Phillips P OBrien AT PhillipsPObrien
Battle of the Donbas seems to be already have turned into a battle of attrition that holds out almost no possibility of a major Russian victory and more likely will peter out in the next week or so because of unsustainable losses.
Lets look at losses. Using claimed Ukrainian losses of Russian equipment as a gauge of combat intensity, it seems that the last 10 days have seen a major increase of fighting with much heavier losses being suffered (presumably by both sides).
I made this chart showing cjlaimed losses over 2 day periods between 14 April and just released information for today. Losses really leapt up after 18 April when the Battle was said to have started. The rise in tank loss rates was approx double and in APC losses more than 75%
If these Ukrainian claims are at all accurate (it should be noted that documented, photographed claims of Russian losses are about two thirds of those claimed, so they certainly should not be out by much) then the Russians have lost 217 tanks and 404 APCs since the battle started
Even if they are exaggerrated by 20 percent, Russian losses would be extreme, around 20 full strength BTGs worth? And according to the Pentagon, the Russians have 92 BTGs in Ukraine.
That means they could have lost 20% of their tanks and APCs in Ukraine since the battle started (thats if the BTGs were at that point close to full strength. If they were considerably weaker, it could be higher).
And what have the Russians gained for this large loss? Incrementally a few kilometres here and a few kilometres there. Here is the situation as mapped by AT War_Mapper a few hours ago and on 17 April.
There have been some small extension of the Russian lines heading south of Izyum and towards Lyman, but the pace is such that unless Ukrainian forces are actually close to collapse, the chance of a large scale encirclement is very small.
Pentagon intelligence also claims two things which are slowing down Russian advances. They are still suffering significant logistics problems (they need to stay close to their supply dumps) and they still dont have air superiority over the battlefield.
And now some worrying signs are creeping in for the Russians. 1st, there are indications that the Ukrainians are starting to deploy the loitering munition UAVs (Switchblade type) that were sent just a little while ago. This could be a major Russian problem
And UK MOD estimates are that problems are exhibited across the board for Russians, maybe most worryingly for them, morale problems are occuring.
A sign that Russian defeated troops into action from the Kyiv front might not have been the wisest choice.
Long story short. Unless the Ukrainians have been degraded to the point that their resistance is about to crack, and the Russians start moving swiftly to encircle their forces, its likely the Russian effort will peter out because of such high losses with little gains.
Finally, the plateauing of Russian losses followed by the decline in the last few days, could indicate a lessening in combat intensity as the failure of the Russians to breakthrough combined with the high losses starts to filter through.
There are a few people suggesting he is too optimistic. I'm not seeing this much from voices with military experience though. And those who are saying it, offer little in explanation of how Russian can provide a tipping point.
I think the notable thing for me was how Gerasimov has gone up the front
Eliot A Cohen AT eliotcohen
If it is true that General Gerasimov is assuming direct command of combat operations in Ukraine from a forward headquarters there are, as ever, two possibilities. 1/6
The first is that as the Russians launch the decisive maneuver(s) of the war, they want their very best field commander to complete these heroic tasks, orchestrating fire and maneuver, land air and sea as only a superb field commander can. And obviously, he’s the best! 2/6
The second is that maybe he is not the reincarnation of Suvorov, Zhukov, etc. but a guy who has been the top staff job for over a decade. And things are going badly. Maybe very badly. Or at least potentially very badly. 3/6
One cannot blame the Boss for having launched this incredibly stupid war that will leave Russia weakened, isolated, with a stronger and larger NATO on its doorstep, particularly if you lose it to those Ukrainian peasants! 4/6
So you send the Chief of the General Staff to the front with the message, “Fix this or don’t come home.” You now have a really good person to blame (nobody has ever heard of Dvornikov anyway). And at this point, you’re not worried about a successful general launching a coup. 5/6
…because this thing may be an epic disaster. So you need a really good scapegoat. As always truth may well lie somewhere in between, but I bet on #2. No reason to think Gerasimov is, in fact, likely to be a skilled theater commander plus issues AT WarintheFuture points out. 6/6
There is no evidence that Russia is capable of a breakthrough attack. There is evidence that things are going very badly...
I do not believe that this is wishful thinking.