Hapless

Javelin team gets a missile off, then comes under fire.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/v8qoiq/the_fgm148_javelin_operator_hits_an_enemy_target/
Few things I thought were interesting:

They get spotted real fast- looks like the missile might have a bit of a vapour trail (don't think Javelin usually has one, so could be the local conditions?)

There are at least two Javelin teams.

Hard to tell, but they don't look like they're bugging out as soon as the missile is fired. In theory they should be able to due to the fire and forget capability- so maybe they think it's safe enough to hang around, maybe they need to keep the AT capability up or maybe it's really hard to *not* watch your missile hit the target.

Thanks ) Just became some more of work, my wife turned back and often occupies PC because her work, also it's hard to live three months 24/7 as war news translator, so I took small vacations 

This is that first famous large column of Rosgvardia, destroyed in first or second day of war. All this did 6th company of 92nd mech.brigade near Kutuzivka village NE from Kharkiv. The company in Day 1 turned out itself in the rear of Russians, because they advanced forward too fast, trying to enter in Kharkiv. In first contacts the company lost 3 BTR-4E, but despite this company commander decided to break through back to Kharkiv. The company, heading toward the city, encountered with large columnn of Rosgvardia/OMON, which drove in the same direction. Commander immadiately ordered to attack them - as result almost whole column was destroyed, but from full elimination Russians were saved because two their tanks appeared on the road and engaged UKR company. Two more BTR-4E were knokced out by tanks, so rest of company broke contakt and on full speed reached Kharkiv.

Very interesting question but it needs some context:

So this graphic is interesting - it is built from some research done at Georgia tech, for the real nerds the excel sheets in detail are avail at https://brecke.inta.gatech.edu/research/conflict/.  We have had periods of "great peace" before as you can see.  What is missing from this graphic are the Mongol Conquests that occurred between 1200-1400 AD, which still ranks only second to the Three Kingdoms War (182-280 BC) as the most deadly in history as percentages of the overall human population at the time (and this does not give full credit to the Mongol Invasions contributions to the Black Death).  So before 1400 there was a major spike and then between 1400 and 1600 we basically had a lot of small wars between fiefdoms but overall deaths were kept low. (Also note that the deaths as a result of conquest of the New World are also not included, which by some estimates were obscene).
Then right about the time we had the "Peace of Westphalia" deaths by war went on a bit of a wild ride with spikes about every 50 years, right about the time the generations that fought the last major war died off.  This is pretty consistent, we get a big spike as the 3rd post-last-war generation tries to re-order things, then an exhausted peace, then another spike...and then the 20th century happened.  If we go with anything less than 10 deaths out of 100,000 globally as the "peace line", the 20th century was a Season of Mars, and this after one of the most peaceful stretches in the late 19th century, right after the US Civil War.  So for higher resolution of more recent history:

So we have the Chinese Civil war there, ending in '49.   Korea, and then things do start to drop as we enter into the time of intra-state wars and wars of intervention of the Cold War.  Still pretty active but below that 10 per 100,000 line...and then 1989 happened.  It is hard to believe, based on how busy our militaries have been but we definitely have been living a "great peace" between 1989 and about 2012 as the world enjoyed a single super power order and we basically only had small little savage wars to deal with, not unlike the much briefer period in the late 19th century.  Neither of these charts take into account the Russo-Ukraine War, which is vicious but still a smallish war by earlier standards.
So as to the original question...my guts says "yes" we are entering a new phase of something.  You can track all these charts directly to power competition, which has largely been dormant since the end of the Cold War.  We argued a lot but most of the nations who "won" the Cold War have not had a civil war, or engaged in a state-based one, we all got rich instead.  The dirty little wars on the margins continue but they were largely civil wars or nasty little regional affairs.  Russia has signaled that it is willing to pay a blood price to re-order things, and here we are today.  I am betting we will see more proxy wars and look more like the 60s and 70s and some state-on-state clashes.  Will we go back to the old model of great big wars every 50 years like we saw between 1650-1945?  Doubtful, as we will likely see the biggest spike in history in the form of an escalated thermonuclear exchange if we try that out.  My bet is some form of nasty power competition as East and West rebalance. 

