How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sross112]

16 minutes ago, chris talpas said:

That is a good perspective.  Makes one wonder about how much more mines have been put in place further back.  Given the near impossibility of significant breaching operations in this new age of drones and drone directed high precision artillery, how do you avoid stalemate?

Could a concerted effort on the logistics chain using longer ranged Atacams and friendly ISR assets over the winter cause forces to wither on the vine?

 

 

My thoughts on how to crack it. The killers are the guns, the good L52s and good ammo paired with the good ISR. What the UA is lacking is sufficient guns with sufficient ammo to kill all the targets to then let the light forces take the ground. The ammo stocks have been eaten up so the guns they have are running on rations so there isn't much point in giving more guns now. Once the ammo production gets up then the guns can work and more guns can be given so they can attrite the defenders non stop. Pair that with the deep strike on the logistics in a relentless manner and that is how they will take back ground faster.

So in my opinion, the biggest bottleneck holding back the UA is ammo for the big guns. Then not enough guns to cover the front with sufficient ammo. While that is being solved for the drone air superiority war needs solved for. Then I think some forms of mobile warfare (maybe light and highly mobile) can take place. Maybe even get the heavies back in the game. 

Until the ammo crisis is solved we will see more of the same.

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, sross112 said:

My thoughts on how to crack it. The killers are the guns, the good L52s and good ammo paired with the good ISR. What the UA is lacking is sufficient guns with sufficient ammo to kill all the targets to then let the light forces take the ground. The ammo stocks have been eaten up so the guns they have are running on rations so there isn't much point in giving more guns now. Once the ammo production gets up then the guns can work and more guns can be given so they can attrite the defenders non stop. Pair that with the deep strike on the logistics in a relentless manner and that is how they will take back ground faster.

So in my opinion, the biggest bottleneck holding back the UA is ammo for the big guns. Then not enough guns to cover the front with sufficient ammo. While that is being solved for the drone air superiority war needs solved for. Then I think some forms of mobile warfare (maybe light and highly mobile) can take place. Maybe even get the heavies back in the game. 

Until the ammo crisis is solved we will see more of the same.

The only thing you left out is that two years in this ammo problem is inexcusable. if we had panicked early  we would be past this problem. People were so afraid of buying more ammo than necessary if the Russians folded. They totally failed to consider that the Russians might NOT fold.

[Harmon Rabb]

Russian poor bloody infantry walk through the mud while RU helicopters pop flares in the background. 

Ukraine needs more long range weapons like ATACAMS to permanently ground these things.

Personally I would not mind Ukraine be able to strike Russian helicopters inside real Russia also using such long range assets. Not just the parts of Ukraine that supposedly "democratically" voted to become a part of the Russian Federation after Putin's "special military operation". 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Ales Dvorak]

17 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

In other words, McDonald's isn't headed back to Moscow any time soon.

McDonald's is a traitor because he will enable the Russians to eat healthier food.

[LongLeftFlank]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

As a citizen of Canada who has been in the military for over 35 years and has worked all levels of tactical, operational, strategic and political.  I can definitely say that any defence of LLF is not supported by my nation.

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Oh that is fine.  We can smoke cannabis too.  We just can’t defend him on the internet….it is a law, got Royal assent and everything.

 

OK, that should end that sidebar.

Edited November 28, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[LongLeftFlank]

Avdiivka.

 

 

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I can't agree with this because it's predicated on all those 10s of thousands of dead Russians not having countered whatever Ukraine did with its saved forces.  Remember, Russia probably lost 4x as many as Ukraine did, so if Ukraine pulled out of Bakhmut and saved 20,000 casualties then Russia would have 80,000 to put somewhere else.

Given the state of the RA last Fall I sincerely doubt that it was able to counter the UA better faster.  By accepting an attrition battle the UA ceded initiative to the RA and played to Russian strengths, not weaknesses.

