Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Hamilcar]

Lukashenko threatens Poland with Wagnerites: They want to go to West

Brilliant strategic move.  He has learned a lot from Putin.

Luka doing his best to discredit Putin while appearing to be loyal. Mr Potato is way smarter than Putin, and a survivor.

[mongers]

Poland said that a maintenance hub for tanks damaged in Ukraine during the war against Russian forces has begun operating in its southern city of Gliwice. "The first two Leopards have already arrived from Ukraine to the Bumar plant," Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wrote on Twitter.

Good to see the Poles more than pulling their weight.

[Josquius]

Poland said that a maintenance hub for tanks damaged in Ukraine during the war against Russian forces has begun operating in its southern city of Gliwice. "The first two Leopards have already arrived from Ukraine to the Bumar plant," Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wrote on Twitter.

Good to see the Poles more than pulling their weight.

Wasn't there an issue with Poland way over charging for this so they shifted to Germany?

[Tamas]

So, for months we were told that Bakhmut has no real strategic value and even if the Russians capture it, it won't make a difference.

While the latter definitely seems to be true, why is is then that the Ukrainians are pushing there and seem to be making the only notable (still tiny) advances? Why bother?

[Josquius]

So, for months we were told that Bakhmut has no real strategic value and even if the Russians capture it, it won't make a difference.

While the latter definitely seems to be true, why is is then that the Ukrainians are pushing there and seem to be making the only notable (still tiny) advances? Why bother?

Russians won't have had so much time to build defences and there's a bunch trapped there?

Maybe partially the PR war too. Losing bakmut could really feed the anti government fires in Russia. Wagner was right etc...

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know the exact situation around Bakhmut, but because the fighting there was so active for so long, maybe the Russian defenses are not as hardened there as they are in other parts of the line.

[Maladict]

Something big seems to be happening.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know the exact situation around Bakhmut, but because the fighting there was so active for so long, maybe the Russian defenses are not as hardened there as they are in other parts of the line.

I think that makes sense - I think it was a similar factor in Kharkiv of the line never settling enough for the Russians to develop defences. Also I imagine Ukraine just wants Russia engaged and stretched and supplying across the entire front.

Something big seems to be happening.

Yeah - it sounds like Ukraine's committing to a main thrust (by the looks of it according to American sources briefing the NYT).

Edit: of course could be misdirection as part of the information war and they actually go somewhere else?

[Tamas]

Eagerly hoping for footage of Abrams(es?) and Leopards storming ahead to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I meant to post it a few days ago but got distracted--but the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank is one group I have been following since the beginning for Ukraine war news. They tend to avoid oversimplification / hyperbole or excess exaggeration which has often been a feature in mainstream Western reporting.

Their 7/24 analysis of the Ukrainian offensive was quick to dismiss a lot of the complaints you have been hearing from some quarters of the West.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine%E2%80%99s-sustained-counteroffensive-denying-russia%E2%80%99s-prolongation-war

UKRAINE'S SUSTAINED COUNTEROFFENSIVE: DENYING RUSSIA'S PROLONGATION OF THE WAR

Ukraine's Sustained Counteroffensive: Denying Russia's Prolongation of the War

By Nataliya Bugayova

July 24, 2023, 4:00pm ET

The West risks handing the Kremlin another opportunity to prolong its war in Ukraine if it fails to resource Ukraine's sustained counteroffensive. Delays and fragmented aid are exactly what allowed Russia to regroup prior to the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The West must not wait on the results of the current phase of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and, instead, help Ukraine maintain its momentum to prevent Russia from rebuilding its military strength and prolonging the war.

The Western discussion of the prospects and timeline of Ukraine's counteroffensive is skewed by a Western desire to see quick wins and Russia's efforts to portray Ukraine's counteroffensive as a failing undertaking. The discussion of Ukraine's counteroffensive should recognize the following realities, however.

