At present, the war between Russia and Ukraine has exceeded 18 days, and the two sides are still fighting fiercely on various fronts. If there are no major events, the battle should be fought for some time.
Obviously, the Russian-Ukrainian war did not appear in the situation where the Russian army was victorious and made a quick decision; nor did it appear that the Ukrainian army fought hard to strike a blow, severely damaged the Russian army's heavy army group, and reversed the unfavorable situation.
If it is really like Ukrainian President Zelenskiy said, the Ukrainian army lost 1300 people, the Russian army lost 12000+, nearly 1 to 10 battle loss ratio, it is estimated that NATO will have to apply to join Ukraine. Therefore, the Ukrainian side's propaganda of "one enemy against ten" should be put in quotation marks, which is not quite in line with the current front and the war situation.
Let's mainly sort out the basic situation of this war, as well as how the Ukrainian army fought in the end from the strength, deployment and tactics of the Ukrainian army.
One: The Russian side's perspective on the war against Ukraine
The current situation is that on the one hand, the Russian army is under the ukrainian capital Kiev, on the other hand, on the north, east and south sides, forming a "siege of the main force of the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine", and at the same time attacking some key cities.
In addition, the Russian military has controlled air supremacy (but has not completely eliminated the Ukrainian air defense forces, Russian fighters are still losing) and sea supremacy, and continues to attack key military facilities throughout Ukraine. According to the war report released by the Russian army on March 13, the number of military installations that attacked Ukraine has reached 3736.
According to the conclusions we have drawn from the analysis of the Russian military's war reports, the general trend of the Russian army since the beginning of the war is as follows:
The first phase, from February 24 to 25, the Russian army attacked key targets throughout Ukraine, while the northern air assault troops were directly inserted into Kiev, and the eastern and southern troops also launched offensives, especially the southern front troops were interspersed with greater intensity.
Because the war broke out suddenly, and there was a lot of news about the start of the war, everyone generally believed that the Russian army was a "thunder strike" in the early stage of the war, and the attack strength should be very large.
However, through the combing of the Russian military's war reports, the actual strike strength of the Russian army in the two days before the start of the war was not too large, but there were many risky operations such as the direct insertion of air assault troops into Kiev, and the large-scale duel between the ground forces of the two sides did not occur.
The result of this strange phenomenon may be that the Russian army underestimated the Ukrainian army's will to resist and pinned its hopes on a sudden and bold military action that forced the Ukrainian army to collapse without a fight and win the war at the lowest cost. However, the Ukrainian army is no longer the crippled situation of 2014, and the Russian army has not succeeded in replicating the model of taking Crimea without bloodshed.
The second period, the time is February 26 (actually including the evening of February 25, because the Russian war report is generally announced in the evening of the same day, and the results of the battle that night are generally combined into the results of the next day), and the number of strategic targets against Ukraine in one day is 3 times that of the sum of the previous two days, but there is still no large-scale engagement on the ground. The Russian army may still have certain illusions about crushing the Ukrainian army's will to resist, hoping for a high-intensity strategic strike, but it still backfired.
The third phase, the time is From February 27 to March 3, the Russian follow-up troops entered Ukraine in large numbers, the large-scale ground operations between the two sides began, and the Russian army should have implemented the second set of combat plans, on the one hand, it is accelerating the interspersed cloth, controlling key targets and traffic arteries; on the other hand, it is attacking key cities in Ukraine. The Ukrainian army's defenses in key areas were relatively strong, and the Russians were unable to easily capture most of the attacking cities, and the losses on both sides were relatively large.
The fourth period, the time is March 4, when the Russian army into Ukraine has been fighting for more than a week, in terms of mechanized troop marching operations, the Russian army has reached the node where it must resupply and repair equipment, so on this day the Russian army has actually entered the state of silent repair of the main force.
The fifth phase, the time is march 5 to the present, the Russian army's deployment is basically completed, is moving into the attack stage (the above four phases can also be combined into deterrence - breakthrough - advance stage, the fifth phase is the rest and preparation attack stage, followed by the attack stage), its semi-encirclement posture in the direction of Kiev, in the direction of east Ukraine did not close the encirclement, but "encircled three que one" left a large opening, and another partial division broke into the southwestern region of Uzbekistan west of the Dnieper River.