It comes down to operation stress.  The RA was highly stressed last Fall, evidence in the two operational collapses at Kharkiv and Kherson.  The RA operational system could not sustain itself so it buckled back to a lower energy state that could be sustained.  The UA had several choices to continue to put pressure on that system.  The one they chose was a tactical attritional battle at Bakhmut.  The theory is that if you grind up tactical forces the operational system has to strain to keep replacing them.  [aside:  we also should not discount the fact that at Bakhmut the UA was still conducting deeper strikes against operational targets, but let’s come back to that].  

The problem with Wagner was that it was an ersatz tactical capability.   It was entirely self-contained, “Priggy’s Boys”.  So while the UA was attriting Priggy to dust they were in fact doing two counter-productive things 1) giving breathing room for the RA and 2) eroding a force that could be an internal threat to Putin, as we saw in Jun.  Further the operational stress they were looking for was likely reduced not increased.  The RA/Wagner, did not care about resupply of troops who were going to die anyway.  All they needed was trucks, a few bullets and cannon fodder.  None of those troops got high end support from logistics or C4ISR.

I am a personal fan of direct operational stress, not indirect.  If the UA had kept the initiative and forced the RA to react along an 800 km frontage, they would have induced enormous logistical and C4ISR stress in the RA.  The “simple” act of relocating 10k troops a couple hundred kms, repeatedly, is going to create more operational stress than simply killing them in one concentrated locale.  It exposes nodes and connectors to deep strike.  Causes wear and tear on forces/capability.  And creates opportunity.

The game in this war appears to be to project friction father and faster than your opponent can react.  Based on the human waves lost at Bakhmut it was clear that Wagner and the RA could sustain in Bakhmut.  Now we do need to wait for more facts and analysis to come out.  And I do not want to armchair quarterback the UA as there were likely a lot of other factors we cannot see.  But my sense - fear perhaps - is that Russia pulled Ukraine into a Verdun situation.  Politically there was pressure to make a point.  Externally wave after wave of dying Russians is excellent for the strategic narrative.  Problem was/is western attention is fickle. We all sat back and went “hey look at the UA crushing it”…quickly followed by “holy crap those Russians really want this”….followed by “wait, you mean minefields still work?”  And now heading towards…”hmm,  now where are those exits”.

Now I honestly hope that the RA collapses today.  That the cumulative effects of all that attrition reach a tipping point and we see another collapse.  But if this were a staff college exercise I would tell students “well you now have two choices: winter offensive to create collapse.  Or winter offensive to buy time and space for deeper Ukrainian defences in preparation to freeze this thing in the event we start seeing a weakening of western support….what are we going to do?”

Edited November 28, 2023 by The_Capt

[acrashb]

Budanov's wife poisoned:

Ukraine military intelligence chief’s wife has been poisoned, reports say (foxnews.com)

Whoever arranged this, and the entire chain of command that executed it, now has a target on their foreheads.

[Pelican Pal]

It’s been a while since I looked at the terrain but I also got the sense that Bahkmut wasn’t the optimal terrain to defend from. 
 

iirc it was in a depression and obviously being a destroyed city had significant cover and concealment opportunities.

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Budanov's wife poisoned:

Ukraine military intelligence chief’s wife has been poisoned, reports say (foxnews.com)

Whoever arranged this, and the entire chain of command that executed it, now has a target on their foreheads.

Yesh.  Well, based on prior ops like this I don't think it will take Ukraine long to figure out who did it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Given the state of the RA last Fall I sincerely doubt that it was able to counter the UA better faster.  By accepting an attrition battle the UA ceded initiative to the RA and played to Russian strengths, not weaknesses.

I think the most probable timeframe for Ukraine to have called it quits at Bakhmut was early winter as that was the point in time when casualties on the UA side really started to mount and it also became clear that Russia was going to throw everything it had into the battle.

