kluge

Kofman and Evans is a pretty decent rundown of where we are on the offensive. Kofman is fairly optimistic and both are critical of the pre-game jitters from the USG and the overall theory of success. 
https://warontherocks.com/2023/04/the-calm-before-the-storm-waiting-for-ukraines-offensive/?__s=4983vxa1cr7umn9uarm1
Caveat: it would shed more light on the complexities involved if there was less emphasis on supposed American political considerations (supporting Ukraine is popular...this is a bad point) and the more rigorous interpretation that arbitraging Chinese intervention is a far likelier influence.

It's also a ridiculous assumption to assume that the Russia Airforce is a shiny deus ex machina ready to be pulled out of the box to win the war. Yes it has a lot of planes. What it lacks is doctrine, pilots, attitude and upkeep. We've been to this rodeo before with the Russians and we know how it's highly likely to turn out. 
https://www.businessinsider.com/fighting-in-ukraine-reveals-russian-air-force-fragility-think-tank-2022-12?r=US&IR=T
 
 

Well I can’t speak to “smug” - perhaps you meant “informed”, but we have been seeing these sorts of reports since this war began.  Some come from a place of honest fear that Russian superiority will assert itself, others from hope that it will (e.g. Macgregor).
As to the “hundreds of Russian aircraft”, well the other factor is the Russian willingness to lose them.  Unlike mobs of poorly trained men, Russia has a limited amount of effective fix wing aircraft and a big @ss sky that it needs to control, largest sovereign airspace in the world.  So I expect, much like this entire war to date, the Russia’s willingness to throw its remaining AirPower away in a denied airspace is pretty damn low.
As to your points:
- not sure where you are getting “easy” from, nothing easy about any of this.  What it won’t be is “impossible” which is what both the OP and articles seem to suggest.  Seems like many fear/hope for the opening of the Somme.
- We really need to get over WW2 and the Russian defence myths.  In this war Russia has failed on defence pretty consistently.  We had no siege of Kherson, or Kharkiv.  Instead we have seen three operational level collapses.  The biggest issue with the “bloody Russian defence” is that they are not defending Russian soil, this is a discretionary invasion war in another country.  I am sure some units will dig in but a lot of others - now mauled by whatever this crazy winter assault was - are likely going to buckle early and fast.  We should see a new line being drawn somewhere but I suspect it will be a scramble back to the Crimea bottleneck and an Eastern line N-S.
- I am a military engineer by trade and frankly have no idea how obstacles will work in this environment.  Given the effects of corrosive warfare that we have seen so far, I am not even sure these will work as viable investments.  The Russians are clearly thinking “force multipliers” but there are basic calculus’s in the wind right now.
- If Russia had the ability to conduct deep operational battle (e.g. static bridges, rail etc) via AirPower, then why has it waited until now to use it?  It bled itself white over the winter trying to grab something/anything and we did not see a single coherent operational level air campaign. So now while it is being assaulted it is suddenly going to figure that out? I am sure we will see some weak disjointed attempts but if Russia could do this - do it freakin now before those reported 9 fresh UA Bdes form up on the start line.
- Russian EW and UAS will add friction to the attack.  But they need to to more than that.  They need to disrupt and dislocate.  This means Russia need to be able to employ a defensive form of corrosive warfare (the ability to project enough precision attrition and friction on an opponent to create wide systemic failure in their military operational machine).  We have not seen this.  Russia has been relying almost entirely on old school front edge combat attrition, trading 3 men for 1 theirs type stuff.  
- Ukrainian formations are green?  What kind of shape do you suppose the RA units are in?  They are 1) pretty banged up and replacements likely rushed into place and 2) have not had a free and donated western force generation stream to pull on.  The UA has experience in conducting operational level offensives, the staffs and HQs that pulled that off are anything but green.  All of it rested on an increasingly more integrated western supported ISR and targeting enterprise.  In the competition of “who is in rougher shape before the spring/summer offensive of ‘23”. I gotta go with Russia.
I am not predicting a rout of the RA back to its borders (but if it goes well enough that is not off the table), but this thing has the hallmarks of another Russian operational collapse in the making - highly eroded operational systems, significant C4ISR asymmetry, and still no sign they can establish favourable strategic or operational pre-conditions in any domain.  If they do manage to hold the UA back effectively, then something fundamental will have changed and we damned well will need to understand what that is because it might mean that this war is done pretty much where they stand now and we are out of military solutions.  But I am not there yet, quite the opposite, I am wondering how successful the UA will be and whether not it will be enough to keep the west engaged in this.  As we saw at Kherson - which many western pundits ping to with disappointment- the bar of western expectations is sometimes unreasonably high, largely because we have no modern experience in wars like this one.
Regardless, I guess we will see soon.