Since the Russian army had controlled most of the lines of communication in the theater, the main force of the Ukrainian army shrank to the position of the urban area, so the Russian army had to face the situation of besieging multiple cities at the same time. The existing strength of the Russian army is not enough to besiege so many cities at the same time.
Moreover, when the Russian army attacked the key points of the city, it encountered the situation of the Ukrainian army deploying in residential areas, which inevitably faced the problem of civilian casualties. On the one hand, the Russian army needs to reduce the pressure of public opinion, on the other hand, it urgently needs to be replenished, so it has continuously announced a state of silence, and at the same time wrestled with the Ukrainian army on the open humanitarian channel, hoping to reduce the pressure of civilian casualties in urban combat.
Note that the so-called state of silence is not that there is no longer a war, but that the main forces are turning to rest and replenishment, taking turns to carry out continuous attacks, while increasing the intensity of firepower.
This kind of attack is mainly to force the Ukrainian army to be unable to rest, and constantly deplete its strength and technical equipment; at the same time, it will test the falsehood and compact the front. In addition to fighting on the front line, the Russian army will shift another part of its focus to maintaining the safety of the communication line, which can not only reduce the casualties of the Russian logistics unit, but also not let the logistics excessively affect the operation.
So now we see a battle that seems to make little difference every day, but in fact it is still hot. And both sides are doing their best to prepare for the battle, and now the Russian offensive seems to have begun, and the Ukrainian army is defending with all its might.
We all know that the military is a continuation of politics, and outside the battlefield, Russia and Ukraine are also negotiating many times, and now it is said that there are some eyebrows. However, historical experience tells us that if the two sides do not reach a consensus on the battlefield (evenly match the enemy or one side concedes defeat), negotiations will not yield any results.
For the Russian army, one of the key targets is Kiev, and the other is the main force of the Ukrainian army in Eastern Ukraine, which can only form an absolute superiority on the battlefield and speak at the negotiating table. For the Ukrainian army, it is not unaware of this, so its actions are also very noteworthy. After understanding the above-mentioned actions of the Russian army since the beginning of the war, we will focus on the state of operation of its army from the perspective of the Ukrainian side, which is relatively ignored by everyone.
Two: the strength of the Ukrainian army
We know that the Ukrainian army was also rebuilt on the ruins of the Soviet Union, and in 1992 the vast majority of the Soviet troops stationed in Ukraine and the former Soviet officers and soldiers who returned to Ukraine formed the Ukrainian army, which initially received 780,000 soldiers. In addition to the army, Ukraine also received a large number of military enterprises and weapons and equipment.
However, after independence, Ukraine obviously does not need and cannot support such a large army and military enterprises, so the Ukrainian army has been disarming, and the military enterprises are constantly withering.
By the time of the change in Ukraine in 2014, the Ukrainian army had less than 130,000 soldiers and was in a very poor state of armament. In the Crimean Revolution and the Donbass War, the Ukrainian army disintegrated, divided, deserted, and suffered very high degrees of war losses. It was only rebuilt after absorbing a large number of nationalist forces with neo-Nazi characteristics, so the neo-Nazi symbol and composition in the Ukrainian army are relatively high.
After the reconstruction, the Ukrainian army has been continuously enriched in terms of the number of troops and the army structure, and although its navy and air force are still relatively weak, the army has gradually recovered.
Before the start of the War between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, the strength of the Ukrainian army has reached 255,000 people, of which the number of main combat brigades is nearly 30, which is roughly divided into 2 tank brigades, 9 airborne infantry brigades, 4 motorized infantry brigades, 7 airborne/air assault brigades, 2 mountain assault brigades, 4 naval infantry brigades, and 1 hunting brigade. In addition to the main combat brigade, the Ukrainian army also has special forces, artillery brigades and other support units and various service forces.
However, although the Ukrainian army has recovered, not all troops are fully loaded, so the actual strength of each department is not as good as the number of establishments.
In addition to the regular army, Ukraine still has paramilitary forces such as the National Guard and the Border Guard, and the degree of militarization of these units is also relatively high, such as the infamous "Azov Battalion", which is a unit of the National Guard, and in the mobile unit of the National Guard, there are also mechanized units equipped with tanks, which is actually the "second army" of Ukraine.
In the Battle of Antonov Airfield on February 24, the 4th Mobile Brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard counterattacked, and the Russian army generally regarded it as a regular army. On the first day of the war, the first round of attacks was also targeted by the command of the Ukrainian National Guard.