The rest of what I wrote applies to that scenario.  Basically, Ukraine was offensively spent and Russia had plenty of time to move stuff around to be ready for the Summer.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

It comes down to operation stress.  The RA was highly stressed last Fall, evidence in the two operational collapses at Kharkiv and Kherson.  The RA operational system could not sustain itself so it buckled back to a lower energy state that could be sustained.  The UA had several choices to continue to put pressure on that system.  The one they chose was a tactical attritional battle at Bakhmut.  The theory is that if you grind up tactical forces the operational system has to strain to keep replacing them.  [aside:  we also should not discount the fact that at Bakhmut the UA was still conducting deeper strikes against operational targets, but let’s come back to that].  

The problem with Wagner was that it was an ersatz tactical capability.   It was entirely self-contained, “Priggy’s Boys”.  So while the UA was attriting Priggy to dust they were in fact doing two counter-productive things 1) giving breathing room for the RA and 2) eroding a force that could be an internal threat to Putin, as we saw in Jun.  Further the operational stress they were looking for was likely reduced not increased.  The RA/Wagner, did not care about resupply of troops who were going to die anyway.  All they needed was trucks, a few bullets and cannon fodder.  None of those troops got high end support from logistics or C4ISR.

If Ukraine ceased fighting at Bakhmut, how would that have continued to put stress on Russia's ability to wage war?  Ukraine was not capable of mounting another attack of its own, so MoD forces getting breathing room was inevitable.  At best this means withdrawing from Bakhmut earlier would have produced no benefits to Ukraine in terms of pressure on the MoD's ability to conduct business.  However, I really don't think you're looking at the Bakhmut fight in the right way.

Yes, Priggy's boys were isolated from the main Russian force, but not completely.  All those prisoners that Priggy burned through would have gone to flesh out MoD units instead, which means they would have hit Ukraine's lines somewhere else at another time.  And let's not be dismissive of the massive quantities of munitions that Priggy's forces burned through.  Those artillery shells came primarily from somewhere (DPR sources) and would have also been otherwise used somewhere else.  So I say again, all of Russia's unfavorable losses at Bakhmut would not have happened and it is unknown if Ukraine could have scored such favorable exchanges elsewhere at another time.

And there's the point that Priggy would still be alive and Wagner still causing problems for Ukraine instead of Russia.  The stress that reversed that situation was absolutely caused by Bakhmut.  I think it's more than fair to say that the conditions that caused the mutiny and subsequent dismantling of Wagner were net positives for Ukraine.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I am a personal fan of direct operational stress, not indirect.  If the UA had kept the initiative and forced the RA to react along an 800 km frontage, they would have induced enormous logistical and C4ISR stress in the RA

I just don't see this as being realistic.  Even if Ukraine had pulled out of Bakhmut earlier I think it would have been forced onto the defensive throughout the winter even more than they in fact were.  That's because Russia would not have waited around until Spring/Summer to redeploy the forces from Bakhmut elsewhere.  They probably would have shifted south to Avdiivka.  It's a short hop and the logistics base is the same as for Bakhmut, so it wouldn't be very difficult at all for Russia to have done that smoothly and quickly.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The game in this war appears to be to project friction father and faster than your opponent can react.  Based on the human waves lost at Bakhmut it was clear that Wagner and the RA could sustain in Bakhmut.  Now we do need to wait for more facts and analysis to come out.  And I do not want to armchair quarterback the UA as there were likely a lot of other factors we cannot see.  But my sense - fear perhaps - is that Russia pulled Ukraine into a Verdun situation.  Politically there was pressure to make a point.  Externally wave after wave of dying Russians is excellent for the strategic narrative.  Problem was/is western attention is fickle. We all sat back and went “hey look at the UA crushing it”…quickly followed by “holy crap those Russians really want this”….followed by “wait, you mean minefields still work?”  And now heading towards…”hmm,  now where are those exits”.

I don't disagree with this assessment.  What I disagree with is that Ukraine had viable options that could have ultimately produced a better result.  When I look at the situation I see Ukraine was more likely to come out worse by pulling back from Bakhmut earlier. 

