Werthead, on 21 May 2024 - 10:24 PM, said:
The Russian military is using Telegram to contact soldiers on the front and give them dispersion orders when enemy attacks are incoming. They have warned that Ukraine can now strike up to 300km behind the front lines (!) and Russian soldiers should practice dispersing without giving up territory. Responses along the lines of "how?" seem to be commonplace.
Russian milbloggers reporting that Ukraine has achieved artillery superiority on the Kharkiv front, and warning of the potential for a Ukrainian counter-offensive. That would be quite an achievement.
Some claims - I would caution that these numbers are unconfirmed, and it's unclear what precise metric is being used - that Ukraine assembled 58 battalions to defend the area, expecting a massed attack from ~75-100 equivalent Russian formations, but Russia only attacked with 51, and several of these have been mauled so badly they effectively do not exist. Some of the Ukrainian battalions have been damaged as well, but nowhere near as bad. Ukraine may have manpower and artillery superiority on the front, creating the conditions for a counter-offensive. Russian reinforcements do not seem to exist, either they're not on that front or they never existed in the first place. The Chasiv Yar offensive seems to be collapsing at the same time.
The irony is that there's not very much territory to counter-offensive into. They can kick Russia back across the border but an invasion of Russian territory would be...bizarre, and also not militarily useful in holding the Donbas. Reversing course and sending some of those troops back to the Kreminna, Robotyne and Avdiivka fronts might be preferable.
I mean, crossing the border to dash across the Urazove gap (while ramsacking the Valuyki staging area) to retake Troit'ke and flank the Svatove-Kreminna axis would be the logical move, if the symbolic "thou shalt not cross into canonical orc territory" prohibition wasn't a thing.....