Ukraine, with Western support, has achieved substantial military results over the past 17 months. Ukraine prevented the Kremlin from achieving its initial objectives in this war to invade and conquer Ukraine in a matter of days. Ukraine has reversed many of Russia's gains, liberated about 75,000 square km of its territory, and prevented Russia from establishing control even over Donbas – despite Russia occupying much of the region for the past eight years. Ukraine was able to seize the initiative on the battlefield twice, in the summer of 2022 and in the spring of 2023.

Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive cannot be expected to be fast and easy; it is inherently hard for several reasons:

Russia had time to regroup and prepare for the inevitable Ukrainian counteroffensive, and Ukrainian forces now face prepared defensive Russian positions, including massive mine fields and layered field fortifications, and partially reconstituted Russian forces.[1]
Ukraine is attempting combined arms operations without air superiority and with limited enablers for maneuvering, such as air defenses – an extraordinarily challenging undertaking. Ukraine's counteroffensive forces additionally had limited time to prepare for a major offensive.[2]
Ukraine, unlike Russia, is optimizing its operations to preserve its own forces at the cost of slower advances.[3]
Ukrainian forces are nevertheless advancing and adapting. ISW assessed that Ukraine has liberated about two-thirds of the same amount of territory in five weeks that Russian forces captured in over six months.[4] Ukrainian forces adapted their tactics after initial setbacks and are increasingly successfully using small infantry assaults backed by precision fires to make inroads against Russian defenses. The large-scale mechanized breaches that NATO trained Ukraine's counteroffensive brigades to execute are incredibly difficult and are not the only option available to Ukrainian forces, who are not failing simply because they are using different approaches. Ukrainian strikes continue to degrade key Russian ground lines of communications.[5] Russian forces are concerned about Ukrainian advances in several areas, including in Bakhmut.[6]

Ukrainian forces will continue to liberate Ukraine's territory and people if properly supported by the West. Ukraine has yet to commit the main body of its forces to counteroffensive operations and launch its main effort. The Kremlin, while it has regrouped its forces and is explicitly intending to adapt for a prolonged war, is still pursuing half-measures to regenerate its forces and mobilize Russia's defense industrial base.[7] Russia's localized counterattacks are unlikely to result in more than tactical gains.[8] These factors imply a continued window of opportunity for Ukraine, but this window cannot be taken for granted.

Enabling Ukraine to liberate its people and territory remains an essential requirement for preserving Ukraine's sovereignty and securing long term US interests, including preventing future Russian attacks on Ukraine that will draw the US and Europe into the same problem but under worse conditions.[9]

The West must learn a key lesson from last year and invest proactively in sustaining Ukraine's initiative to deny Russia the time to reconstitute. Ukraine conducted two successful counteroffensive operations in the fall of 2022. However, Ukraine was not able to exploit Russian battlefield setbacks in December-January through another counteroffensive operation, in part due to Western support lagging behind Ukraine's battlefield needs.[10]

The Ukrainian counteroffensive would have had a chance to continue had the West planned to resource successive phases of the Ukrainian counteroffensive from the time that the initial Russian offensive culminated in July 2022.[11]

A breather on the battlefield allowed Russia to stabilize its defensive lines, add weight to its offensive in Bakhmut, and prepare additional offensive operations in Luhansk Oblast.[12] It granted the Kremlin opportunities to frame Ukraine as losing in the global information space.

It also allowed the Kremlin to normalize new narratives within Russia's nationalist information space, which otherwise had been experiencing significant shocks after repeated Russian setbacks on the battlefield in 2022.[13]

The West should learn from the consequences of not beginning to fully resource Ukraine to conduct consecutive counteroffensive operations as soon as the initial Russian offensive culminated in July 2022 and proactively resource subsequent Ukrainian operations to incorporate additional advanced capabilities (jets, long-range firepower) and, equally critically help Ukraine regenerate its forces and further train to execute combined arms at scale. The West should also focus on enabling Ukraine to do what works in this operational environment, not try to enable Ukraine to do what the West thinks it would do.

