So what's the basis for claiming Russia has won?
>So what’s the basis for claiming Russia has won?
The Ukrainians are getting ground up. The Russian military isn’t really even engaged on the front. It’s all wagner and their group of former prisoners.
What makes it a Russian victory?
The fact that taking Soledar after months of a war of attrition opens the path to neutralizing Bakhmut and then basically driving the UKA out of artillery range of Donetsk
The fact that the Ukes have thrown about 25% of their fighting forces in this sector (est 60k forces) including elite units trained in the West to NATO standards….and Bankova continues to order more reinforcements sent into the Russian cauldrons
The fact that in Soledar, 10K Wagner PMC with Russian para support on the final city assault, has chewed up an estimated 25K casualties in Soledar and are now moving slowly but relentlessly to completing the encirclement of Bakhmut and neutralizing another 30K UKA troops that will die or retreat westward where even their next line of defense is already operationally under threat.
The fact that Zelensky refuses to accept this and is still ordering his generals to draw more troops to Bakhmut from the north and south. Giving Russian artillery more UKA to kill. A place which is least favorable for the Ukes to switch from defense to offense to try to rescue their encircled army given Russian artillery and experience in urban street fight. As long as the Ukes continue to feed the Bakhmut meat grinder, Wagner shows no urgency to actually take the city, just keep killing UKA. Meanwhile biding time for the Russian forces to prep the next phase of their offensive,
Which nobody knows the details and actual analysis has been pretty damn weak and politically driven
Meanwhils Zelensky’s ordered deployments render Kharkov, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and even Odessa and Kiev weaker in the face of the next Russian offensives….When and if they choose
While Kiev begs for weapons and the West dithers on sending them a couple dozen more tanks and 2 Patriot batteries…
The fact that RU announced a restructure of its war command on the day Soledar fell. Which is now only belatedly being assessed by competent analysts as a sign the Russian offensive is entering its next much bigger phase, with this objective being assured
A thoughtful analysis
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/war-update-03f?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email