I hear that opinion all the time, personally it sounds like rationalizing failure.
Like a football team walking off the field after losing and saying that game wasn’t really important.
If Luhansk(sp?), and Donets and Kherson were really the goals, I have little doubts that if they had concentrated on just that early on they would have been successful.
The words and actions early on do not match the words and actions now.
“Our goal was to lose the first 6 games of the season, then win the rest”
They may win the “games “, but I seriously doubt that was the initial game plan.
Additionally to the point of avdiivka, taking it was only part of the plan, their tactics show that they wanted to encircle and destroy the Ukrainian forces, that didn’t happen, and the loses were massive. Incremental gains at high costs is what they have left
Will it succeed, perhaps, but the costs will leave the Russian military pretty hollow. If the time comes when the Russian Air Force is forced to retreat back further, and jdams rain on Russian troops, like the Russians are doing we will see
The Ukrainian’s are taking horribly high losses as well and in fact, they would theoretically have to have a 1:~3.4 ratio to just break even, when in reality the casualties are near to neck.
The Ukrainian’s simply don’t report their casualties and equipment losses.
See Newsweek leaks last year where you had some official and realistic casualties divulged. It clearly showed Ukraine lost nearly as many people as Russia and that was before they went on an offensive.
For the Russians it’s about creating a cost for Ukraine and the West. Otherwise, we’d just drag this out. The longer the war rages on, the more real estate Ukraine loses.
If you look at what Russia has taken, it’s all areas with a majority or very large ethnic Russian population. Kiev with a 75% nationalist sentiment does NOT fit that description. The Russians are not stupid.
A partisan / guerilla war where the local population despises you, an outside party is arming - funding - training folks, where it’s easy to hop a border and be in a safe space is not an easy fight. By taking areas that are sympathetic to them, they greatly reduce their headache in the long run.