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About a month ago I made some "predictions" about the war in Ukraine
https://danieldwilliam.dreamwidth.org/221312.html
And they have mostly turned out to be wrong I think. I was expecting a fairly static front line at about the same positions as at 21st March for about a year, followed by a Ukrainian counter-attack in Spring 2023.
What appears to be going on is that the Russians have withdrawn / been chased out of most of the northerly bits of Ukraine - along the Belorussian border, around Kyiv and they are re-grouping for an offensive in the south around the Donbass.
It also looks like a key assumption of mine about Ukrainian offensive equipment was wrong. Ukraine appears to now have more tanks in theatre than the Russians, to have a flow of heavy artillery and some increased access to aircraft. They also have good access to anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. This situation appears to be improving for them and at the same time Russia continues to lose tanks. The Ukrainian army looks like it is very, very good at using man-portable missile systems to destroy Russian heavy equipment.
Russia now appears to have fewer combat units in Ukraine than it started with. My guess is that those combat units are not in a good shape, with either reduced numbers of soldiers and equipment or hastily sourced replacements of sub-standard soldiers and equipment. They were already not great to begin with.
I think the more fundamental political elements of my earlier post remain true. It's politically difficult for Russia to just go home. Politically Ukraine would like all Russian soldiers to leave all of Ukraine and for Ukraine to have the right to forge closer relationships with the West. Ukraine would also like Russian soldiers to stop murdering their children.
So what I am current expecting is that the Russian offensive in the south goes badly. Repeating the pattern from their earlier attacks in the north, slow progress, logistical problems, heavy casualties eventually getting bogged down and then lots of artillery bombardments of civilian areas. I think we're probably looking at a month of that. I think the Ukrainian army will want the Russians to expend as much effort as possible in their offensive. So rather than trying to stop them short I think we'll see a repeat of the earlier pattern of letting the Russians advance and then getting in behind them to break their logistics effort leaving the Russian forward deployed combat units to stall and then be killed. This then followed I think by a Ukrainian counter-attack. I have no idea what the likely axis of this counter-attack would be. You can make a case for pushing east around Kharkiv to push Russians out of north-eastern Ukraine, or Luhansk or Donetsk to liberate the Donbass and split the Russian armies, or Mariupol to relieve the city and also split the Russians or east around Kherson to threaten Crimea and the naval base at Sevastapol. I don't know which would be the best and I don't know if Ukraine reckon they have the capability to launch one or two or three attacks. They seem pretty sharp the Ukrainians and also able to make some difficult, nay painful, decisions. So I expect they will do the smart thing that best leads to the fulfilment of their war aims and that may not be the same thing as liberating lots of towns.
(I myself would attack toward Mariupol, split the Russian army and then mess with logistical efforts to keep the Russian forces to the east of Kherson and to the north of Crimea supplied. I notice there is a brand spanking new bridge near Kerch that could be destroyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge )
So that's where I think we're at at the moment.
https://danieldwilliam.dreamwidth.org/221312.html
And they have mostly turned out to be wrong I think. I was expecting a fairly static front line at about the same positions as at 21st March for about a year, followed by a Ukrainian counter-attack in Spring 2023.
What appears to be going on is that the Russians have withdrawn / been chased out of most of the northerly bits of Ukraine - along the Belorussian border, around Kyiv and they are re-grouping for an offensive in the south around the Donbass.
It also looks like a key assumption of mine about Ukrainian offensive equipment was wrong. Ukraine appears to now have more tanks in theatre than the Russians, to have a flow of heavy artillery and some increased access to aircraft. They also have good access to anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. This situation appears to be improving for them and at the same time Russia continues to lose tanks. The Ukrainian army looks like it is very, very good at using man-portable missile systems to destroy Russian heavy equipment.
Russia now appears to have fewer combat units in Ukraine than it started with. My guess is that those combat units are not in a good shape, with either reduced numbers of soldiers and equipment or hastily sourced replacements of sub-standard soldiers and equipment. They were already not great to begin with.
I think the more fundamental political elements of my earlier post remain true. It's politically difficult for Russia to just go home. Politically Ukraine would like all Russian soldiers to leave all of Ukraine and for Ukraine to have the right to forge closer relationships with the West. Ukraine would also like Russian soldiers to stop murdering their children.
So what I am current expecting is that the Russian offensive in the south goes badly. Repeating the pattern from their earlier attacks in the north, slow progress, logistical problems, heavy casualties eventually getting bogged down and then lots of artillery bombardments of civilian areas. I think we're probably looking at a month of that. I think the Ukrainian army will want the Russians to expend as much effort as possible in their offensive. So rather than trying to stop them short I think we'll see a repeat of the earlier pattern of letting the Russians advance and then getting in behind them to break their logistics effort leaving the Russian forward deployed combat units to stall and then be killed. This then followed I think by a Ukrainian counter-attack. I have no idea what the likely axis of this counter-attack would be. You can make a case for pushing east around Kharkiv to push Russians out of north-eastern Ukraine, or Luhansk or Donetsk to liberate the Donbass and split the Russian armies, or Mariupol to relieve the city and also split the Russians or east around Kherson to threaten Crimea and the naval base at Sevastapol. I don't know which would be the best and I don't know if Ukraine reckon they have the capability to launch one or two or three attacks. They seem pretty sharp the Ukrainians and also able to make some difficult, nay painful, decisions. So I expect they will do the smart thing that best leads to the fulfilment of their war aims and that may not be the same thing as liberating lots of towns.
(I myself would attack toward Mariupol, split the Russian army and then mess with logistical efforts to keep the Russian forces to the east of Kherson and to the north of Crimea supplied. I notice there is a brand spanking new bridge near Kerch that could be destroyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge )
So that's where I think we're at at the moment.