Not wrong, but not entirely correct either.  Ukrainian defence was brilliant in the opening phase of this war.  We don't know much and likely will not get the full story for some time, however, the plan for the Phase I defence was decisive in itself.  If the UA had tried to fight the same way as the RA and sought decisive battle, it could have gone poorly.  Instead what we saw was a hybrid warfare campaign for the history books.
First Ukraine had (and still has) information superiority.  They are on their home ground and were also being fed western intel from before the war started.  This mean that in places like Hostemel, they could concentrate and defeat the RA initial moves in detail.  I think Hostomel is also a battle for the history books and was decisive in this war.  The RA tried to use SOF and Light in concentration and failed enormously, once again underlying that when misemployed SOF and Light are extremely vulnerable [aside: it is odd on all the talk of the "death of the tank" but we have not seen a lot on the "death of airborne/heliborne].  Russia made that airfield snap central to their main effort, it was their Plan A, and it collapsed in a couple days.
Second, Ukraine set up what I can only describe as an unconventional warfare defensive campaign.  This was hybrid in nature (a mix of conventional and unconventional forces) and looks a lot like what the Norwegians have set up in their Northern districts - for obvious reasons.  Basically, we had TD and irregular forces defending their local regions, backed up - and very importantly linked by UA SOF.  These forces were already in location along that very long initial front line and armed with next-gen smart-ATGMs, UAVs and comms.  Those comms linked them back to UA artillery creating an entirely distributed defence network - or at least that is my working theory.  The Russians sticking to road networks, lit up by ISR of all sorts were then hammered all along their own system - F ech, A ech, B ech and all the way back to SLOC nodes.  All that Russian armor/mech, the ready-force of the RA was cut to pieces in the first month of this war by that system; this wasn't "war amongst the people" this was war of the people. 
Third, Ukraine's political level, assisted by a massive social media effort allowed Ukraine to win the strategic narrative, even before the war crimes.  We all started to cheer for the little guy and realized that this war was an political and strategic opportunity.  All that money and aid, essentially the military industrial complex of Ukraine, was riding on getting this part right...and the Ukrainians did it very right.
I am not like Steve to be honest.  I had no idea how this war was going to go before it started.  It wasn't until about 72 hours in that it became very apparent that something was happening that no one in the business predicted.  That is when the sickness symptoms of the Russian system began to appear. 
Could Russia have won? Of course, no war is pre-determined.  Ukraine could have split or simply failed to resist - they could have ignored western intel, Zelenskyy could have run and/or capitulated.  Or the Russians could have had a much better plan - why they did not make the capture of Lyviv and disruption of all western support the main effort is beyond me.  But they did not, and now they really cannot.  No matter how this little dance in the Donbas goes, Russia has lost this war already.  There is no renormalization after this.  Sweden and Finland are not going to change their minds, those sanctions are going to stick as economies re-wire.  Ukraine is not going to "de-militarize" nor is it going to go quietly back into Russia's sphere with a friendly government.  Russian hard power is empty, to the point that I would not be surprised to see more disruptions in it near-abroad- Russia as a state might already be dead, it just does not know it yet.

Cheap and cheerful rocket artillery? How hard would it be to have 'mobilisation MRLS kits' to turn peacetime civilian pickups into an MLRS mosquito swarm?
 

There were some images upthread of Brimstone systems that looked like they were mounted in exactly that way. This video has a sequence of it near the beginning. It's not quite a "grid-square-remover" MLRS; maybe you could pop a system that size on an 18 tonner rigid body, or a 40 ton artic. Shades of Transformers...

