After a day full of largely rumor and confusion, we lastly know a bit extra about how the most recent of Russia’s main offensives is unfolding. It is a significant assault; it’s not the form of extremely coordinated and overwhelming marketing campaign that Russia nonetheless insists it may pull off however which exterior consultants now consider is past the nation’s command competence. However it’s a main menace, and Russia has been in a position to take some new floor already.
Alternatively, Ukraine has additionally been in a position to rout Russians elsewhere, as they’ve been doing all the conflict. Russia stays overextended, reliant on lengthy provide strains and battalions already battered in earlier combating. It is just too early to say how this newest offensive will play out.
Russian assaults seem like targeting areas with Ukrainian defenses which have had years to arrange, with the most probably objective being the encirclement of a number of jap cities southeast of captured Izyum in order that they’ll then be obliterated by Russian artillery strikes. Earlier hypothesis that Russia would try an absurd operation to encircle all the jap entrance are, up to now, not coming to move. Whereas it appears curious for Russia to interact in battles within the locations the place Ukraine’s defenses are the strongest—particularly contemplating Russia’s poor outcomes when encountering precise Ukrainian troops, moderately than simply bombing civilian neighborhoods from afar—the Pentagon suspects attacking from these long-static positions are Russia’s approach of avoiding the logistical challenges which have plagued its extra far-ranging advances.
This is your information abstract for the day:
