How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kevinkin]

Didn't their forefathers fight with pitchforks?

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russian-military-shovels-combat-ukraine/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, Rokko said:

Perhaps the puzzle analogy is useful on that layer as well, but the solving involves finding ways to move casualty ratios more in favor of the attacker until the defender is exhausted. There were some minor tactical innovations during the Somme, as well, such as placing troops well outside of their usual trenches and inside deep shell holes out in the open, which took the British some time to figure out (=solve this part of the defensive puzzle). But overall I would assume it always comes down to some combination of the factors I had outlined earlier and potentially others as well, i.e., destruction of fortifications, risky counter-attacks, growing attacker terrain and tactical familiarity/experience, etc.

Exactly, the factors of erosion of a defence are really just symptoms of the defensive puzzle being solved.  A defence is really a puzzle system, and in land warfare a fairly rigid one.  Positions are built and sighted on terrain (approaches, LOS etc), obstacles are placed and trenches dug in. Counter-move forces positioned and logistical support linked up.

The attacker has to solve for this.  The doctrinal solution is to either isolate and bypass, letting the system choke out once the logistics are cut, or overwhelm with force.  However each attack erodes the defence while also figuring it out.  Finds the weak points, or it makes weak points.  Figures out the counter-moves plan and adapts.  War is competitive adaptation - it lies at the nexus of communication and negotiation, and both sides are trying to adapt better than an opponent.  The problem with defence is that over time it cedes adaptation advantage to the attacker.  Why? Because it is tied to terrain.

So as to force ratios, well initial attacks can be quite costly with very high loss ratios.  However, humans figure the puzzle out and once a defence starts to fail the losses start to stack up.  Then if it fails completely the losses for the defender can skyrocket as all its puzzle advantages collapse.  This concept applies to a platoon dug in, the company, the battalion and up to strategic levels.

We have been pursuing how to break this dynamic for a long time.  France 1940 demonstrated you could solve a very complex defensive puzzle with convergence (combined arms and C4ISR). The Gulf War demonstrated that you can solve a very large defensive puzzle with AirPower and GPS (AirLand Battle).  Russia has demonstrated in Ukraine that you cannot, or at least their versions of these ideas.

5 hours ago, Rokko said:

This seems a bit vague, but probably points in the right direction. Although we may understand different things under non-linear, adaptive and dynamic. I would take it to e.g. include abandoning positions or parts of your defensive network once it can no longer be expected to allow you to inflict casualties to your enemy at a favorable ratio and instead move backwards into fresh fortifications and therefore "fresh puzzle territory" for the attacker, where he has to learn all the painful lessons again.

It is vague because I suspect it is still emerging.  I also think we saw it during the opening month of this war. Ukraine essentially waged a non-linear adaptive defence during the initial invasion.  It was highly hybrid and distributed and looked very self-synchronizing.  It mirrored the defensives we saw within insurgencies but upscaled dramatically.  So non-linear means that unlike traditional defence if you hit A you will not get a consistent B effect.  You may get C or D, or X.  I am not sure if this is really non-linear or simply very complex (jury is out on just how non-linear humans can be).  Either way it makes solving the puzzle much harder as one has to build a new theory almost every time.  Here the rigidity of the offence, largely due to logistical realities, failed the RA.

Adaptive means the defence can adapt faster that the attacker, which means not being as tied to terrain.  Ukraine traded 100s of km of terrain in the initial invasion but appeared to envelope those RA lines of advance.  Further their defence had a crowd-sourcing element to it which suggests a lot of spontaneous action.  All of this adds up to an unsolvable puzzle (or at least to hard for the RA).

In the future I suspect that unmanned systems will shape the battle space more than terrain.  A smart minefield with legs can deny vast swaths of ground and move.  Flying swarms can deny large areas and also move.  The only way to really solve for a defensive cloud is to bleed out the cloud (or change the weather…but that is later).  So I expect the defensive may be re-emerging as dominant but it is not the defensive we knew and loved.  Now the big question is whether this is transitory or a long term thing.

[Harmon Rabb]

3 hours ago, akd said:

This is a joke.

 
Calling Card(TV Tropes)

Yeah, seems like a joke based on this old pop culture trope.

In other news, Girkin continues to question the competence of both Prigozhin and Shoigu. Girkin considers the Russian winter offensive a failure.

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Aragorn2002]

9 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Video showing a drone harassing and eventually knocking out a T-72:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/11ldmg1/the_72nd_brigade_use_40mm_nato_grenades_modified/

Interesting to note that it took a FIVE hits to the engine deck to finally cause a mobility kill.  I'd guess the last hit severed a coolant hose which, spewing coolant onto the hot engine block, caused the engine to overhead and the crew to abandon.  Another couple of failed drops until they got a hand grenade right into the driver's compartment.

Persistence pays off

Steve

War can be funny. 

[The_Capt]

13 hours ago, Fenris said:

Another promising development

 

That is a nasty piece of kit.  Saw what the 2000 pounder could do in person. The ER version can reach out to 74kms. That means you can launch the thing 20km behind your own lines and still hit an opponents operational rears areas.  If they go heavy payload these things could be a nightmare for RA counter-moves forces during a UA offensive.

[billbindc]

24 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

That is a nasty piece of kit.  Saw what the 2000 pounder could do in person. The ER version can reach out to 74kms. That means you can launch the thing 20km behind your own lines and still hit an opponents operational rears areas.  If they go heavy payload these things could be a nightmare for RA counter-moves forces during a UA offensive.

Just my thought. You won't be seeing these hitting Bakhmut. They are going to be smashing units transiting Tokmak, Polohyi and Melitopol. 

[sburke]

Russian state TV host claims Ukraine's allies are reduced to eating squirrels because they are spending all their money on military aid (yahoo.com)

mmmm sguirrel.

Somehow this doesn't sound like a good propaganda move.  If your contention is the west will tire of supporting Ukraine but then say they'll eat squirrel in order to keep providing weapons....

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

In other news, Girkin continues to question the competence of both Prigozhin and Shoigu. Girkin considers the Russian winter offensive a failure.

In reviewing our discussions of the Easter Offensive in 2022, I found a similarity that is worth noting.  Here's what I wrote on April 22nd, 2022:

Assuming this is correct, then I will posit another theory of what is going on with the "big offensive"

• Military made it clear that Kyiv attack was failure and that staying there would risk collapse
• Putin agreed to the pull back only by getting the military to agree that they could use those forces to take the rest of Donbas (which up to this point was going nowhere)
• Military might not have thought the Donbas objective was feasible, but telling him 'Da!' gave them what they needed to save the forces from the north from destruction.  Dealing with the difficulties of taking the rest of the Donbas could be dealt with in due time
• Military set up the attack to proceed as Putin had ordered.  Maybe they disagreed with Putin about the timeframe, maybe not?  In either case, the attack went forward before a proper setup could happen
• Attacks were launched and most were disappointingly ineffective
• Military cancelled the unproductive attacks, but kept the Izyum operation going
• Maybe the military argued that taking Slovyansk was all they could realistically do, maybe they did it on their own
• Putin made the announcement that the whole thing had to be taken to make it clear to the military that Sloyvansk was not enough
• Maybe the new plan is to take Slovyansk first and work southward from there.  Personally, this is what I "advised" the Russians should do from the start as it was more realistic, so it seems reasonable to think that is what they are up to

https://community.battlefront.com/topic/140931-how-hot-is-ukraine-gonna-get/?do=findComment&comment=1923467

Now, I'm going to do something fun... I'm going to take this and tweak a couple of things that happened in the last few months.  I will put those items in BOLD to emphasize what I changed.  Here goes...

Assuming this is correct, then I will posit another theory of what is going on with the "big offensive"

• Military made it clear that Kherson defense was failure and that staying there would risk collapse
• Putin agreed to the pull back only by getting the military to agree that they could use those forces to take the rest of Donbas (which up to this point was going nowhere)
• Military might not have thought the Donbas objective was feasible, but telling him 'Da!' gave them what they needed to save the forces from the north from destruction.  Dealing with the difficulties of taking the rest of the Donbas could be dealt with in due time
• Military set up the attack to proceed as Putin had ordered.  Maybe they disagreed with Putin about the timeframe, maybe not?  In either case, the attack went forward before a proper setup could happen
• Attacks were launched and most were disappointingly ineffective
• Military cancelled most of the unproductive attacks, but kept the Bakhmut operation going
• Maybe the military argued that taking Slovyansk was all they could realistically do, maybe they did it on their own
• Putin made the announcement that the whole thing had to be taken to make it clear to the military that Sloyvansk was not enough
• Maybe the new plan is to take Slovyansk first and work southward from there.  Personally, this is what I "advised" the Russians should do from the start as it was more realistic, so it seems reasonable to think that is what they are up to

How does that look to people?  I think it looks pretty solid, except with the Easter Offensive there was a whole bunch of things out there which indicated pretty clearly that Slovyansk was the primary objective.  For this offensive?  There's not much out there to know what Russia's objectives were.  Was it simply to attrit Ukrainian forces?  Was it take whatever terrain could be taken?  Was it to take Lyman?  Was it to push through Bakhmut and threaten Slovyansk?  We don't know.  Therefore, it's not a perfect comparison to the Easter Offensive due to the lack of tea leaves to read this time around.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, sburke said:

Somehow this doesn't sound like a good propaganda move.  If your contention is the west will tire of supporting Ukraine but then say they'll eat squirrel in order to keep providing weapons....

One of my favorite backfire propaganda moves ever was when the Soviets showed the people how impoverished the West's proletariat is compared to the glorious people of the Soviet Union.  They showed some city tenements (IIRC New York) where people have clotheslines between buildings to dry their laundry.  The viewers noted that there were Levis hanging all over the place.  The message they took away from this propaganda masterpiece?  That the poorest people in the West were richer than the average Soviet citizen.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Routine T-72 catastrophic explosion.  However, it made me think of something:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/11lqux6/russian_tank_cooks_off_in_spectacular_fashion/

Engineering vehicles clearing lanes through minefields are by their nature vulnerable.  They need to drive straight ahead or backwards in order to avoid blowing up on a mine.  Driving forward is slow and can't be sped up without risking missing mines, backing up is hard to stay in the lane and quite slow thanks to Soviet's under engineering the reverse gear.  Which means a drone with grenades could make very easy work of a mine clearing effort.  Sitting ducks.

Steve

[DesertFox]

15 minutes ago, sburke said:

Russian state TV host claims Ukraine's allies are reduced to eating squirrels because they are spending all their money on military aid (yahoo.com)

mmmm sguirrel.

Somehow this doesn't sound like a good propaganda move.  If your contention is the west will tire of supporting Ukraine but then say they'll eat squirrel in order to keep providing weapons....

Yep, since of late nothing but Squirrel-Bratwurst here. Hmm delicious...

[Jiggathebauce]

Re:Steve's comment about Jeans and propaganda backfires

maybe they should have shown people living in shacks in the segregated south during Jim Crow.

 

Meanwhile nowadays On the west coast where I live, a lot of tent cities near the highways and under bridges, often facing police violence that takes out what meager shelter and belongings they do have. Masses of people being priced out of their neighborhoods by tax valuation on their property and rent increases, on top of stagnant wages and price gouging at grocery stores and the pump.  But hey, our homeless got jeans so it's all good. 

 

I am FOR sending Ukraine what they need to defend themselves, and so is the party I'm in. But it is undeniable that billions go to a bloated defense industrial complex and for what? They had to increase shell production sixfold?

Hasn't the US DOD failed 5 years in a row of audits? 

 

It's a boon for the pro Russia side that corpos and real estate moguls are making windfall profits off people's declining standard of living in the US, the MIC is adorned in bigger budgets every year that somehow still can't sustain ammo on the shelf for a real war, and SOMEHOW there just isn't money to spread around to help normal people. For some reason, shareholders need bigger returns no matter who else that harms and how it will ruin the firms long term. Jack Welch is alive and well in corporate culture. 

 

The answer isn't to cut aid to Ukraine obviously, it's to quit pretending we can't afford giving everyone else a piece of the pie, and living in denial about how many people are struggling to afford to live right now, even with their Levi's on.

[Battlefront.com]

Very interesting extended length video that shows Ukrainian forces taking some trenches and defeating Russian counter attacks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PNVmilitary_community/comments/11lrp8g/the_battle_of_the_ukrainian_assault_unit_of_the/

Lots of interesting things to see, but the one that struck me is that the Russians had only a half dozen guys (at most) defending the trenches, but about a platoon sized group to try and retake it.  To me this indicates that the larger unit (company?) tasked with defending this sector of frontage had woefully inadequate manpower to do so.  My guess is they divided up most of their forces into half squad sized units to hold positions while a platoon sized force sat in a central area ready to reinforce where needed.  This would also allow for rotations over the course of a day.  However, this plan didn't work in this case as the Ukrainians took the trenches faster than the Russians could react and that meant the reinforcements, effectively, had to mount an assault on a fortified area.  Very different than reinforcing!

Note that a Ukrainian drone appears to drop a marking flare at one point.  I've not see that done before.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Re:Steve's comment about Jeans and propaganda backfires

maybe they should have shown people living in shacks in the segregated south during Jim Crow.

That's my point.  Russian propagandists don't necessarily think through what they do, they just go for low hanging fruit.  i.e. they're lazy and presume their audience is mentally inept.

The rest of your post is rather irrelevant.  Well, except for this one...

7 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

I am FOR sending Ukraine what they need to defend themselves, and so is the party I'm in. But it is undeniable that billions go to a bloated defense industrial complex and for what? They had to increase shell production sixfold?

Hasn't the US DOD failed 5 years in a row of audits? 

The old "butter and not bullets" argument goes back to the days before there were bullets.  Ukraine or no Ukraine, the political will to take care of the most vulnerable in our society is extremely low.  Even by the very people that are in need of aid.  I've seen and heard and interacted with poor people that are the worst enemies of their own kind.  I bet if the US military budget was reduced to zero we would still have tent cities under bridges because the reasons for the tent cities at its core is not about money.

But we're going way off topic.

Steve

[The_Capt]

23 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Routine T-72 catastrophic explosion.  However, it made me think of something:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/11lqux6/russian_tank_cooks_off_in_spectacular_fashion/

Engineering vehicles clearing lanes through minefields are by their nature vulnerable.  They need to drive straight ahead or backwards in order to avoid blowing up on a mine.  Driving forward is slow and can't be sped up without risking missing mines, backing up is hard to stay in the lane and quite slow thanks to Soviet's under engineering the reverse gear.  Which means a drone with grenades could make very easy work of a mine clearing effort.  Sitting ducks.

Steve

Normally the initial lanes are done by the tanks themselves after the engineers fire line charges if it is an explosive breaching.  

As to slow, well yes and no, very likely a hard no for the RA.  A simple minefield can be pushed through pretty quickly but the lead plough tanks are very vulnerable, it is why you always do double breaches - as you note, straight line.  

It is when the minefield is complex (i.e. with embedded obstacles such as an AT ditch or dragons teeth).  Then you need to do the breach with the tank, then bring up a specialized armoured dozer, clear the ditch or obstacle.  Push through the rest of the minefield and then do the assault.  It is one of the hardest operations to do, water crossings are likely one of the few harder.

A professional well practiced outfit can do all that in minutes, but the RA has been anything but.  The UA are likely training like mad on this sort of stuff right now because they are going to need it.  On the modern battlefield you would basically need to create an EW bubble to keep drones and ISR away as best you can.  Support with a lot of deep strike, likely program in feints and false breaches.  It is near the high water mark for a modern force.

[danfrodo]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Very interesting extended length video that shows Ukrainian forces taking some trenches and defeating Russian counter attacks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PNVmilitary_community/comments/11lrp8g/the_battle_of_the_ukrainian_assault_unit_of_the/

Lots of interesting things to see, but the one that struck me is that the Russians had only a half dozen guys (at most) defending the trenches, but about a platoon sized group to try and retake it.  To me this indicates that the larger unit (company?) tasked with defending this sector of frontage had woefully inadequate manpower to do so.  My guess is they divided up most of their forces into half squad sized units to hold positions while a platoon sized force sat in a central area ready to reinforce where needed.  This would also allow for rotations over the course of a day.  However, this plan didn't work in this case as the Ukrainians took the trenches faster than the Russians could react and that meant the reinforcements, effectively, had to mount an assault on a fortified area.  Very different than reinforcing!

Note that a Ukrainian drone appears to drop a marking flare at one point.  I've not see that done before.

Steve

That was amazing.  RU tried to counterattack, w armor support, but it seemed very disjointed.  A few guys, then a dozen or so who get hit by arty, then a BMP, then a few more guys.  A concerted response might've been more successful I'd think.  Hopefully the UKR guys were OK going forward from this.

[danfrodo]

I've been thinking RU was going to take Bakhmut, do a victory dance, then stop attacks while scrambling to redeploy in time for the ground to dry and UKR getting active.  Assuming they've massed artillery in Bakhmut area this needs to be repositioned to where they think UKR will attack.  If RU keeps pounding away at Bakhmut then they'll be forced to redeploy assets on the fly, w nothing pre-positioned.  Which means columns being suddenly thrown together and shoved toward wherever, with the inevitable traffic jams -- great targets for HIMARS, JDAMS, etc.  Wouldn't that be great.  All RU's shells & tubes & armor suddenly on the move and then strung out on roads, seen by every drone & satellite around.  

Edited March 8, 2023 by danfrodo

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

In reviewing our discussions of the Eastern offensive in 2022, I found a similarity that is worth noting.  Here's what I wrote on April 22nd, 2022:

Assuming this is correct, then I will posit another theory of what is going on with the "big offensive"

• Military made it clear that Kyiv attack was failure and that staying there would risk collapse
• Putin agreed to the pull back only by getting the military to agree that they could use those forces to take the rest of Donbas (which up to this point was going nowhere)
• Military might not have thought the Donbas objective was feasible, but telling him 'Da!' gave them what they needed to save the forces from the north from destruction.  Dealing with the difficulties of taking the rest of the Donbas could be dealt with in due time
• Military set up the attack to proceed as Putin had ordered.  Maybe they disagreed with Putin about the timeframe, maybe not?  In either case, the attack went forward before a proper setup could happen
• Attacks were launched and most were disappointingly ineffective
• Military cancelled the unproductive attacks, but kept the Izyum operation going
• Maybe the military argued that taking Slovyansk was all they could realistically do, maybe they did it on their own
• Putin made the announcement that the whole thing had to be taken to make it clear to the military that Sloyvansk was not enough
• Maybe the new plan is to take Slovyansk first and work southward from there.  Personally, this is what I "advised" the Russians should do from the start as it was more realistic, so it seems reasonable to think that is what they are up to

https://community.battlefront.com/topic/140931-how-hot-is-ukraine-gonna-get/?do=findComment&comment=1923467

Now, I'm going to do something fun... I'm going to take this and tweak a couple of things that happened in the last few months.  I will put those items in BOLD to emphasize what I changed.  Here goes...

Assuming this is correct, then I will posit another theory of what is going on with the "big offensive"

• Military made it clear that Kherson defense was failure and that staying there would risk collapse
• Putin agreed to the pull back only by getting the military to agree that they could use those forces to take the rest of Donbas (which up to this point was going nowhere)
• Military might not have thought the Donbas objective was feasible, but telling him 'Da!' gave them what they needed to save the forces from the north from destruction.  Dealing with the difficulties of taking the rest of the Donbas could be dealt with in due time
• Military set up the attack to proceed as Putin had ordered.  Maybe they disagreed with Putin about the timeframe, maybe not?  In either case, the attack went forward before a proper setup could happen
• Attacks were launched and most were disappointingly ineffective
• Military cancelled most of the unproductive attacks, but kept the Bakhmut operation going
• Maybe the military argued that taking Slovyansk was all they could realistically do, maybe they did it on their own
• Putin made the announcement that the whole thing had to be taken to make it clear to the military that Sloyvansk was not enough
• Maybe the new plan is to take Slovyansk first and work southward from there.  Personally, this is what I "advised" the Russians should do from the start as it was more realistic, so it seems reasonable to think that is what they are up to

How does that look to people?  I think it looks pretty solid, except with the Easter Offensive there was a whole bunch of things out there which indicated pretty clearly that Slovyansk was the primary objective.  For this offensive?  There's not much out there to know what Russia's objectives were.  Was it simply to attrit Ukrainian forces?  Was it take whatever terrain could be taken?  Was it to take Lyman?  Was it to push through Bakhmut and threaten Slovyansk?  We don't know.  Therefore, it's not a perfect comparison to the Easter Offensive due to the lack of tea leaves to read this time around.

Steve

This is a great articulation of something I was inchoately working towards in my head. And as usual, it's here on this obscure (ish?) board rather than on the front page of the NY Times.

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

Yep, since of late nothing but Squirrel-Bratwurst here. Hmm delicious...

That is a LOT of squirrels!  and looks great!  Glad to see germans doing german things.  I sometimes wonder if my love of sausage of all kinds is a genetic condition passed down from my (mostly) bavarian ancestors.

[DesertFox]

2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

passed down from my (mostly) bavarian ancestors.

If origin south of Weisswurst-Aequator (main river) then it would most likely be these with sweet mustard. Ok, enough of this little OT tangent to german cuisine:

[sross112]

48 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Very interesting extended length video that shows Ukrainian forces taking some trenches and defeating Russian counter attacks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PNVmilitary_community/comments/11lrp8g/the_battle_of_the_ukrainian_assault_unit_of_the/

Lots of interesting things to see, but the one that struck me is that the Russians had only a half dozen guys (at most) defending the trenches, but about a platoon sized group to try and retake it.  To me this indicates that the larger unit (company?) tasked with defending this sector of frontage had woefully inadequate manpower to do so.  My guess is they divided up most of their forces into half squad sized units to hold positions while a platoon sized force sat in a central area ready to reinforce where needed.  This would also allow for rotations over the course of a day.  However, this plan didn't work in this case as the Ukrainians took the trenches faster than the Russians could react and that meant the reinforcements, effectively, had to mount an assault on a fortified area.  Very different than reinforcing!

Note that a Ukrainian drone appears to drop a marking flare at one point.  I've not see that done before.

Steve

That was good and thanks for sharing. This video really highlights something that I've seen multiple times but this one really shows it well. I can't wrap my head around constructing a defensive position adjacent to wide open fields that allows the opposing forces to close within grenade range before they are engaged. Failure to have LP/OPs. Fighting positions without LOS along approaches or crew served positions covering the wide open terrain. 

Then the old spray and pray. Just stick the AK over the top of the trench and empty a magazine in the general direction where you think the attackers are. Nothing like telegraphing your position while hoping for Powerball odds to actually hit something or someone. 

What all this conveys to me is a serious shortfall in professional leadership and professional soldiering. I'm assuming these are probably mobiks that were dropped in a tree line without a clue by leadership that either didn't have a clue or if they did they didn't care. Also helps explain how armored vehicles can drive right up to their positions and blast away. Makes me think of sitting in the chair reading the paper and the Mrs. asking if somebody just pulled up to the house.

"Hey Ivan, did someone just pull up?"

"I don't know Igor, let me check. Ahhhhh hell Igor, we got company and it isn't the good kind!!" 

[Battlefront.com]

19 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is a great articulation of something I was inchoately working towards in my head. And as usual, it's here on this obscure (ish?) board rather than on the front page of the NY Times.

I am glad I went back and looked at those posts to remind us all of where Kofman and others were at the time.  Otherwise, I would not have thought to enter the Way Back Machine

Another point that is similar.  In both the Easter Offensive (I am going to capitalize in hopes Wikipedia makes it official!) and this Winter offensive it was pretty easy to see the start of them.  However, it was unclear in both circumstances when it failed.  In the Easter Offensive many, including Kofman, thought it hadn't started yet while to me it looked like it had already ended.  I had the same exact reaction to the Winter offensive, saying so way back in January.

This brings up an interesting aspect challenging the notion that Russia has "deep pockets" to dig into for such things.  Apparently it does not.  In both situations it fairly quickly failed to get something going and either decided it could not continue or it had to cut its losses.  Either way, it was over quickly and what followed was nothing more than local actions.  Stupid, nearly pointless local actions at that.

One could conclude from this that Russia's offensive capabilities have been paper thin since Spring 2022.  Not a big revelation to us here, but still worth stating.

Steve

[DesertFox]

"It’s really bad. I think they are trying to surround us" 

 

 

[Kinophile]

22 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

If origin south of Weisswurst-Aequator (main river) then it would most likely be these with sweet mustard. Ok, enough of this little OT tangent to german cuisine:

Weiss WURST FTFW!  OMG I love that stuff

 That activates an insane amount of memories from Hamburg. 

 

[Kinophile]

14 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

"It’s really bad. I think they are trying to surround us" 

 

 

FWIW I expect to see a lot of these videos,  but in Russian, in the Summer and no "trying".

Ukraines time is coming, it's...inevitable.