A good start point.  I also have been mulling over a lot of these issues; however, I come to different conclusions.  My primary induction is that we are looking at this too narrowly; quality vs quantity is a one dimensional set of competitive metrics and we are clearly moving past it in this war.  To start these are somewhat vague as what do we mean by "quality"?  Is that training and equipment?  The amount of money invested prior to war?  Quantity, is that mass on the battlefield or broader strategic capacity?  Is it both?  These definitions muddle more than they really explain.
I think there are at least three more dimensions that need to be explored (and I say "at least" deliberately): "smartness" and "distribution", and "capacity". 
Smartness could just as easily be described as intelligence in the broader sense but the term is already in use.  By this I define smartness as: the ability of a force to competitively create usable knowledge in the prosecution of war.  This is effectively competitive theory building at all levels of warfare (i.e. the warfare enterprise) - [aside: I did have graphics but the "eeewww PowerPoint crowd" might get ruffled again].  So one can have a very well trained and equipped force but is it competitively smart?  Further, can you have a smart low-quality but high quantitative force?  Theorists say yes, they call it a swarm.  Smartness could easily be called C4ISR; however, I personally think that term gets boxed up as "HQ stuff" which does a disservice to the idea of the overall cognitive ability of a force as a sentient system in itself.   
In the opening phase of this war the Russian attacked on 5 main axis where they concentrated over 190k troops well armed and just coming off moths of exercises (how effective those were are in doubt), they had the local mass advantage as Ukrainian defence was 1) still mobilizing, 2)  in a state of shock at the first punch and 3) was spread out across a very long frontage as no one knew if Belarus was going to jump in or there were more axis the Russians were going to open up. So in the opening phase of this war we have seen a very smart Ukrainian force meet what I call a "dim" mass-based Russian one, and it appears the meeting was decisive in the opening phase of this war.
Distribution and capacity speak to mass but how one employs it.  Distribution is how we spread that mass around and capacity is how much depth we invest into it.  In this war, again in the opening phase, we saw the Ukrainian defence as very highly distributed mass, yet also highly connected and very intelligent.  It met a very high density mass, yet also "dim" of the Russian forces...and we saw what happened.  The Ukrainian defence created friction and attrition along the entirely of the Russian operational system leading to the collapse of that system on at least 2 operational axis, one of them the main effort of the whole war.   So now we can have high quality - smart - distributed/lower capacity mass meeting low quality - dim - concentrated/higher capacity mass, and we all saw what happened.  Western militaries will wring their hands over this one for at least a decade because we tend to put out high quality - smart - concentrated/low capacity mass and no matter what the military visionaries, revisionist or conservatives may say, we have no idea what happens when these types of forces all meet - Steve, has nearly shouted himself raw pointing out how wrong the pre-war modeling was, and still can be.  Particularly when we have seen what low quality - smart - distributed/high capacity (nearing endless) mass can do to our forces over time, in insurgencies over the last 20 years .
This brings me to my last point, which no one really seems to be talking much about either: speed of victory/loss matters.  Hypothetically Russia could win this thing if it manages to drag out this war for a century - I am talking Taliban style of constant low level cuts and bites across the spectrum that it somehow manages to sustain.  However, by then it may no longer matter.  Putin will be dead, the political landscape will have changed to the point that what ever mattered in this war, in this moment has become a complete sideshow.  Further, Russia may "win" but the victory completely breaks the nation, to the point that the victor is not even Russia anymore.  We know this because this is what happened in Afghanistan.  In Oct of '01 it was "a critical blow to terrorism", in Aug of '20 - "*sigh* let's just get this over with".  The USA of '01 is gone and the one in '20 was built upon it but did not have anywhere near the same level of investment as fundamental conditions had changed.  
Back to my main point, western militaries are built for either a quick victory or long loss.  We do not know what to do with a quick loss or long victory.  Further, the public that send us are not wired for the latter either.  Problem is that these could be the wars offered to us and this is a major strategic blind spot.  I think this was one of the authors main points, that is particularly insightful as it relates directly to what sorts of forces we have been building.
And finally, as if all that was not enough, I am still on the fence as to what is happening between defence and offence.  Is this conditions based or are we looking at something more fundamental?  Offence in the form the Russians are offering is clearly in trouble.  It has become incredibly difficult and costly with the type of force they have employing to prosecute it.  We have all been getting "scope eye" on a 2500 sq km postage stamp of terrain - in a country of roughly 604k sq kms - down in the south; however, the rest of the country is also pretty static.  The UA has made a couple successful offensives around Kharkiv and now north of Kherson, but these have been modest.  This could be, as the author suggests, due to the Ukrainian force and how it is being employed (not western enough?).  Or has technology driven us into a different warfare paradigm?  Frankly, I do not know and I am sure people have plenty opinions but let me be the first to break it, you don't know either...no one does.  We likely won't know until something breaks and one side in this war figures it out.  Or maybe they won't and it will take the next war for a side to come up with the answer. The only thing I can say definitively is that the question is in the air right now and the real experts are all watching and waiting.

