Awful News

Ukraine Situation Report: Major Push Toward Tokmak Gaining Steam

Ukraine Will Speed Up Advance On Southern Front, Commander Says | Reuters

Fighters of the "Safari" assault regiment of the "Safari" brigade of the "Lyut" brigade storm Russian positions in the central part of Klishchiivka, Donetsk region.

Pentagon officials have urged their Ukrainian counterparts to prioritize better and concentrate their forces on potential breakout points along the 600-mile front. Ukraine initially placed equal emphasis on three axes, rather than concentrating on the main thrust south through Zaporizhzhia toward the Sea of Azov. Ukraine is said to have responded, finally, by moving some units toward the south from Bakhmut and other areas in the East where, despite U.S. arguments, they had remained entrenched.

American commanders have long believed that the Ukrainians waste artillery fire in crushing barrages that emulate Soviet tactics. By one U.S. estimate, the Ukrainians have fired 2 million rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition since the war began, nearly exhausting Western stockpiles. U.S. officials urge Ukraine instead to weight its artillery fires toward the most important targets and use them to advance quickly toward their objectives.

Pentagon officials have also urged Ukraine to rely less on drones for battlefield awareness and more on ground reconnaissance forces, which can assess Russian positions better. And they have pressed Kyiv to give junior officers more latitude to exploit opportunities along the sprawling front. On all these points, U.S. officials believe the Ukrainians are responding positively. But the discussion has been prickly in recent weeks.

The Washington Post

Some of these unnamed officials have always been suspect to me.

Question is what costs more lives. If you "rush" the enemy at some points and lose many soldiers by doing that or if you try it more slowly to lose less soldier per day but you need 5x as long to take some positions and give Russia even more time to build even more and better defensive lines in the rest of the occupied areas. I have no idea what's better but almost not progressing at all like Ukraine the last three months doesn't sound perfect to me either (even Robotyne is just a very small village where less than 500 people lived and the other taken villages in the South were even smaller). Maybe something between their tactics of the last months and some aggressive style others want to see would be the best way but who knows.

Those minefields are obviously a huge problem but it's not as if Russia doesn't use every extra week to place even more mines and build even more trenches. Then you overcome Russia's strongest defensive line but in that time Russia build already two new ones...

It's not like Ukraine hasn't been assaulting Russian positions, they have just been more slower and methodical about it, rather than a Normandy style charge head first into minefields and artillery like some of these unnamed Western officials seem to want. There was a lot of concern and upset at Ukraine losing a few Leopard 2's at the start of the offensive to minefields, if they took the advice here then they'd quickly end up with no Leopard 2's. Fact is, if the West was quicker at delivering what Ukraine needed then the offensive would have been faster but we weren't and it's not so we have to suck it up, it's partly our fault. War is long and we have to be patient.

As for building more defensive lines, it's a lot harder to build defensive lines while you're in the middle of being assaulted, Russia will have to lay mines whilst at the same time fighting, and in some cases, retreating, the vast majority of minefields are likely at the front with some scattered behind but they can't mass lay mines BEHIND their troops otherwise they trap them. They need to leave routes out. The biggest issue has always been the sheer scale of mines at the front and artillery to finish them off, but lately Ukraine has been obliterating Russian artillery and then they need to get a large enough force behind the minefields and things will pick up faster and be more aggressive.

Ukraine is a massive country so just looking at colours on a map doesn't tell a full picture. Each progress is pressure onto the line, the line is like a dam and Ukraine is like water pressing against that dam, at some point, a hole will hopefully be made, and if the pressure is kept up, the hole will explode and cause the whole structure to break. Tokmak is actually very small too but it is very significant tactically, hence why Russia has massively fortified it and why Robotyne despite being very small was very well defended. Russia is focused on stopping Ukraine from reaching Tokmak in the South.

I would honestly not be surprised as well because it would be peak Russia, if most of their soldiers are on the frontlines and there's not much manning the background because Putin is desperate to not lose anymore ground so sent everything to the front. Also Russia has just committed its best unit to the Tokmak axis, they're feeling the pressure.

Very difficult to answer. There's definitely context in which either can be preferable but the capacity to make the distinction between when 1 is better in any given context requires out-of-this-world skills/intellect/confidence/experience and a fair share of luck. In some scenarios, it can be more or less evident but even then is the evidence a reality or a trap? The US was confident in the Bay of Pigs yet...

Breaching the defense line can lead to panic on the Russian side which may lead to fights against disorganized units, It would provide low casualties for Ukrainians and a high one for Russians all the while enabling Ukrainians to capture lots of Russian, Russian's equipment and territories back. Kharkiv last year was a prime example of it.

But this time defense lines are much harder to breach as they have more stages, yet Russia seems just as or even more disorganized than before. The questions are:

Exactly how costly breaching defense would be?

How much gains can be expected from a total breach of the defense line on 1 axis?

Are we at a point where there's even hope a successful breach of Russian defense deal a death blow to the Russian invasion altogether? 

What will the situation be for Russia with added time, will it fuel instability or will it provide them the means to make it even more difficult for Ukrainians?

and many others...

All questions which we sadly can't answer ourselves and probably no one can answer with all but low confidence probabilities.

I hope you are right and I was one of them concerned about the fast loss of Bradley and Leopard 2 in June I think. And I obviously have absolutely no clue what's right or wrong since all my war experience is from Age of Empires or something like that lol.

It's also hard to tell which news source just steals from other ones or just makes things up. That's at least one thing I give Elon Musk, 90% of news media doesn't even try to be a serious source nowadays (but still better as a world where only one guy like him decides which news is the good news and that only his site is needed on this planet). Some German news sites also report about "sources" saying Ukraine spread their forces too much instead of concentrating more forces to one area but who knows if they also just copy paste other articles.