Those Human waves were going to hit Ukraine's lines somewhere at some point because that's really all Russia has as a strategic advantage.  And that point would have been sometime in the winter.  If there's one thing we can count on is Russia's strategy of always attacking, regardless of conditions.  For all we know Russia would have chosen a better stress point and achieved more with the piles of dead than they did at Bakhmut.

Ukraine losing Bakhumt and then Avdiivka would not have been good.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

ow I honestly hope that the RA collapses today.  That the cumulative effects of all that attrition reach a tipping point and we see another collapse.  But if this were a staff college exercise I would tell students “well you now have two choices: winter offensive to create collapse.  Or winter offensive to buy time and space for deeper Ukrainian defences in preparation to freeze this thing in the event we start seeing a weakening of western support….what are we going to do?”

The choices in front of Ukraine at the moment suck.

Ukraine has very little offensive capacity at the moment.  I'm not sure that it will have any major improvements this winter.  On the other hand, it's probable that Russia is mining the entire front to resemble the south.  Which is doubly problematic for Ukraine because the terrain along the rest of the front favors the defender to begin with.  I think any offensive action of any scale is going to be tough to pull off.

I think the sensible thing to do is for Ukraine to go on the defensive, mine the Hell out of its lines, and build up operational reserves along the whole front.  Let Russia decide where to commit, watch it fumble its offensives as it always done, use the reserves to keep the front stable, and save the artillery for where it can get the best results.  At the same time, keep up deep strikes on Russia's strategic assets and continue racking up the costs of Russia keeping this war going.

I'd also be looking at doing something highly risky and creative.  The operation on the left bank of the Dnepr is an example.  Russia will have to thin its forces to keep up its Human wave attacks, so there should be opportunities for something worth trying.

Steve

[dan/california]

Someone in the Russian chain of command is more attached to what his maps say, than the guys at the front. If this was filmed before the big storm? Which seems likely, anybody on this sand bar froze solid when it hit.

[dan/california]

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I just don't see this as being realistic.  Even if Ukraine had pulled out of Bakhmut earlier I think it would have been forced onto the defensive throughout the winter even more than they in fact were.  That's because Russia would not have waited around until Spring/Summer to redeploy the forces from Bakhmut elsewhere.  They probably would have shifted south to Avdiivka.  It's a short hop and the logistics base is the same as for Bakhmut, so it wouldn't be very difficult at all for Russia to have done that smoothly and quickly.

Well here I cannot agree.  The UA had just conducted two successful simultaneous operational offensives over 500kms apart.  They were no doubt tired but setting up feints and pressures along the line is not unrealistic.  I find it unrealistic to think the UA was only able to fight in one place last winter.  They had already demonstrated they were more than capable.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't disagree with this assessment.  What I disagree with is that Ukraine had viable options that could have ultimately produced a better result.  When I look at the situation I see Ukraine was more likely to come out worse by pulling back from Bakhmut earlier. 

Those Human waves were going to hit Ukraine's lines somewhere at some point because that's really all Russia has as a strategic advantage.  And that point would have been sometime in the winter.  If there's one thing we can count on is Russia's strategy of always attacking, regardless of conditions.  For all we know Russia would have chosen a better stress point and achieved more with the piles of dead than they did at Bakhmut.

Ukraine losing Bakhumt and then Avdiivka would not have been good

 So this is where I go "I am not sure".  Gains were made at Bakhmut, do not get me wrong.  No debate there.  But were there better options that would have 1) created greater operational stress and 2) disrupted RA defensive preparations?  To me these are great unanswered question of 2023 - number 3 would be "what the hell was Priggy thinking?

Shifting those human waves was no small thing.  Or trying to sustain those waves in multiple locations.  Russia continues to show that if left alone they will "attack!!!"  Because their playbook has one page.   But they are also nervous as hell about being attacked and outmaneuvered.  Avdiivka happened because they felt like they sealed up everywhere else and could go back on offensives (attack!!).