Not sure if this has popped up here yet: everybody's favourite river crossing.

I have been slowly playing through Cold War's campaigns and standalone scenarios and have been completely blown away with the fidelity of the singleplayer experience. The AI plans have almost universally been some of the best I've seen in any title. It's been immersive. As I often do when I play, I started snapping pictures and making small gifs. When I arrived to scenario 3 in the US Campaign I thought "I should start making an AAR." So, I paused, went back to play the NTC campaign, a few of my favourite scenarios from the Soviet perspective, and started writing. 
I've learned two things: I can't write to save my life, and I really enjoyed it regardless. I already have 6 AARs completed of my experiences and will share them with you all, if only to distract. They strike a more narrative tone, but I have done my best to explain the tactics and decisions. I will label the scenario/mission at the start of every AAR. Without further ado...
 
Prologue:
Kiev Military District, Ukraine SSR.
It was a clear, late spring day somewhere south of Kiev. The open pastureland was starting to show the signs of recovery following the harsh winter. Grass grew tall and the sea of mud was firming up into dry terrain. To any casual observer it would seem a scene of idyllic pastoral calm.

It is a façade. The calm is shattered in an instant, and a brutish ballet begins.

A thunderous barrage deforms and rapes the landscape. It builds to a howling, shrieking crescendo. A cacophony of mortars, howitzers and “Grad” rockets form the orchestra. The impacts smother two wooded hills with a mix of high explosive, smoke, and chemical irritants similar to CS gas. It was all the fury and violence of war, at its apparent worst.
This was not war, however. Merely a facsimile of it. An exercise. To the stern-faced evaluators observing from several kilometres away, and the attached state TV camera crews, it was real enough. Real enough for citizens of the Soviet Union who would watch these scenes play out on their TVs, real enough for Western defence analysts who would pore over every frame of the video, and real enough indeed for young conscripts sat waiting in their tanks and personnel carriers a few kilometres away, in readiness behind a low ridge.

Belly crawling forward among tree, bush and scrub on this same ridge, were more of these young Soviet conscripts. These men were equipped with heavy weapons:  machine guns, recoilless rifles, grenade launchers and potent anti-tank missiles. They would soon make their presence felt, reaching out into the roaring inferno across the open field, destroying any target they could see which remained unharmed from the bombardment. Their missiles began reaching out, flying towards real and simulated targets. TV cameras panned, keeping up with the missiles, visible as green dots against the background.


The evaluators would duly note “hits” recorded by these weapons and, using an intricate set of rules and modifiers, adjust the amount of fire (and therefore casualties) the unit would be deemed to receive when they began their attack. The prospects were good: everything appeared to be within nominal parameters for this drill. The artillery was on target, the missile fire accurate.
As the artillery fire began to abate, the MRB commander – a tough, professional soldier who had been through several prestigious state academies and had seen service in Afghanistan – knew the time was right to begin his attack. Ensconced within his personnel carrier, his voice simultaneously filled the headset of every vehicle commander of this force: begin, armour forward, came the command.
A company of T-64s, a marvel of Soviet technology and a demonstration of its single-minded design philosophy, rumbled up the ridge they had sheltered behind. Taking effective hull down positions, their imposing 125mm cannons crashed out in volleys, striking targets on the forward edge of the forested hills.