I think I would need to see some clear evidence that Russia can actually achieve air superiority, or even parity in order for them to “stop shows”.  My honest recommendation is to stop reading any online “expert” who solely talks about capability.  “Look napalm bomb”, “Look a Russian HARM”.  Arguing solely from a tactical capability perspective is the hallmark of an amateur.
First off the Russian C4ISR system would have to dramatically increase its ability for rapid target queuing and joint integration between air and land power pretty much from tac to strategic. Can anyone point to where this has actually happened?  The Russian air war is still happening in glorious isolation of the land war from what we have seen so far.
Second, we would need some indication that Russian can establish conditions where they are able to create freedom of action to exploit that C4ISR advantage (which they do not have).  We have not.  If Russia could establish even pockets of air superiority they would have done it at Bakhmut or any of the high profile offensives they tried over the winter.
And third, one would need some evidence that Ukrainian Air Denial ability is slipping.  So far we have a leaked report (which may or may not have been doctored) and a few Russian “ARM” strikes.  There has been no degradation of Western ISR support, in fact it has gone the other way.  Ukrainian Air Denial is more than just Radar AD, the MANPAD situation has driven the Russian’s batty.  And more Air Denial systems are coming online - not less.  So this one is dodgy at best.
Finally, we did not see a Russian Air Apocalypse last Fall during the last two Ukrainian offensives?  Have things gotten better for Russia in the interim in the air picture?  About the only positive they have is that as they lost ground and while retreating they were in fact shortening the time and distance to air support.  Beyond that I do not see why or how the Russian Air Force suddenly becomes a wall of steel and precision fires only 5 months after being totally ineffective while the UA took back about 50% of Russian gains had left after the Northern front fell.  I mean seriously, the Russian Air Force is able to stop a major UA offensive now, but they stayed out of Kherson?
I have no doubt the Russian Air Force will be in play but it would need full air supremacy to turn things around at this point.  That is complete C4ISR dominance, watertight SEAD and a demonstrated ability to integrate air and land battles.  And this still would not solve for UA deep precision fires superiority.
Why do people keep coming up with Russian “magic rabbits in hats”? Seriously if Russia had one or two they would have used them by now.  One does not wait until you are teetering on operational collapse to “finally get serious”.    

Now hold on there, Steve-o....are you trying to tell me that the most consequential decision in American politics since the end of the Cold War is *not* about a couple of car dealerships in Western Ukraine???
Man...the DeepState™  really has it's claws into you. Next thing you know, you'll be saying support for Ukraine isn't a symptom of the woke virus.
 

I don't like disagreeing w Beleg because I know I will lose 🤪, but I just want to clarify my point.
Yes, he was a commie. And hitler a fascist.  But I am saying what they really were were sociopathic narcissistic megalomaniacs that happened to be commie or fascist.  Doesn't mean they couldn't also believe in commie or fascist ideology.  I am saying the commie/fascist thing didn't matter so much.  Especially considering they both were the same murderous monsters despite having 'opposite' views.  Is Putin a fascist?   A mob boss?  A nuevo-soviet commie?  Does it matter? -- what matters is that he's a murderous megalomaniac.