The specific strength of these paramilitary units has its own opinion, and the number of units is also varied, of course, it is not necessarily full. However, these miscellaneous troops, together with the Ukrainian regular army, have a total strength of more than 300,000 people.
In addition to the above combat forces, Ukraine was building a so-called territorial defense force of 25 brigades before the war. Each of its brigades has 6 battalions, for a total of 150 battalions, and Ukraine plans to deploy one such territorial defense brigade in each oblast, totaling 130,000 people.
Before the war between Russia and Ukraine, some of the territorial defense brigades had been pulled up, but they were incomplete and poorly armed, and even the DP27 was moved out. Therefore, these troops are actually of a militia nature, mainly used to maintain law and order, destroy the abandoned equipment of the Russian army, etc., and most of the "armed civilians" we see on many videos are actually these people.
Therefore, on the Ukrainian side, the main thing that can really be used to fight the Russian army is no less than 300,000 regular and paramilitary troops, of course, there are foreign mercenaries in the follow-up, and the above-mentioned territorial defense forces mainly play a certain auxiliary support role.
Compared with the size of Ukraine's troops, the strength of the Russian army is obviously much smaller, and it is generally estimated that the current strength of the Russian army in Ukraine is more than 100,000 people, and the actual strength of the East Ukrainian armed forces is only tens of thousands.
At present, the main force of the Ukrainian army is in Oudong, with about 10 main brigades, in addition to the second line of Uzbekistan and Kiev, there are also about 10 main brigades, and the other Ukrainian troops are in the core area of Western Ukraine and in the southwest Odessa and Nikolayev area.
The Ukrainian regular army is rotated in eastern Ukraine, and in the state of actual combat deployment, the fullness of troops and weapons is relatively high, and the relative fullness rate of the troops under rotation and training is relatively low.
Therefore, the Ukrainian army that is now engaged in the Russian army is already the main force of most of it, and its number of troops is even higher than that of the Russian troops participating in the war. If the militia is added, the number of mobilized troops is even greater than that of the Russian army.
Three: the initial response of the Ukrainian army
As we all know, although the total strength of the Ukrainian army is large, it did not move up in the war, and the entire Ukrainian army was almost in a passive state of being beaten after the start of the war, and the Ukrainian army between the various regions was basically stuck in place, and gave up almost all lines of communication.
Therefore, we will see that in the early days of the war, the Russian army only invested 40,000 or 50,000 troops to easily break through the border and intersperse ukraine at will, and the obstacles were not great.
At that time, the Russian army's requirements for the speed of advance should be very high, and in the case of the whole high-speed battlefield march, many of the Russian army's equipment was damaged and the fuel was exhausted and abandoned.
According to the normal combat process, the reason why these equipment is abandoned rather than self-destructive is mainly waiting for follow-up troops to recover. However, the Russian army did not invest a large number of troops, but the battlefield range was very large, and the distance of advance was very long. The Russian military's service support forces not only find it difficult to ensure the high-speed advance of combat troops, but also difficult to recover these abandoned high-value vehicles in time.
Because the Russian army did not eliminate a large number of Ukrainian troops in the process of advancing, the special operations detachment of the Ukrainian army began to be active in the communication line and attacked the russian logistics convoy. In the Russian war against Ukraine, a large part of the battle losses were losses on the logistics line. At the same time, a large part of the tanks and armored vehicles lost were not directly destroyed, but abandoned in the process of high-speed maneuvering.
Although the Ukrainian army attacked the Russian logistics line, it failed to stop the rapid advance of the Russian army, because the existence of the long logistics line itself meant that the Russian combat troops had advanced.
In particular, the Russian army marching north from the direction of Crimea, its advance speed was very fast, the Ukrainian army failed to prevent effective defense, and the Russian army took the most cities here.
The rapid breakthrough of the Russian army on the southern front directly posed a direct threat to the side of the main force of about 10 brigades in the direction of east Ukraine, and at that time, it was estimated that the Russian army might advance north and south, and a large dumpling came out in east Wubao.
However, since then, the speed of the Russian army's north-south advance has slowed down, and in fact, it has formed a situation of "encircling three and que one". This is mainly caused by the shortage of Russian troops, if there are 600,000 troops participating in the battle, it is certainly not this way of playing.