The fire is deemed highly effective, scoring several “kills” of enemy vehicles.  With this report crackling through his headset from the tank company commander, the MRB leader issues the next orders, this time via pre-assigned codeword. Repeating himself so there could be no confusion, he tersely speaks: Hornet, hornet, hornet. The unit roars forward as one.
Again, the tanks lead, pushing up and over the ridge at top speed. They fire, with much less accuracy now, on the move, too fast for even the gyro stabilizers to compensate. It is no matter, movement now is key, rather than fire. 

As they pass the exposed area, their rate of advance slows again. Their fire becomes highly effective once more, volleys crashing out across the valley. The observers would note “losses”, of course, losses would always result as an attack neared an objective. They were well within normal parameters, however. What was expected, acceptable, in the science of the attack.

Then come the personnel carriers, surging over the ridge. They move with alacrity behind the armour, in two extended lines.

With pinpoint timing, the artillery fire redoubles on the wooded hills, once again smothering the MRB’s objectives. Any surviving enemy who would chance a shot at these vulnerable vehicles would undoubtedly be discouraged by the howling high explosives.

Again, losses are incurred by the observer/evaluators. Not enough, however. Again, everything is within acceptable parameters.
The MRB closes with shocking speed, crossing several hundred meters in only a few minutes. The momentum and impetus is irresistible. Most of the tanks halt 500 meters away from the wooded tree line, redoubling their fire into and around it. A handful of T-64s move forward with the personnel carriers to provide intimate support. They close the distance aggressively, moving through the final rounds of their own artillery. This particularly impresses the camera crews, still diligently recording, delighted at the realism of the exercise.


The vehicles rumble into the woods, their heavy machineguns thumping away at silhouette targets meant to simulate enemy infantry in their foxholes. Then, the orders come: “Dismount! Forward!” Soviet infantry scramble out of rear hatches and side doors, over engine decks, and into action. Units move in an extended line, firing bursts from their assault rifles. Occasionally, a squad halts at the knee, spraying down foxholes with automatic fire and rocket propelled grenades. They press forward, moving with astonishing speed, newer conscripts desperately sucking for air as they gallop forward.

Leaning out of the hatch of his command vehicle, the MRB commander witnesses his forward companies safely debussing on the objectives. Smoke, as planned, begins to land at the edges of the hills, isolating them from one another. Exultant, for he knows his unit is performing excellently, he urges forward the remainder of his force. Not onto these terrain objectives, these are not of the greatest importance, but beyond them. Breakthrough.
The tanks form into two columns and  roar through the hole ripped in the enemy’s defence, and the MRB commander pushes his command group, air defence vehicles and his third company through in the vacuum they create. They fire as they move, riflemen spraying the smoke-shrouded treeline from open cargo hatches on the rear of the personnel carriers.


***
“15 minutes.”
“What was that, comrade Colonel?” the TV producer asks, overhearing the supervising Colonel despite the dull thuds and crunches in the distance.
“15 minutes. That’s the average time it usually takes to complete this drill.” He explains.
“Is that good?”
The Colonel laughs, “Yes, 15 minutes is quite acceptable… this commander has done it in 12.”
The dismounted infantry may take hours, in reality, to comb through the wooded hills and defeat the surviving enemy infantry. That they would suffer heavily whilst doing so was not in dispute, nor was it of any particular importance. Even the uninitiated TV crewmen could deduce that. The real takeaway, the true objective, was that most of a tank company and an entirely unscathed set of motor riflemen were through the enemy’s defensive position. Havoc would ensue, and the destruction of the notional enemy unit was almost presaged. What the Colonel observing knew, and that the TV crewmen did not, was that inexorably, inevitably, behind this breakthrough would come a tank battalion, then another regiment, and then entire brigades. Victory would follow. It was as simple as that.
Notes/Thoughts
So, the scenario played here was "Soviet Tactical Doctrine 1 (MRB)" by Miller. I wanted to play because I thought it would make a great little compare and contrast piece to how the US would have to do things, especially in the NTC campaign. It's also just a solid concept for a mission, and a trend that I hope continues. For the absence of doubt, I played it straight, precisely as the briefing guides you to do. 
I also think there's some subtle criticism to be made, through the scenario, of how we know the Soviets trained in reality. Big, choreographed exercises. Useful for producing units that knew a series of SOPs and battle-drill evolutions, perhaps not as useful for producing units that know how to keep pushing through when BTRs and BMPs are exploding. They weren't organic like say, I feel the NTC was. Keep that in your minds for now. 

