Russia's Kharkiv offensive – what is the plan? (www.youtube.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Buffalox@lemmy.world to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

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Russia has launched an offensive into the Kharkiv region, and it has created a lot of alarmist news reports. In reality it is difficult to see what Russia's plan is, and it is not self-evident that it is a smart use of resources. In this video I discuss whether we might be seeing a return to the fragmented command structures that Russia had in the beginning of the war.

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[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This was very informative and interesting to me, Anders Puck Nielsen explains why the "tactical significant results" Russia has achieved at Kharkiv may not mean as much as we might think.

Important knowledge for us that are not savvy in military expressions.

But the part afterwords is even more interesting IMO, about how Russia might not even have a strategy to win this war.

So I thought this would be interesting to others too.

-Enjoy.

[-] paddirn@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

Thanks, I always like his videos, as he seems to be fairly well informed and seems to be trying to be objective in what he’s presenting. As much as I want the Ukrainians to win, I don’t want to be blinded by overly cheery propaganda that makes it seem like Russia is weeks away from collapse or that victory is perpetually just in reach. I just want an honest assessment based on what we know, so I always appreciate his take on things.

It’s interesting that he thinks this may just be a signal that we’re returning to a fragmentation of the command structure with regional commanders vying for attention. We did just see the replacement of Shoigu as Russian Defense Minister, so maybe that’s had something to do with it as the commanders are trying to make a good first impression with the incoming Defense Minister, though not sure the timing would match up in the case of Kharkiv.

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago

Thanks for posting this, I hadn't watched this creator before but the video was really interesting. It was a good point he raised that in no military strategy book will you find advice to spread your forces all along the line and push a little bit everywhere like the Russians seem to be doing now.

I wonder if it's just the political aspirations of the individual leaders playing out as was suggested in the video. It'd be great news for Ukraine if that was the case for sure.

[-] sushibowl@feddit.nl 4 points 7 months ago

The Russian army also generally doesn't seem to have the training and capability to launch an effective large scale combined arms assault in a single region. That's probably a must to break through, otherwise concentrating forces and attacking into artillery will only lead to extremely heavy casualties.

[-] bouh@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

I would like for Russia to fail miserably, but HERE I'm afraid it's not as stupid as it could. Ukraine is notoriously low on ammunitions, so extending the active front line can deplete those supplies faster. I would expect Russia to try to deplete those supplies in order to force the front line where a shortage appears first. And they need to do it before the supplies come from the US, which is already starting to come. So it's basically a window of opportunity.

If they concentrated on one place only, the Ukrainian supplies would last much longer.

I expect the massive Russian offensive to slow down in June once the US supply lines are established again.

But maybe I'm wrong. If Russia continues to push hard like this through June and after, I'll be wrong. Unless they try to really push through western supplies themselves. That would be insane but possible I guess.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The tactical wins are probably not intended to be built on for additional gains. The real point was having video footage of Russia ground wins to recycle for another year. It's propaganda harvesting.