For all we know Russia would have chosen worse stress points.  Now what also strikes me is why the UA could not do both?  Grind at Bakhmut and conduct tactical spoiling offensives along the line to disrupt obstacles.

To my mind this all highlights the fine line between Attrition and Corrosive Warfare.  Both aim to exhaust and achieve victory through killing ones opponent.  But Attrition does it at the front end, while Corrosive looks at the entire enemy system.  Hit it on multiple points, induce friction and fractures.  Then add pressure so the thing falls under its own eight.  Attritional warfare won't likely work against Russia, it take too long and Russia has the human capital advantage.  Corrosive warfare might work as it targets Russia capability to keep all that mass in the field. 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The choices in front of Ukraine at the moment suck.

Ya, I am losing faith we are going to see a big win for Xmas too.  Regardless of how we got here...we are here.  The RA has ridiculous levels of minefields and are likely laying more (this region is going to be contaminated for a century at least).  They still have EW and ISR, enough to interdict significant UA mass.  And a long line of fodder that we can see no light at the end of the tunnel for.

Without higher resolution it is impossible to determine if the RA is near failing.  It is a big decision to decide to dig in and hold.  Freeze the conflict and shoot for a Korean peninsula situation.  Or do you reload and keep pushing...one more time? 

Edited November 28, 2023 by The_Capt

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

 

Oh ya, no problem.  Business as usual...nothing to see here.

[poesel]

16 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

But, but, but, …. If Germany clamps down on these sales, some other manufacturer, in some other country, will make all that money! We can’t allow that to happen.

Which would probably be the US which traded $109m until Sep 2023 up from $61m in '22 up from $34m in '21. So the US tripled its trade since the war started.

But, but, but, ... things are more complicated than a single number.

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4635.html

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Well here I cannot agree.  The UA had just conducted two successful simultaneous operational offensives over 500kms apart.  They were no doubt tired but setting up feints and pressures along the line is not unrealistic.  I find it unrealistic to think the UA was only able to fight in one place last winter.  They had already demonstrated they were more than capable.

Yes, but Russia has demonstrated it can keep up a couple of offensives and still successfully defend in multiple locations simultaneously.  You seem to be forgetting that while Russia was still fighting for Bakhmut it launched two new offensives in the winter of 2022/23;  Vuhledar (Oct-Feb) and in Kupyansk-Lyman direction (Jan-Aprilish).  Obviously Vuhledar failed spectacularly, but the fights in Luhansk did gain some ground and was again activated this Fall.

Offensively Ukraine was spent at the end of 2022.  The two successful counter offensives were played out and it was clear it didn't have untapped resources to commit all at once to something new.  The defense of Bakhmut was over 6 months which meant a steady feeding of new forces into the fight.  Withdrawing from Bakhmut would likely not have changed the prospects of a new counter offensive IMHO.

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

To my mind this all highlights the fine line between Attrition and Corrosive Warfare.  Both aim to exhaust and achieve victory through killing ones opponent.  But Attrition does it at the front end, while Corrosive looks at the entire enemy system.  Hit it on multiple points, induce friction and fractures.  Then add pressure so the thing falls under its own eight.  Attritional warfare won't likely work against Russia, it take too long and Russia has the human capital advantage.  Corrosive warfare might work as it targets Russia capability to keep all that mass in the field.

My assessment of Russia is that is capable of managing Ukraine's corrosive warfare strategy while also being able to sustain its own incredibly "expensive" attritional offensive strategy.  This is not good news for Ukraine because corrosive was always its most plausible path to getting Russia off its territory.

