At this rate you’ll take that land sometime in 2057.
And it’ll only cost you another 500,000 troops.
Not that you care.
L
The Russian objective for well over a year, in addition to clearing out Donetsk, has BEEN TO DESTROY TO UKRAINIAN MILITARY, not pick up large chucks of territory.
Destroy the opponents military makes it easier to take territory if that ends up being necessary.Duh!
The Russians moved with lighting speed in the first seven months of the war when building a land bridge from mainland Russia to Crimea was the objective.
Poland's Konrad Muzyka, who has visited Ukraine troops on the frontlines, to the Polish news site Rzeczpospolita:
"It is worrying that Russia's territorial gains, especially in July, were quite significant and larger than in previous months. The Russians have advanced 10-12 km along several axes. This is something we haven't seen before. If there were any territorial conquests before, they were concentrated around one area. Now we have several areas where the front is starting to leak.
[...] when it comes to the Ukrainian soldier, the biggest problem is that he's just... not there. And this is due to the fact that the scale of desertion and abandonment of units without consent is very high. This creates a dangerous situation: if you take into account the loss of soldiers on the front line, desertion and abandonment of units without consent, the number of soldiers on the Ukrainian side decreases month after month. Although officially the Ukrainians mobilize 20-30 thousand people every month, most of them do not get to the front line.
This is a very big structural problem that has remained unresolved for a long time, and there is no indication that it will change soon. Other issues include the quality of command, the personal equipment these soldiers receive, the characteristics of Ukrainian commanders-in-chief, and the phase of the war."