Ukraine's sustained initiative, moreover, is an opportunity to exploit a Kremlin weakness. The Kremlin's limited ability to rapidly pivot after consecutive setbacks is a known vulnerability – one that the West must help Ukraine exploit to secure the most advantageous position possible. Ukraine's sustained initiative will likely have compounding effects on the Kremlin's ability to sustain the war.

Russia almost always adapts in the kinetic and information space if given time. The Kremlin is actively investing in force regeneration and efforts to revamp its defense industrial base – efforts that may have limited results now but significant effects over time.[14]

Rapid pivots are not the Kremlin's forte, however. Had Ukrainian counteroffensive operations continued in Dec 2022-Jan 2023, Russian forces would not have been able to stabilize the lines as effectively and likely would have been expelled from more Ukrainian territory.

It is additionally unclear how well the Kremlin would have been able to control the information space during continued Ukrainian offensives. Consecutive battlefield setbacks resulted in shockwaves in the Russian nationalist space – Putin's key constituencies he relies on to sustain the war and his regime – and accelerated the chain of events that led to Prigozhin's rebellion.[15]

Sustained Ukrainian operations on the battlefield that continuously – even if gradually – drive Russian forces out of Ukraine, will likely have compounding effects on Putin's ability to sustain the war. It will likely prevent Russia from meaningfully reconstituting the forces necessary to hold its occupied territory and from adjusting domestic narratives to explain the growing gap between Putin's goals and means in this war – especially as Putin's ability to control the domestic narrative is increasingly challenged.

The West also must resist Russian traps. The better this strategy works (the more the West can help Ukraine sustain battlefield momentum), the likelier the Kremlin is to leverage an illusion of peace talk prospects to manipulate Western decision-making to slow military support for Ukraine.

Momentum is the key dimension of capability in this war. Maintaining the Ukrainian initiative will likely result in compounding damage to Russia's ability to sustain the war. Conversely, any breather for Russia on the battlefield will present an opportunity for the Kremlin to solidify gains and reconstitute Russian forces for future attacks.

The key take away is that Ukraine's 2023 offensive has actually been going fairly well given actual reality. For example, while the going has been slow, as a contrast they point out that by the end of week 5 of the offensive, Ukraine had taken land equal to about 2/3rds of that which Russia was able to take in the prior 5 months of various aborted Russian offensives.

Yes, it is slow going--but they are actually doing better than Russia has done with their offensives.

ISW is correct to note that Ukraine wisely avoided just aping Russia's attritional tactics, as well--Russia's best chance for victory is that this war becomes purely a war of attrition. Ukraine was wise to recognize this and take measures to dial back casualty rate in its offensive, even if it means slower going.

[Josquius]

Was reading this morning the Ukrainian counter offensive is a miserable failure in every corner of the media.... Except that for Russian internal consumption. There it's a terrifying success that needs to be stopped ASAP.

Where I'm most curious is Russias advances in the north. I wonder what's going on there.

[Zoupa]

Where the "experts", analysts, journalists and (some) western defense officials fail is that there is no comparative benchmark to state "the Ukrainian counteroffensive is going too slow/stuttering".

None of NATO's militaries have ever attempted this. Try advancing through the most heavily mined, flat land on the planet with no air superiority/support, with your 3 days' worth of artillery ammo, Bundeswehr. Let's see if you can do better 

[Jacob]

I'll be honest, I would prefer it if the Ukrainian offensive advanced quicker and more decisively. That's why I think the Western allies should provide more support - both in terms of advanced armaments and volume. I think the speed of Ukrainian progress is largely proportional to the volume and quality of materiel provided to them.

[crazy canuck]

I'll be honest, I would prefer it if the Ukrainian offensive advanced quicker and more decisively. That's why I think the Western allies should provide more support - both in terms of advanced armaments and volume.

I think the real danger is linking those two things - rapid success with more support.

More support is needed because the kind of rapid success people seem to want to see is not occurring.

A terrible outcome would be more support on condition that it causes rapid success.

[Josquius]

Yes. Rather than speed I would rather have Ukrainian success with a minimum of casualties.