So we should help them by projecting enough energy into the environment it can be seen from space?  High energy solutions are problematic as they then need more high energy solutions to keep them alive.  And no one has solved for a 155mm PGM round, or HIMAR coming in at Mach 3+.
The fundamental flaw with some US (and most western militaries)thinking is that they are trying to citadel their existing structures and treating UAS/unmanned as something to be managed.  This was the overall strategy for ATGMs (detectors, smoke, manoeuvres, combined arms and finally APS), which was never really tested en masse but that did stop us from assuming that these ATGM counters would work.  Worse, we assumed that these counters would continue to work as ATGM tech marched on.
As the Russians have found out 1) next-gen ATGMs are incredibly hard to “manage” in fact for some they really can’t be and 2) UAS in combination with C4ISR are changing the fabric of the battle space.  This is not manageable, it requires some deep rethinks on how military power is projected in the future.  
Strapping high energy lasers on everything and then trying to do Bn TF manoeuvres just like we did in Iraq is going to lead to a really, really bad day…and to be honest most people in the biz know this already.  Protecting legacy systems will be required but it will only buy a narrow context of advantages in a narrower set of employment.  Point defence systems need to be just that “point” as in last minute “holy crap some got through” not “queue the Disco Star Wars soundtrack and start burning holes all over the sky”.  It is the other layers of the bubble that will need to be developed along with new types of organizations and TTPs.
But if I know military thinking we will see a 90 ton tank with so much crap slapped on it the damn thing won’t be able to stay upright.  Then we will have to do same with logistics and suddenly a viable BCT will weigh roughly as much as Pluto…because gravity does not care about your feelings, cap badge, investments or budgetary profiles

Charging trenches in your BMP with improvised dead guy armor is an interesting tactic.

Well, the West is frequently taking the moral high ground towards the rest of the world. And that simply means we are held to higher standards. If we criticize other countries about the 100 things that go wrong there (rightly so!) every single thing we are doing wrong hurts our credibility (internally and externally, e.g. there is often a lot of grumbling about how democratic Germany really is compared to China...)
I'd still much rather live in Europe or the US but here is another problem: While it is good to live in a western democracy, many people living elsewhere couldn't care less whether they are dealing with a democracy or some autocrat because the net result, for them is identical.
The US get the most criticism because they have the greatest power (with great power comes great responsibility...). But there is another thing to consider: Hollywood. Everyone on the globe knows Hollywood movies (German movies... not so much, which is a good thing...). And there the US and especially the US armed forces are mostly depicted as fighting for the good of all mankind and not (like everyone else) for their own interests. So the contrast with reality is particularly strong here.

It's sort of...we really definitively...their job to worry about stuff like this. It would be a scandal if they didn't.

Can’t get too far into it but that ball has moved quite a bit since back in the day.  Let’s just say that Int staff are armed with more than talc and Stadlers these days.  Personally I can barely keep up.

Fascists have always when convenient, appropriated socialist imagery and slogans. Doing so does not make them socialists or leftists, multiple orgs and tendencies repudiate them. Russia has always had a far right nationalist problem. It should always be called out for what it is.

I spit up my drink on my screen at this one.   Just how much delusion can one snort up one's nose and not overdose?  Especially in light of an earlier point just above that - "an end to all immigration."
There is just plain $**t talking and then there is "mad dog howling at the moon" talking.

To quote a summary of the speech given by a user who shared this to me originally:
"It appears a Russian Naval officers mutiny is being announced, with the intent of restoring a true Tsar to succeed Putin. An assembly of Russian officers said that if their leader comes to power, there will be fundamental changes.
The points:
"personnel revolution";
lustration of the enemies of the people;
"degreasing" the oligarchs;
severing diplomatic relations with all hostile countries;
an end to all immigration
the abolition of the free circulation of the dollar and the euro;
growth of the population of the Russian Federation to one billion.
While this may not lead to internal war or conflict right away, it is certainly seditious. The new Supreme Ruler of Russia and future candidate for President of Russia 2024 has been nominated from within the Officers' Assembly: Captain Ivan Otrakovsky.
Otrakovsky has a long history of membership in far right nationalist groups and associations with breakaway sect of the Orthodox Church. If he doesn't find a window big enough in the coming months, with the help of what looks to be significant military backing, this could very well be the new Tsar of the most horrifyingly dystopian country on the planet. Brace for impact."
 
Sounds far right to me

Russian authorities claimed BSF repelled attack on outer harbor on 24th of April in 3:30 of morning, but indeed one drone exploded inside of Streletskaya Bay. So, it could overcame six lines of defense. Interesting, that Russian MoD initially reported about two drones (one was destroyed, other "self-detonated on outer harbor"), later they already claimed about three drones , but anyway still to tell about two destroyed, so where the third is gone? ) 

Other video of drone explosion in the bay and video how drones approached to the bay
Geolocation shows as if explosion was on the mooring

Also about why today? On 24th of April 1918 army of Ukrainian People Republic in result of dare attack entered to Crimea through Perekop. So it's just a symbolic greeting and a tip )

I didn't translate all, what wrote Mashovets, but he counts in other way
On his opinion zone of responsibility of FG "East" is about 175 km in a straight line. And if we take into account all curves of frontline this lenght inreases to 250 km. I doub't he is right about 250 km, because according DeepState map frontline from Shcherbaky to Slavne is 190 km. But well. Further he says most of capable troops deployed now on Vuhledar direction (and this is much more, than Vuhledar town itself - approx from Velyka Novosilka to Slavne).
So on Vuhledar direction now involved 8 brigades (motor-rifle, air-assault, naval infantry), 4 regiments (motor-rifle, tank), 5 motor-rifle regiments of Territorial Troops (TT, most of them actually "motor-rifle on papaer only"), 4 rifle regiments (likely LDPR), 2 rifle battalions of DPR TD, 3 separate rifle battalions, 2 BARS battalions. In reserve: 1 tank regiment of TT, 2 motor-rifle battalions of TT
On Orikhiv direction they have: 4 brigades (tank, motor-rifle, air-assault, naval infantry), 7 regiments (motor-rifle, naval infantry), 2 tank battalions (regular, TT), 1 air-assault battalion, 7 motor-rifle regiments of TT, 1 rifle regiment of  LDPR,  4 rifle battalions (LDPR, TT), 12 separate battalions and combined detachments (Rosgvardiya, Wagner, BARS). In reserve: 1 motor-rifle regiment of TT
So he says it's about one "FULL conditional battalion" for 4,5 km of front. BUT. This is for one-echelone defense! As I wrote in previous post, Russians now are regrouping own defense in two echelones. So they will be forced either to expand responsibility zone of theese "conditional battalions", but not full so far more that appointed 5 km, or build focal defense, having hope on own artillery, aviation and "Tsar-ditch" 

I think one of the big factors that will come into that decision is whether or not the UA feels that they have a solution to the Russian air power. Back during Kherson it was said that the main thing that hurt and stopped the UA was Russian air. Granted we don't have a lot of information on that, but it was widely reported. So if it is a big factor, recent build up of airframes by the RuAF would point to them thinking that heavy air interdiction will be their card to stop any break throughs. 
If the UA is confident that they can provide an air denial bubble over any rampaging columns then I'd bet we see them try the break through and exploit option. If they aren't then the bet is on the corrosive/attritional approach. 

Most of that will be handled by the various S2 staffs of all levels.   S2 is the intel people.  Their job is to get a handle of understanding enemy intents and dispositions.  Armies operate according to doctrines and understanding your enemy's doctrine of how he uses and deploys his artillery assets gives you the ability to 'predict'  where and how he will deploy his artillery assets in a given area.   That is the start point of your intel gathering plan and where you deploy your drones, position your counter artillery radars, etc.    
It may seem like 'black box' stuff but a good S2 staff can seem like they are reading the mind of the enemy.   I have worked in the past as the BAIO (Brigade Artillery Intelligence Officer) in a Bde S2 shop and every exercise with opfor forces, I have been able to predict where they would deploy their artillery and I have been accurate to within 1.5 kilometers on my assessment and having some intel sensor / humint discover where the opfor guns were deployed with enough accuracy to counterbattery them.
1000 sqkm is not an issue for a real good and well trained S2 staff.  It might seem like 'black box' stuff but good S2 staff can nail down enemy locations and intents with a high degree of accuracy.
An edit just to clarify.  The 1000 sqkm is not one S2 staff.  A number of divisions and their subunits is responsible for that large an area.   There will a Corp S2, a number of Div S2s and numerous Bde S2s all talking with each other.  Each step down is more and more focused on a particular smaller parcel of ground.  Didn't want to give the impression that a single S2 shop is looking after 1000sqkm.  There is potentially dozens of S2 shops working that problem.

