Russia’s Insanely Stupid Winter Offensive
If you’re a military person, please don’t hesitate to call me insanely stupid if I’ve got it wrong.
Although the media has reported that Russia has mostly failed in its winter offensive, they haven’t pointed out why Russia’s failure is exponentially worse than the limited territory they captured. I’m going to use Bahkmut as an example, but the same poor decision-making can be seen in Avdiivka and to a lesser extent, New York.
Here’s Bahkmut today, April 6th, 2023
After about five months, Russia has captured about 80% of Bahkmut. Is Russia doing as poorly as the Western media makes out? No. Until you look at what’s been going on for the past five months.
The above map illustrates how much Ukrainian held territory Russia can attack with its three front lines, to north, east and south. How on Earth did those Ukrainians in the center survive for so long!
Compare that to a map of the Russian positions Ukraine can attack from its small amount of territory (the city).
That’s a lot of territory! Because Ukraine can move men and equipment in and out of the center of Bahkmut it can attack a lot more territory of Russia’s than Russia can of Ukraine’s.
Ask any chess player. Do you want control of the center or a few more pieces?
It should come as no surprise when Ukraine claims it is killing five Russians for every killed Ukrainian. Each Ukrainian soldier can physically shoot at a longer line of Russians.
Therefore, if Russia was smart, it would have stopped the offensive a long time ago. We know it didn’t because it was using mostly disposable Wagner fighters and prisoners.
Putin is like a chess player who thinks only in material — ignoring space, time and position.
When it comes to Russia’s main military force, I don’t believe the Bahkmut effort has degraded them severely. What Putin discounts, once again, is the effect on morale. Even if Russian’s regular army is far back firing artillery or holding the rear lines, it can’t help but become demoralized.
And Russia has expended a lot of material without an improvement in space, position and momentum on the board.
Russia probably could have been able to take Bahkmut and Avdiivka in a few weeks — if it really wanted to. If it sacrificed large parts of its regular army. That’s what Russia’s own ‘Z’ fanatic crowd believes! Either way, losing is losing. Grunts can make excuses. Generals can’t.
We all wait for Ukraine’s next move.
Remember in the fall Ukraine rolled into Kharkiv and Kherson very easily. It’s possible they did so because the Russians were exhausted and demoralized. If that was the case, then Ukraine’s upcoming offensive might make that Russian defense look spirited.
Almost a year ago I wrote about my speculation that Ukraine is using a rope-a-dope strategy against Russia. I’m even more convinced of it now.