The intention of the Russian army is actually to let the Ukrainian army move, whether it is the retreat of the Ukrainian army or mobile reinforcements, the Russian air and space army can pour a large amount of ammunition on the Ukrainian army with the air superiority and destroy it at the lowest cost.
However, the strategy of the Ukrainian army is basically to respond to changes with no change, and most of the Ukrainian army has put up a posture of fighting for each other and sticking to the ground.
The Russian army pointed directly at Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, and the troops used by the Ukrainian army were garrisons around the capital, and the mobilization of troops in the form of armed civilians made the number of defenders of Kiev reach a considerable number.
In the direction of Western Ukraine, the Ukrainian army has several training brigades and permanent brigades, but in order to protect the Lviv base camp and the blood transfusion line of NATO weapons provided from Poland, these troops dare not move.
In addition, there were some mobile forces in the direction of Odessa and Nikolaev in the southwest.
The Ukrainians here did not dare to move because of the threat of a possible Russian landing in Odessa, and in the direction of Nikolayev, the Ukrainians and the Russians crossing the river had been engaged.
In terms of the overstretched strength of the Russian army, it seems unwise to start an all-out war, so the Russian army crossing the river in southwest Ukraine is likely to be a suspicious strategy, intended to contain the current southwestErn Ukraine troops.
In this case, the mobile units of the Ukrainian Army west of the Dnieper River are actually very few mobile. Supplementary troops and weapons can only be sent to Kiev and Eastern Ukraine through limited channels, but this amount is probably relatively limited, after all, although the Russian army did not block the encirclement, it still had air supremacy, and the Ukrainian convoy could not march with great swagger.
The main force of the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine is now in a state of encirclement and semi-encirclement, so what does the Ukrainian army really think now?
Fourth: the strategic deployment of the Ukrainian army
First of all, does Ukraine have any expectations for the actual Russian-Ukrainian war?
This should be said to be true, because at the beginning of February this year, Ukraine announced that it would expand its army by 100,000. At the same time, Ukraine built territorial defense forces throughout its territory, which resulted in 25 brigades of 130,000 people, allocated according to one brigade per oblast.
If all this is done, Ukraine would have more than 300,000 regular troops, 100,000 paramilitary troops, and 130,000 territorial defense forces. The total strength of the Russian army is only more than 900,000 people, many of whom are still conscripts, how many people can it actually mobilize to fight?
With the size of Ukraine, when the Russian army fights again after its expansion is successful, it is basically impossible to eat.
So less than a month after Ukraine announced an expansion of 100,000 troops, the Russian army finally chose to use troops against Ukraine. Moreover, the slogan of de-militarization is directly played, which is actually to completely break the backbone of Ukraine's military expansion.
The expansion of Ukraine's military strength is made in the context of the increasing military confrontation on the Donbas front, and its intention is obviously not only to use troops in Eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine is more likely to increase the cost of mobilizing Russian troops by greatly increasing its military strength, forcing it to be unable to launch a large-scale offensive against Ukraine.
According to Ukraine's expectations, even if the Russian army mobilizes troops, it should be in the direction of East Ukraine, and the result is that the Russian army is coming in the posture of a war of annihilation, which is definitely unexpected by Ukraine.
Therefore, we see that the main forces of the Ukrainian army are all attached to eastern Ukraine, one is deployed in the capital, the southern Crimean direction is empty, and the military strength of the western reorganization is also very limited.
As we said earlier, the actual strike strength of the Russian army in the early stage of the war was actually not strong, but the Ukrainian army did not launch a strong counterattack, and basically contracted and held. This is said to be a good point is to preserve strength, and a bad point is to be passively beaten.
Because once the other side is interspersed in place, then the overthrow of the Ukrainian army is only a matter of time, unless you can break the belly of the other party by virtue of your own size and stubbornness.
Judging from the panic of the Ukrainian army's Kiev deployment action, it was obvious that it did not have a strategy of overall response in the early stage of the war. However, the Russian army did not fight hard in the early stages of the war, and the Ukrainian army assessed that the war damage was not large after the initial panic and breathlessness. Coupled with the intelligence provided by NATO at this time, the Ukrainian army also knows that the Russian army actually participated in the war.
If the Ukrainian army goes out to fight in the field, it is still not an opponent, and it is unlikely that the Russian army will be defeated through direct field combat. For Ukraine, it is actually pinning its hopes on NATO.
