Recognizing this window of opportunity and the vulnerability of the Russians, Ukrainian forces acted decisively. With Russian reserves either dead in the fields or stationed too far to provide timely reinforcements, Ukraine pressed its advantage, launching coordinated air, drone, and HIMARS missile strikes against known Russian troop concentrations in Kindrativka. Ukrainian drones methodically hunted down and eliminated Russian infantry clusters, while precise HIMARS strikes obliterated remaining fortifications and munitions stores with devastating effect. Airstrikes with AASM Hammer bombs ensured no immediate reinforcements could move forward safely, effectively neutralizing major resistance within Kindrativka itself and limiting the possibility of surviving Russian troops finding cover within the ruins.
This is what decisively losing a war sounds like.
Notice, no matter what Russia claims about how warfare is changed and they don’t need armor just dirtbikes and atvs… the reason this counterattack was so costly for Russia was precisely because the infantry essentially had no access to transportation they could safely use in groups to quickly reposition to counter Ukrainian maneuvers. This is why mechanization is such an advantage in modern warfare and how it is almost shocking the degree to which Russia seems to be ignoring that reality.
Ukraine significantly disrupted Russian logistics and troop rotations, effectively sabotaging Russia’s goal of establishing drone and artillery fire control over the regional capital, Sumy.
I don’t see how adding more foreign troops who probably haven’t even trained with the random Russian troops they are being thrown together with into this mix is going to change things, 30,000 soldiers from any nation is nothing to dismiss especially from a nation with a large military like North Korea but I don’t think it really changes the calculus. I especially don’t think Russia’s foreign allies are going to be happy when images and video of their long range expensive artillery systems getting repeatedly annihilated by Ukrainian drones and counter battery fire goes viral on the internet…
If Putin does not back down and agree to some sort of exit or ceasefire from this war we can only hope that Ukraine can continue to exploit this severe limitation to the Russian military in order to encircle large numbers of troops and get them to surrender without countless Ukrainians having to die in an endless battle of head on attrition that has so far typified most of the war.
Yes but also at an even more basic level, the inherent tradeoff to staging a dispersed widespread offensive with small unit insertions all across the front in a chaotic purposefully decentralized wave… is that if Russia doesn’t have a large amount of vehicles, especially armored vehicles, their forces are effectively stranded and easily flanked by a smaller mechanized Ukrainian force.
Russia is placing their unmechanized infantry into the least reactive and most strung out and isolated position possible and crossing their fingers in hope that the consistent pressure up and down the front is enough to keep Ukraine from organizing mechanized counter attacks that at an operational scale Russian infantry alone simply cannot fight because it cannot move without being incredibly vulnerable and even then it is slow.
I think at this point if Putin isn’t a fool he is expecting the offensive to likely reverse and I would imagine Russian forces are focusing on building dense layers of defenses with mines, fortifications and other terrain elements with the hope that coming counter attack will over eagerly ensare itself into Russian defenses. If Putin is a fool Russia will learn the hard way.
Either way this is starting to look better for Ukraine.
I feel the mine density and ability to react with artillery and their own drones still slows the Ukrainians on large scale offensives, we’re seeing conditions even the US never planned for. More likely russia cracked like germany in WW1, a rear collapse that leads to terms.
I think we’ll see either a back line (political) collapse, that causes a massive retreat/treaty, or: Gradual degradation to the point where a small breach in the russian position causes a massive route like what we saw in Kharkiv. Unmechanised forces stretched so thin and with so low morale that just a small crack causes a massive collapse and the subsequent capture and/or elimination of massive amounts of equipment and personnel, which makes russia unable to continue the war.