War isn’t Call of Duty Black Ops game. It’s, ugly, difficult, and full of surprises. Ukraine will win this war, but unfortunately the cost will continue to be high until they can do proper combined arms with air superiority
Honestly, it just looks like media outlets found a cow to milk and are just keeping their ratings up swinging this shit back and forth like a ride, with opinion articles. Next piece in the stack is another “sobering analysis” lol
I cannot read the article. But I will point out the successes that Ukraine has had:
* Ruble is descending
* Ukraine has destroy ships far far away from Ukraine
* They have destroy dozens of Russian ammo dumps since the start of the year.
* Taking out hundreds of pieces of artillery.
* Numerous facilities have caught fire with in Russia.
* Drone strikes in Moscow, keep their air defense spread out.
* Attacking Belgorod
* Shooting down more than 10 helos and jets since Jan.
* Making small but significant gains on multiple fronts including creating two beachheads across the Dnipro.
Did I miss anything, Rather have large chunks of land but here we are.
The last paragraph of the article, which sums it up pretty well:
“The Ukrainians have adapted during the counteroffensive in a sensibly and strategically sound fashion to both limit their casualties and create the conditions for a later advance. They have had to do this with only a limited supply of longer-range weapons, and without air superiority. They have not been slow and the campaign has not failed. It is on the way to achieving strategic success, just in a way that most did not expect.”
There’s a quote by Jeb Corliss that I’m having trouble finding, but I’ll paraphrase: As long as you don’t give up, you haven’t failed. You’re just in the process of succeeding.
The Russians had a year to prepare and put a ton of mines everywhere and put artillery, trenches, and bunkers behind it. It’s not a movie, it’s going to take a while to get through it safely.
I’ll just leave this here.
The EU is finally ramping up production, by a lot.
Worth watching: [Was Bakhmut worth it? Reaction to Michael Kofman.](https://youtu.be/rNw4wkkibso). Anders Puck Nielsen mentions the academic feud between Kofman and O’Brien at the end of his video.
Fundamentally the counter offensive will seem slow and gradual, with very little news, until the entire Russian line collapses. As the article states, Ukraine doesn’t have the fires superiority to just overwhelm and crush the Russian defensive lines, so they must attrite Russian forces to the point where Russia no longer has the reserves or capability to stop a breakthrough.
At this point we have a lot of clear indications that Russia is running low on a lot of the resources they need to hold back the counter offensive. It has been clear for some time that Russia has effectively run out of its stockpiles for 122mm and 152mm shells, any new production immediately goes to the front to be used, meaning it has no reserve to fight a breakthrough. Russia’s manpower issue persists, with indications that Russia has again expanded mobilization. With the damage to the Kerch bridge, Russia’s ability to supply forces near the Dneiper has degraded considerably.
Eventually, Russian forces will be so worn down and demoralized that they break and abandon their defenses. Currently this is being prevented by preexisting minefields slowing down Ukrainian assaults and what are effectively blocking detachments in the few reserve units held back behind the lines, but over time those forces will need to be deployed. Eventually, this will break, and we’ll see a collapse akin to what happened in the last week of the Kherson offensive or in Kharkiv.
And it is also clear that the Ukrainians are pushing towards Melitopol and Mariupol, if either of these are taken and the Kerch bridge is still out of action, Crimea will be completely cut off from fresh water, food, ammunition, fuel, etc. This will become even worse if Ukraine can get their anti ship missiles launched from the Azov coast. At that point any Russian supplies coming via ship will have to come from another port, since Rostov on Don will be cut off.
I think the “counter offensive failed” information is Russian and Chinese propaganda to demoralize the Ukrainian’s and the West.
12 comments
counteroffensive?
Paywall
War isn’t Call of Duty Black Ops game. It’s, ugly, difficult, and full of surprises. Ukraine will win this war, but unfortunately the cost will continue to be high until they can do proper combined arms with air superiority
Honestly, it just looks like media outlets found a cow to milk and are just keeping their ratings up swinging this shit back and forth like a ride, with opinion articles. Next piece in the stack is another “sobering analysis” lol
I cannot read the article. But I will point out the successes that Ukraine has had:
* Ruble is descending
* Ukraine has destroy ships far far away from Ukraine
* They have destroy dozens of Russian ammo dumps since the start of the year.
* Taking out hundreds of pieces of artillery.
* Numerous facilities have caught fire with in Russia.
* Drone strikes in Moscow, keep their air defense spread out.
* Attacking Belgorod
* Shooting down more than 10 helos and jets since Jan.
* Making small but significant gains on multiple fronts including creating two beachheads across the Dnipro.
Did I miss anything, Rather have large chunks of land but here we are.
The last paragraph of the article, which sums it up pretty well:
“The Ukrainians have adapted during the counteroffensive in a sensibly and strategically sound fashion to both limit their casualties and create the conditions for a later advance. They have had to do this with only a limited supply of longer-range weapons, and without air superiority. They have not been slow and the campaign has not failed. It is on the way to achieving strategic success, just in a way that most did not expect.”
There’s a quote by Jeb Corliss that I’m having trouble finding, but I’ll paraphrase: As long as you don’t give up, you haven’t failed. You’re just in the process of succeeding.
The Russians had a year to prepare and put a ton of mines everywhere and put artillery, trenches, and bunkers behind it. It’s not a movie, it’s going to take a while to get through it safely.
I’ll just leave this here.
The EU is finally ramping up production, by a lot.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/20/eu-draws-up-plans-for-22bn-ukraine-weapons-fund
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/07/13/european-parliament-backs-eu-funds-for-weapon-and-ammunition-production
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/eu-plan-aims-to-accelerate-production-of-weapons/
Worth watching: [Was Bakhmut worth it? Reaction to Michael Kofman.](https://youtu.be/rNw4wkkibso). Anders Puck Nielsen mentions the academic feud between Kofman and O’Brien at the end of his video.
Fundamentally the counter offensive will seem slow and gradual, with very little news, until the entire Russian line collapses. As the article states, Ukraine doesn’t have the fires superiority to just overwhelm and crush the Russian defensive lines, so they must attrite Russian forces to the point where Russia no longer has the reserves or capability to stop a breakthrough.
At this point we have a lot of clear indications that Russia is running low on a lot of the resources they need to hold back the counter offensive. It has been clear for some time that Russia has effectively run out of its stockpiles for 122mm and 152mm shells, any new production immediately goes to the front to be used, meaning it has no reserve to fight a breakthrough. Russia’s manpower issue persists, with indications that Russia has again expanded mobilization. With the damage to the Kerch bridge, Russia’s ability to supply forces near the Dneiper has degraded considerably.
Eventually, Russian forces will be so worn down and demoralized that they break and abandon their defenses. Currently this is being prevented by preexisting minefields slowing down Ukrainian assaults and what are effectively blocking detachments in the few reserve units held back behind the lines, but over time those forces will need to be deployed. Eventually, this will break, and we’ll see a collapse akin to what happened in the last week of the Kherson offensive or in Kharkiv.
And it is also clear that the Ukrainians are pushing towards Melitopol and Mariupol, if either of these are taken and the Kerch bridge is still out of action, Crimea will be completely cut off from fresh water, food, ammunition, fuel, etc. This will become even worse if Ukraine can get their anti ship missiles launched from the Azov coast. At that point any Russian supplies coming via ship will have to come from another port, since Rostov on Don will be cut off.
I think the “counter offensive failed” information is Russian and Chinese propaganda to demoralize the Ukrainian’s and the West.