Their moves made lots of sense in a world where their military had the capability to pull off the plan, the Ukrainians were going to bend over without a fight, and the whole West was going to just let Russia have it. You’ve got me why they have kept throwing good money after bad once they realized (as they must have by now) that those three assumptions were false.
I remain a bit surprised that what appeared to be a demoralized and deteriorating force dug in so competently, although I am generally aware (much less than you, I acknowledge in advance) that personnel/coordination issues are far less impactful in setting up defenses, in which everyone has close to parallel self-interest.
Same reason they would suggest that tactical nuclear weapons might be an option if the U.S. supplies F-16's to Ukraine. It is a threat, intended to scare and distract. The more visible the better. It's a desperation move from Russia, who knows that they are (slowly) losing this war.
Some of those assumptions weren't that bad at the time, plenty in the West thought that could happen as well. It didn't though, and now he's stuck. It seems like a lot of Russians feel the same way, that there shouldn't have been a war, but now they have to win it.
Ukraine and Russia celebrated the 4th of July with a great fireworks display in Donetsk region. Russia provided the fireworks, and Ukraine provided the match. Russia later claimed that a hospital was attacked, but that was not the case. Russia was "hiding" its Grad rocket system ammo out in the open in a nearly circular apartment complex courtyard when Ukraine spotted it and blew it to smithereens. Wait for the video to load up and scroll ahead to 0:40 (seconds) into it to see the fireworks. Spectacular display. Drones easily spotted Russian arms dump near a city where piles of ammo were lying in the open. Ukraine bombed it, causing massive explosions, video shows.
The assumptions being widely held doesn’t make them any less bad. The Russians committed two of the greatest sins of warfare according to Sun Tzu: failure to understand yourself and failure to understand your enemy. Yeah, they’ve lost much face and are looking for a face-saving out where they can claim victory. I’m just not inclined to give it to them.
It is interesting to consider how different things would be if Ukraine had capitulated as expected in just a matter of days and some pro Putin stooge had been installed in Kyiv, resulting in the defacto Russian frontier being pushed to the edge of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania. Fortunately for us and Europe, that did not come to pass. Those pesky Ukes screwed up pootie pie's plans.
Many a fighter have come out of their corner for the 1st round, looking for what they assumed would be a relatively easy KO, only to be foiled by a counterpuncher, who can make them look horrible and off-balance for several rounds of a fight. With that said, if the former has more in his arsenal than the latter, most of the time, the former still wins the fight by KO or decision, it just takes them longer to make it happen than most observers thought it should have. This is not a prediction for the war, but it's a possibility and it seems like that might be happening here. Up through Kherson, Ukraine definitely had Russia bamboozled. In fact, Russia took these areas, but they didn't sufficiently prepare to hold them. But it now seems Russia have figured out how to hold their ground, as Ukraine have not been able to make any noteworthy advances in about 6 months. If Russia's line was going to break down, this past two weeks would have been the time for it to happen with all the hubbub of Wagner leaving Ukraine and Prigozhin, etc etc. So from a Ukrainian standpoint, so far, it looks like a missed opportunity to make some solid gains. I think it's premature to mock Russia's performance when they have seemed to at least figured out holding their line. Sure, they failed grandiose expectations early on, but a lot of that was based in propaganda. I remember seeing reports on Twitter for months in the lead-up to the "special military operation" that Russia were reinforcing areas near the border with blood / medics in vast numbers. It was one of the tip-offs to Western intel that the planned invasion chatter was authentic. Russia doesn't send thousands of medics units and tens of thousands of pints of blood to the border before the invasion if they thought they were going to face zero resistance marching into Ukraine. Again, I'm viewing this purely from a business mindset, not being personally or emotionally vested in the outcome. Ukraine may very well make some serious headway in the next couple of months, but if they don't, it won't really matter how awful Putin and his troops looked in the beginning. People only remember the winner of the fight and never give much thought to the early struggles said fighter might have had against a good counterpuncher.