If I were Ukraine I'd be going for a very, very long term strategy.  I'd take every opportunity while the war is still "hot" to take hundreds of millions of Dollars worth of Russian military capacity offline.  Ships to the bottom, port facilities razed to the ground, bridges knocked out, power infrastructure burnt up, EW systems zapped, AD systems shattered, etc. etc. etc.  on top of the usual destruction of anything within 10-25km of the frontline.  If/when the war freezes, Ukraine won't be able to go after this stuff.  Kill it now while the opportunities are there and while doing so MAYBE tip Russia into running out of room to sustain the war as is.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

A prediction about the potential for freezing the frontlines.

Whatever Russia agrees to, it will not live by it right from the start.  This is what Russia did after Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, so I don't think I'm Nostradamus for predicting it will do it again.  In both cases Russia sought to improve the frontlines in gross violation of the agreements.  After signing Minsk 1 it went after the Donetsk airport and after Minsk 2 it was Debaltseve.  It's a pretty sure bet that if the conflict were to freeze with the current frontlines Russia would continue to attack Avdiivka and put enormous effort into ejecting the Kherson bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnepr.

Steve

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, but Russia has demonstrated it can keep up a couple of offensives and still successfully defend in multiple locations simultaneously.  You seem to be forgetting that while Russia was still fighting for Bakhmut it launched two new offensives in the winter of 2022/23;  Vuhledar (Oct-Feb) and in Kupyansk-Lyman direction (Jan-Aprilish).  Obviously Vuhledar failed spectacularly, but the fights in Luhansk did gain some ground and was again activated this Fall.

I forget about them because they fall under "Russian leg humping" and are entirely forgettable tactical twitches.  Maybe the UA was spent, or maybe they are less inclined to mindlessly throw their people away.

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

My assessment of Russia is that is capable of managing Ukraine's corrosive warfare strategy while also being able to sustain its own incredibly "expensive" attritional offensive strategy.  This is not good news for Ukraine because corrosive was always its most plausible path to getting Russia off its territory.

We may just have to face facts here.  Denial/Defence has taken primacy in this war, maybe all war for awhile.  Neither side can reasonably overcome this reality.  Corrosive warfare may have delivered all it can given the conditions.

This war may have already killed Russia, we just don't know it yet.  Its zombie might even continue making sounds for a decade but the thing is dead as Marley, it just doesn't know it yet.  Either way unless we some movement soon, I can see those difficult conversations kicking in by next spring. 

[The_Capt]

43 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

A prediction about the potential for freezing the frontlines.

Whatever Russia agrees to, it will not live by it right from the start.  This is what Russia did after Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, so I don't think I'm Nostradamus for predicting it will do it again.  In both cases Russia sought to improve the frontlines in gross violation of the agreements.  After signing Minsk 1 it went after the Donetsk airport and after Minsk 2 it was Debaltseve.  It's a pretty sure bet that if the conflict were to freeze with the current frontlines Russia would continue to attack Avdiivka and put enormous effort into ejecting the Kherson bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnepr.

Steve

Definitely.  There will be f#ckery aplenty.  The advantage of a soft freeze (slush) is that Ukraine can also reload and put in defensive works.  Everyone points to Minsk 1 and 2 as gross failure but Russia did not invade between 2014-2022.  The failure was the West not doubling down on Ukraine in the interim (of course there were other circumstances).

I do not see us making the same mistake twice.  Or at least I hope not. South Korea houses the US 8th Army, a similar situation needs to be set up in Ukraine, preferably with European nations taking stake.  This puts a chip on the table.  Russia can make duck sounds but what are they going to do?  Violate Minsk 3?  Like they were going to anyway.

Russia has shattered hands right now.  Beyond lobbing missiles and drones, and desperate tactical attacks to literally take a hundred meters.  They do not really get a say about what happens in Ukraine anymore.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I forget about them because they fall under "Russian leg humping" and are entirely forgettable tactical twitches.  Maybe the UA was spent, or maybe they are less inclined to mindlessly throw their people away.