Not sure if this has popped up here yet: everybody's favourite river crossing.

Not sure if this has popped up here yet: everybody's favourite river crossing.

I’ll check this out this weekend!

I have spent just over a week in Medyka  and in the Ukraine, with an Aid Agency, been back a few weeks now. Besides the crossing being busy, but well organised id say, where we went to deliver aid/pick up refugees, the one soldier i spoke to, was adamant that they would beat the Russians. Not casual bravado, but a real chest beater.  The area we were in had been liberated by the Ukraine Army. If i was a scrap dealer id be heading south   Saw a lot of damage, shot down Russian plane, came under Russian shell fire (2-300 metres away) still felt like the countryside was still in 1941 with a homage in places to 2022.

Attack drones are nice and all, but how much are drones going to change forward logistics?

If we're looking at a very wide, porous battle zone populated by ATGM, MANPAD, drone enabled recce-arty complex wielding low signature light infantry, is it going to be easier to resupply them with drone deliveries of ammo cans, missiles, rations and jerry cans of fuel and water than it is to push vehicles in there?

Popasna and high ground
 
Popasna
The Russian victory at Popasna potentially unhinges Ukraine defenses east of that point. It is a serious incursion and needs to be countered. Attacking the shoulders of the penetration is the tried and true solution, but involves having more forces and capability than the Ukraine can field in that area at this time. Short of cutting off the penetration, resistance to the forward elements needs to coalesce such that it is either deflected or stopped.
The larger danger is that this penetration, aside from endangering Ukraine forces to the east (either by pocketing them or just choking off supplies), it gets past the field fortifications and defenses built up since 2014.
In short, it sets the stage for a left hook, getting behind the Ukrainian defenses to the southwest of Popasna.
That's the danger.
Ukraine can definitely stabilize the area...by pushing in (reliable) troops and more support.
 
And that brings us to high ground.
This conflict in the Luhansk/Donetsk area seems to be WWI-esque with less troop density. There are trenchlines, artillery support, raids, observation flights, and movement measured in much smaller distances than in conflicts after that period.
All the ravines that cut through the area (drainage basins) definitely cause a funneling effect. Look at how the German offense (Kursk) developed in this area at the tactical level: each village is important because they are on the high ground and on roads. The road network and the terrain are such that these pieces of high ground are worth defending.
That brings us back around to the trenches and observation. Sure, drones are available, but a trench in a low ground is just a pre-dug grave. (See German defense lines in WWI vs. what the British did.) If you're going to get pummeled by directed artillery, high ground or low ground is about the same...but if the enemy is going to use infantry to pry you out...high ground wins.
 
Finally, that brings up the "burn rate". The big pushes are what are getting attention, but what is the daily level of attrition in the "quiet" sectors? How many artillery shells are being used per day and to what effect? What about raids, recce, etc? Ukraine may have mobilized more and sooner, but we don't know how many are dying across the front.
This is what may have led to that Territorial Defense unit collapsing. Just the daily grind, followed up by a determined enemy advance.
Yes, Russia has lost more, and in a more spectacular manner, but what is going on in the rest of the engagement zone? 

Attack drones are nice and all, but how much are drones going to change forward logistics?

If we're looking at a very wide, porous battle zone populated by ATGM, MANPAD, drone enabled recce-arty complex wielding low signature light infantry, is it going to be easier to resupply them with drone deliveries of ammo cans, missiles, rations and jerry cans of fuel and water than it is to push vehicles in there?