More updates from today: Day 497 - note 30+ artillery kills again. They talk about it in the update - The Ukrainian strategy is clearly to move cautiously, conserve troops, and wear down the enemy with counter battery fire. Ukraine Invasion Day 497: “Provocation” at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant may happen in 24-72 hours Really interesting from that update, as others have reported - Russia is planning their own offensive near Kremmina - Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty reported on June 3 that Russian forces have about 180,000 troops in the area of responsibility of the Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces, 120,000 of which are operating in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction, including Airborne (VDV) forces, mechanized units, BARS (Russian Combat Reserve) units, Territorial Defense units, and Storm-Z assault units.[44] Footage published on July 4 purportedly shows the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps) operating near Spirne (25km south of Kreminna).[45] Very interesting as they have had almost no success in that region in the past year and have taken brutal losses there. Ukraine Update: The 3:1 rule of attack, and why it doesn’t apply to the counteroffensive Interesting write up on the rate of losses of both militaries in the current counter offensive - including Ukrainian losses, and also where some of the ukrainian advances have been made recently among other interesting tidbits. Based on the numbers from Oryx, since the counteroffensive got rolling on the first of June, Ukraine has confirmed losses of 302 vehicles and pieces of heavy equipment, including 49 tanks, six towed artillery, 10 self-propelled artillery, and one MLRS. Of those tanks, eight were the German-made Leopard 2. At least two of those Leopards have been recovered and sent for repairs. Still, the rate of tank loss was 50% higher than average for Ukraine in the last month than it has been over the period of the whole invasion, and it shows just how tanks have been taking the lead in pushing through the heavily mined fields in southern Ukraine. Over that same period, here’s how Russian losses have been structured: Russia has confirmed losses of 446 vehicles and pieces of heavy equipment overall. That includes 79 tanks, 23 towed artillery, 29 self-propelled artillery, and 22 MLRS. - this is confirmed losses. Ukraine Update: Ukraine's counterbattery radar advantage Some really interesting stuff about the de-mining struggles. UKRAINIAN COUNTERBATTERY FIRE DEGRADING RUSSIAN ARTILLERY In 16 months of conflict, 15.7% of claimed Russian artillery losses occurred in the month between June 4 and July 3. To put that into perspective, Russian artillery losses were 2.5 times faster in June 2023 than in the prior 15 months of combat. Ukraine no longer needs to devote huge amounts of munitions for GMLRS rockets for repeated attacks. JDAM bombs and Storm Shadows are much better suited for such purposes. Alleviating these ammunition constraints has permitted Ukraine to unleash the full fury of the HIMARS system’s capabilities. The HIMARS system was predominantly conceived as a counterbattery asset—that is, a system designed to destroy enemy artillery batteries. Now being used primarily for the role it was designed for, HIMARS is showing it fills that role perfectly. A second factor aiding Ukraine in improved counterbattery fire has been improved counterbattery radar, in particular the receipt of five Hensoldt Cobra C-band and 15 Northrop Grumman/Raytheon AN/TPQ-36(V)8 Firefinder counterbattery radars in the past year. Lots of really good stuff in this one. Lots of good info - read them all if you have to take a long poo.
Taking one now, I poo you not. With the vehicle and tank losses, one would hope a counteroffensive isn’t losing more vehicles and tanks than they are taking out. When you’re playing offense, you should be able to move the ball down the field. Assuming the above numbers are correct, I’m not sure how good those numbers reflect on a counteroffensive. Also, looks like the Russians might be willing to sacrifice more to keep the front line from closing on them.
Hmm, I wonder where that tally of the losses come from. I've been keeping pretty close tabs on the war since the counteroffensive started since it was billed as a potentially decisive battle, and I've seen relatively few Russian tank losses. So when I read that there's been 79 confirmed Russian tank losses I was pretty shocked. The article cites Oryx as the source, so I clicked through the latest Oryx pics of Russian tank losses, and I counted 7 that's been posted since the counter offensive started. The 6 towed artillery losses by Ukraine is also shockingly low. I'm seeing almost daily videos of Lancet or artillery destructions of Ukrainian towed artillery. For example, these 3 videos showing 4 confirmed strikes on Ukrainian towed artillery pieces were published on Monday alone.
I have no idea if those numbers are accurate but your understanding of respective losses between invasion/counteroffensive forces and defensive forces is baffling to me. It turns every understood convention on its head. Defenders usually select advantageous terrain and make the offensive forces come to them which leaves the offensive forces exposed. To suggest it’s expected there will be less losses is baffling.
Russians attack Lviv likely trying to make some statement about supply lines through Poland and typical civilian targeting
Assuming similar equipment, training, and morale, then in terms of losses of personnel and equipment, the defender definitely has a big advantage. The attacker, however, should have the advantage in territory gained until its personnel and equipment is exhausted. The past few months haven't really played out like this though, as both sides have engaged in mostly attritional, positional warfare rather than major offensives. Ukraine tried a major offensive last month but quickly gave up the idea and resumed attritional warfare. Too many trenches, too many mines, and too much air defense compared to offensive aerial capabilities on both sides.
