RE: Russia and Ukraine
May 12, 2023 at 8:43 am
(This post was last modified: May 12, 2023 at 8:59 am by The Grand Nudger.)
"The thinking was, the enemy never thought we'd do it here" - ukrainian command on the kharkiv/kherson offensives.
I want to say right off the bat that there's nothing in eastern ukraine critical to either side in the textbook definition. Russias invasion was completely elective and can be maintained (such as it is) from anywhere along their long border. Ukraine isn't depending on their own infrastructure or industry in defense. By concentrating their forces in bahkmut as the only place they could successfully attack, russia made bakhmut a critical target to a specific objective. Not the grinding attritional phase, which ukraine managed brilliantly, particularly in that they hollowed out the bakhmut defense to pull of kharkiv/kherson. Not to the incremental gain of a few kms of territory here and there which they can achieve anywhere along the line. As an opportunity to crush the invading forces and eliminate their ability to project force -anywhere- for decades. Most of russias combat capable forces, including their mercs, are in or around bahkmut. Defeating them there, either by envelopment or outright assualt, is to defeat the entire russian war machine for a generation..and yeah, if that goes down, it will have been over a town that meant nothing otherwise. OTOH, if ukraine lets them back out or even hobble home, they know the russians will simply come back - maybe bully some even smaller countries around for awhile to get better at this modern war thing they can't figure out, in the interim.
Prigo isn't a straight shooting truth dealer, but he's very clearly laying the information groundwork for a russian defeat in bakhmut (and, particularly, that it aint his fault....lol), ukraine has been ramping up the strikes in the area, and they have been massing their new units in the area. The guys that russians have been conditioned to fear. Nazi supersoldier vets of the early invasion, now with western gear. They did this outside of kherson, and made a big public deal about it, right before they took kharkiv...but it wasn't a feint, they fully intended to take kherson too, and they did.
I want to say right off the bat that there's nothing in eastern ukraine critical to either side in the textbook definition. Russias invasion was completely elective and can be maintained (such as it is) from anywhere along their long border. Ukraine isn't depending on their own infrastructure or industry in defense. By concentrating their forces in bahkmut as the only place they could successfully attack, russia made bakhmut a critical target to a specific objective. Not the grinding attritional phase, which ukraine managed brilliantly, particularly in that they hollowed out the bakhmut defense to pull of kharkiv/kherson. Not to the incremental gain of a few kms of territory here and there which they can achieve anywhere along the line. As an opportunity to crush the invading forces and eliminate their ability to project force -anywhere- for decades. Most of russias combat capable forces, including their mercs, are in or around bahkmut. Defeating them there, either by envelopment or outright assualt, is to defeat the entire russian war machine for a generation..and yeah, if that goes down, it will have been over a town that meant nothing otherwise. OTOH, if ukraine lets them back out or even hobble home, they know the russians will simply come back - maybe bully some even smaller countries around for awhile to get better at this modern war thing they can't figure out, in the interim.
Prigo isn't a straight shooting truth dealer, but he's very clearly laying the information groundwork for a russian defeat in bakhmut (and, particularly, that it aint his fault....lol), ukraine has been ramping up the strikes in the area, and they have been massing their new units in the area. The guys that russians have been conditioned to fear. Nazi supersoldier vets of the early invasion, now with western gear. They did this outside of kherson, and made a big public deal about it, right before they took kharkiv...but it wasn't a feint, they fully intended to take kherson too, and they did.
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