Both were major efforts involving quite a few BTGs worth of forces each, so in relative terms more than leg humping.  If they had 20-40k more infantry not burned in Bakhmut they offensives might have been more problematic for Ukraine.  At the very least Ukraine would have to commit the forces not used at Bakhmut to defending.  The attacks towards Kupyansk might actually have isolated Kupyansk as it seems the primary reason that push failed is Russia ran out of bodies to throw at it.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

We may just have to face facts here.  Denial/Defence has taken primacy in this war, maybe all war for awhile.  Neither side can reasonably overcome this reality.  Corrosive warfare may have delivered all it can given the conditions.

This is my thinking at the moment.  Still lots of things Ukraine can do to dish out pain disproportional to what Russia can do to it, but taking back significant chunks of territory seems to be off the menu for the foreseeable future.

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

This war may have already killed Russia, we just don't know it yet.  Its zombie might even continue making sounds for a decade but the thing is dead as Marley, it just doesn't know it yet.  Either way unless we some movement soon, I can see those difficult conversations kicking in by next spring. 

Oh, for sure I think Russia is "done" in terms of Putin's vision for where Russia could and should be.  It is a pariah state with large, long standing internal stressors that have been made worse by this war.  We've also seen the Near Abroad thumb their noses at Russia and that is unlikely repairable.  They can and will still make a lot of misery for people, but Russia's power has declined from its peak and is headed steadily downward no matter what.

30 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Russia has shattered hands right now.  Beyond lobbing missiles and drones, and desperate tactical attacks to literally take a hundred meters.  They do not really get a say about what happens in Ukraine anymore.

This is the most important point to keep in mind as we start talking about what's coming next.  Russia might be able to force the conflict into a freeze, but Ukraine gets to dictate the terms.  Hell, Ukraine did pretty well influencing the language of Minsk 1 and 2 even though it was in a vastly worse position at the time.  People tend to forget that Russia was desperate to freeze the conflict and it showed.

Steve

[The_Capt]

25 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Both were major efforts involving quite a few BTGs worth of forces each, so in relative terms more than leg humping.  If they had 20-40k more infantry not burned in Bakhmut they offensives might have been more problematic for Ukraine.  At the very least Ukraine would have to commit the forces not used at Bakhmut to defending.  The attacks towards Kupyansk might actually have isolated Kupyansk as it seems the primary reason that push failed is Russia ran out of bodies to throw at it.

I gotta be honest after Severodonetsk nothing the RA has done resembles an operational level offensive.  They spent tens of thousands of troops trying to take "a town".  A town of no real operational value.  There is no evidenced that 20-40k more troops would have made a difference.  It just would have turned them into Bakhmut.  That is assuming they could have coordinated the move of them in the first place.

I mean it may come out after the war that there were some near run actions but more troops has not equaled more results in this war, at all.

As to tackling those minefields....what were all those sexy UAS doing?  Maybe EW was working for the RA, but then you HIMARS the EW platforms, they are pumping out a lot of EM.  We did not see a single UAS strike on rubes laying minefields last winter.  It takes remarkably few infantry to get eyes on a minelaying op...they are not subtle.  Aggressive patrolling can disrupt it.

[Chibot Mk IX]

Regarding the aggressive patrol, that is decided by troops density, motivation and proficient? For a very long time the Zaporizhzhia front is a static front, AFU put 5-7 TD brigade there with 1-2 Mech Brigade as a reserve. They just cannot afford to put extra regular troops into a static defense line.  

[JonS]

2 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

Regarding the aggressive patrol, that is decided by troops density, motivation and proficient? For a very long time the Zaporizhzhia front is a static front, AFU put 5-7 TD brigade there with 1-2 Mech Brigade as a reserve. They just cannot afford to put extra regular troops into a static defense line.  

Density doesnt really come in to it. Doctrine and mindset does. If you are minded to patrol - if it's built into the core of your infantry ethos - then you will patrol aggressively regardless.

And it works. See: Tobruk in 1941 for an example.