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Ukraine is heading for defeat
(www.politico.eu)
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this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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The Russians spent the first half of the war making any number of major errors (though the initial plan of a push along the coast with decapitation strikes on Kiev and Kharkov was sound if risky, and if not for a bunch of things going wrong would have worked.)
But now they've adapted, and it's not just lack of arms that Ukraine is facing. Whats allowing for these grinding advances are the very thing they're mocking on twitter, light fast unarmoured infiltration attacks establishing bridgeheads and pathfinding through mines. In a world of cumbersome AFVs and effective anti tank rounds it's the right approach, can't die if you're in close quarters before the drone can see you.
What does remain to be seen is if Russia can establish a true strategic breakthrough. I've yet to see that they can, they should have been able to manage it when severodonetsk fell but didn't. Avdiivka was promising though.
I think there's a lot of spin in western media regarding what happened at the start of the war. Russian main goal was to get Ukraine to negotiate, and they almost achieved that before Bojo intervened. The secondary goal was to pin the troops in western Ukraine which allowed taking a lot of key territory in the south that ensured there was a land bridge to Crimea.
When the negotiations broke down, Russia started doing ordered withdrawal instead of trying to hold on to territory they knew they couldn't hold with the size of the army they had. They also started erecting layered defences in the south that broke Ukraine's summer offensive.
People in the west have been very focused on the territorial gains, but Russia has been fighting this as a war of attrition from the start. The main objective has been to degrade Ukrainian military while increasing the strength of Russian army. So, even though there were obviously a lot of teething problems at the start, looking back it seems that the overall strategy was fairly sound all along.
What they're doing now is pushing all across the front which is forcing Ukraine to use up whatever reserves they have to simply hold the line. This is not a sustainable situation for Ukraine. It's also worth noting that over time Ukraine loses more and more experienced soldiers who are replaced by conscripts. Eventually there's going to be an inflection point where there simply aren't enough professional soldiers to hold the core of the army together.
I very much expect that we'll be seeing more breakthroughs like Avdeevka, but we're unlikely to see any big arrow offensives because those are very costly. It's just going to be steady pressure until there's a collapse on the Ukrainian side. Once the collapse starts, then things will likely accelerate quickly from there.
I tend to agree. Though i think we'll need at least the fall of pokrovsk to trigger a collapse and that will require at least some manoeuvre war to be done this year
It's possible that we'll see Russia take Kharkov in the near future, which I think might be the biggest city. If that happens, it'll completely destroy the morale, and could be a catalyst that triggers the collapse.
Oh absolutely if it falls before Pokrovsk, but until Iziym is recaptured or Belarus declares war I can't see that happening.
Agreed, I think it this could drag on for another six months easily. Biden admin will also do everything in their power to keep the show running until the election is over.
Russian officials are saying the next two months will have large advances.