most likely a prelude. The main battle started just now.