Whoa there!  So I have taken a few days away because this great Russian offensive has taken on all the glam of watching a blind goat wooing a virgin armadillo.  So we are talking about that 7km "blitz" and a couple UA TD outfits bailing, right?  I mean did I miss the fall of Lviv or something?
So, I disagree that this is "strategic", hell it probably is not operational but we will see if the RA can actually advance more than 20kms before it runs out of gas.  We have been here before.  There was the terrible Izyum offensive that was poised to "pinch off and crush the UA defenders" in some sort of Failais Part Deux, which petered out to whatever that melanoma looking thing has become.  Then the imminent crossing of the S-D River, which turned out to be a catastrophe.  And now the Russians take 7km and we are at the End of Days?
"Imminent collapse" - how many times does this need to happen before people get the point?  The RA has already collapsed twice, strategically and operationally - even if I grant that the UA may have "collapsed" tactically at Popasna.  First was the RA collapse of an entire front in the North, we still remember that part right?  That was likely the turning point in this war and was a collapse by any standard.  Then we have seen another operational level collapse around Kharkiv, my understanding of military theory is that when you are the invader and have withdrawn until the enemy is at your border, things are not going well.
So the real question here is "can the UA do operational offensive?"  And the jury is still out to be honest.  That operation around Kharkiv (a much higher priority than the villages in the Donbas) demonstrated that the UA can re-take ground and pretty quickly.  How well the RA was dug in, how the UA did it and is it repeatable are the unknowns.
We have talked at length about the Russian problems defending a line approximately the same length as the Western Front with a fraction of the troops needed. The line density is something like 100 men per km with what they were showing, and that is stuffing the line with replacements straight from the recruiting depot.  I don't care what the Russian grandfathers were good at, there is a force-space reality here that is going to be impossible to make airtight without another 1 million men and the equipment to arm them.
Meanwhile Ukraine has a 3 month head start in mobilization, I personally think that the UA has more combat ready troops than the RA at the moment and everyday they are getting more with better equipment.  While Russia continues its downward spiral economically and militarily.
As to post-ceasefire (if it happens - Ukraine is signaling the other way, and losing a few dozen kms in the Donbas is likely not to break a nation who had guns within range of its capital) - we had better be ready to pony up and re-build Ukraine a la Marshal Plan, or there was no point in the sunken costs.  Re-building national infrastructure will likely sustain the Ukrainian economy in the short to middle term, in the long term private industry will show up because they are a greedy bunch and this is a market filled with US greenbacks for reconstruction.  We need a functional and well defended Ukraine very badly right now because it will mean the "global order" won this war, and we are willing a pay a lot to ensure that happens (or should be).  We need a bright and shiny Ukraine as a demonstration that the Western based global order still works.  This needs to be a lesson for Russia, and more so for China that we will not let the pen that writes the rules go easily.  If we fail, then we deserve what happens next.

Another CM relevant one:
About halfway through, the tanks start to experience familiar pathfinding issues.

Also, someone has dumped a lot of artillery on that area and- took me a minute staring at the pixels- at least one of the tanks starts off with tank riders aboard.

Another CM relevant one:
About halfway through, the tanks start to experience familiar pathfinding issues.

Also, someone has dumped a lot of artillery on that area and- took me a minute staring at the pixels- at least one of the tanks starts off with tank riders aboard.

Another CM relevant one:
About halfway through, the tanks start to experience familiar pathfinding issues.

Also, someone has dumped a lot of artillery on that area and- took me a minute staring at the pixels- at least one of the tanks starts off with tank riders aboard.

@Suleyman @Combatintman
Many units of Central and especially Eastern military districts are still using BMP-1. They were both in NW "V" group (35th MRB, which also crossed Siverskyi Donets), 5th tank brigade and  in NE "O" group. 

35th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, 41st CAA.
https://altyn73.livejournal.com/1388817.html

The number of BMP-1s is interesting but what most interested me was the BMP-1KSh ... that's an HQ of some description gone ...

 

Second video is pretty good.. maybe at the end there, if the tank had used target light it would have had a better chance of suppressing that retreating SOF solder.    The Russian lack of infantry really hurts them in these types of engagements obviously... and that is something that is not going to be easy for them to address.