Just in time for the discussion over the past page or so, today's ISW post goes into detail on what RU units are committed in Ukraine, where they are located and the what shape they're in.
TLDR is they're not in great shape after months of relatively fruitless local actions and are going to have a hard time defending against a large mechanized offensive.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-23-2023

One could imagine something along the lines of a river crossing would be a quick way to create uneasiness about badly defended sectors.

This does assume that the RA can swing those guns to and from Close and General support quickly (building on your note #1)  Based on what we saw at Severodonetsk last summer RA fire planning seems pretty linear, which may lean more the way Steve added it up.  In fact I would bet good money that have plotted out rigid sector fire support that is pretty static compared to western doctrine.  RA C2 has not shone in this war, I have my doubts as to it somehow stepping out of the phone booth now. Of course the UA should help this along where they can.

If this is true then they have shifted forces dramatically into this area.  If we recall the intel leak on force density there was nowhere with greater than about 250 pers per km.  So in order to focus this force size the RA will have had to bleed off other areas of the line a LOT.  This is also a pretty dangerous concentration easily seen by the UA.  There must be other areas of the line that are basically abandoned.
So the RA clearly got the message on the “strategic land bridge”.  My bet is the UA will attack elsewhere to pull that density away and then attrit them as they try to relocate.

True, but speed of reaction and 'stickiness' of engagement matter. An artillery battalion can be engaging a target "over there" one minute, then switch to engaging a different target 25km away "over that'a way" literally 5 mins later, then back again 5 mins later, then to a third completely different location 5 mins after that.
Once you commit tanks or IFVs to a battle, they're pretty much stuck there for at least the rest of the day. You might be able to pull them out overnight and commit them to a different battle maybe 30-odd kms away tomorrow, but that's about the best you can hope for.
Perhaps. That doesn't make it sensible though For one thing, it undercounts what can be expected by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude, it ignores C2 freedoms and constraints, and ignores qualitative differences in equipment. By that I mean that say - for example - both sides have exactly the same number of guns - 160 guns to cover 160km of front. In that case they are 'evenly matched' at 1 gun per km. But suppose one side has yewbeut guns and extended range ammo, which gives them twice the range; 60km vs 30km. Both still have 1gun/km, but one side can expect to face 80 guns anywhere along the front, while the other will only be opposed by 40 - a 2:1 advantage.

That's kind of the wrong way to think about artillery, although I am making the perhaps heroic assumption that the Russians aren't just using their guns in direct-fire mode.
The D-30 ("artillery over 100mm") has an effective range of about 15 km, so if it was right on the front line each gun could - theoretically - cover 15km to the left and 15 km to the right, for 30km total coverage. But it won't be at the front, so call the effective coverage 20km per gun, therefore at a minimum about 7 positions are required to cover the entire lineage. There are 763 guns in total, so at any point along that frontage you can expect to be opposed but about 110 guns, or about 10 battalions.
Similarly for the MLRS. Those have highly variable ranges, but 30km seems about typical. That gives 60km of maximal frontline coverage or 40km of effective coverage, so 3 positions minimum across the 125km, with 70 launchers at each position.
So, an attack anywhere along that front can expect to be be opposed by 10 battalions of barrel artillery and 6 battalions of MLRS, along with a battalion of ballistic missiles messing around in your rear area. Not 6 guns and 2 MLRS launchers.
Note1: Command and control arrangements can upset that; commanders might not be willing or able to share "their" indirect fire-support assets across divisional or higher organisational boundaries.
Note2: the above rough calcs assume a perfectly straight front line. Any wiggles and salients (convex or concave) will increase the average density.

It's imagination that UKR "elite forces" involved on flanks (3rd and 5th assault brigades. 92nd mech. - at least one battalion, somewhere unit of 77th air-assault brigade was spotted), but inside the city just light infantry mostly (TD, border guards, Chechen battlion, rifle battalion of 93rd mech, some SOF etc) with some armor support of 93rd brigade.