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The War In Ukraine Is Far From Over
[19FortyFive] When Russia took Lysychansk on July 3, it was the third major Ukrainian city to fall in as many months, and by all appearances the Russians would continue their methodical march through the Donbas. Instead, Ukraine stiffened its defenses and limited Russia’s eastward advances to a slow crawl, and then earlier this month Zelensky unleashed twin offensives that have thrown Russia’s entire operation on the defensive — casting Putin fully into crisis mode.It is clear that the Russian leadership has, from the outset, underestimated the Ukrainian capacity to resist and overestimated the ability of the Russian army to prevail. It was seen in the initial strategy of splitting a relatively small force of less than 200,000 into four axes, making it easier for Ukraine to defeat the initial thrusts, observed in tactical blunders in the early phases, and in Russia’s failure to recognize or prepare for Ukraine’s offensive in the Kharkiv region. It appears, however, Zelensky now has Putin’s full attention. Russia’s strategy in the second phase of the war had been to focus on the Donbas and relegate the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts to secondary status. That may have made sense early, but over time Russia’s generals failed to make any changes to their plans — and more critically — failed to recognize Ukraine had been building capacity in the north. Posted by: Abu Uluque 2022-10-01 |
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