Fifth: Targeted "Tactics" of the Ukrainian Army
NATO's stance is that it will not send troops directly, but it has given promises of continuous weapons support and mercenaries. In this way, Ukraine's strategy will change to drag the Russian army, so that the Russian army is deeply trapped in the battlefield, by depleting the Russian war resources, in order to wait for change.
Therefore, the Ukrainian army does not need to link up with major battlefields at all, that is, to fight each other, and how long it can drag on. Of course, the Ukrainian army also knew the power of the Russian army's heavy firepower. So they simply tied military positions to civilian areas, and fighters mixed with civilians, using civilians as shields to dissipate the heavy firepower of the Russian army and slow down its attack.
You may think, how is this possible? Even if the army of one's own country is no longer able to fight in battle, it cannot use the common people as a shield!
But the reconstruction of the Ukrainian army on the basis of its dilapidation in 2014 was not without cost, as nationalist forces with neo-Nazi characteristics were largely reorganized into ukrainian regular and paramilitary forces, making neo-Nazism particularly popular in the Ukrainian army.
For example, on Women's Day on March 8, NATO casually found a photo of a Ukrainian female soldier, which had a Nazi logo of "Black Sun", and then NATO quietly deleted the tweet and pretended that nothing had happened.
In fact, NATO still knows that this thing does not dare to randomly send it randomly, but similar things are actually open in the Ukrainian army, and now even Bandera is a national hero of Ukraine.
Therefore, Ukraine's army, which was rebuilt from 2014 to 2015, was actually more ruthless against civilians, especially during the war in East Ukraine, and committed many atrocities against civilians.
This is also the reason why the Ukrainian army fighting in eastern Ukraine generally did not surrender easily, because most of them had blood debts in their hands before, and they were afraid of being liquidated after surrendering and being captured.
Therefore, in this battle against the Russian army, it is not uncommon for the Ukrainian army to use civilians as shields. Of course, this strategy is probably not their own.
In the 2014-2015 East Ukraine operation, the Ukrainian army did not have much pressure to deal with the east Ukrainian militia, but the Russian army's participation in the war made it a headache.
The Russians put in so-called battalion-level battle groups in eastern Ukraine, which did not have many actual troops, but greatly enhanced situational awareness and heavy firepower. Therefore, in the battle with the Russian army camp-level combat group, the Ukrainian army has a deep understanding of the heavy firepower of the Russian army.
At that time, the operations of the Ukrainian army were guided by American instructors, and most of the US troops had only experience in public security warfare before, and they had not seen this kind of play of the Russian army, so there was a lot of research on the Russian military camp-level combat group after the loss.
In fact, the battalion-level combat group, to put it bluntly, is that the Russian army cannot afford to carry out the informatization and synthesis of the whole structure, and concentrates the main forces to strengthen it on a certain battalion and then let it into battle, its actual combat strength is not much, and the Russian army cannot turn all battalions into battalion-level combat groups.
After all the heavy firepower of the Russian army is dissolved, and the Ukrainian army is fought in the city with its weapons and troops that are not dominant, then the gap between the two sides will be greatly reduced.
On March 2, the Russians released the first battle losses, of which 498 were killed and 1597 wounded. Some of them were losses on the logistics line, and the other part was losses in the siege phase when heavy firepower was limited.
In the first week of the war, the Russian army believed that the losses reached an average of 300 people per day, which is of course much smaller than the Ukrainian base camp war report. But everyone should also know that this war loss is already very ugly. However, at the cost of this battle loss, the Russian army basically arrived at the predetermined combat area and formed the proper situation.
The deployment of the Ukrainian army is already obvious, the mobile forces in the core area of Western Uzbekistan and the southwest Odessa region cannot be moved, Kiev is a backwater battle, and the remaining main force of Eastern Ukraine is surrounded or semi-encircled. The troops in the theater of operations are relying on the urban areas to stand firm and wait for change. Specifically, under the shield of Western foreign aid and civilians, it is necessary to hold out as much as possible, on the one hand, to delay time, on the other hand, to increase the losses of the Russian army, and on the other hand, to attack and harass the logistics line of the Russian army with elite detachments, and to cooperate with the main battlefield in the urban area.
This trick is not the Ukrainian army itself came up with, to say that NATO did not participate in the decision-making, who believes?
For NATO, to put it bluntly, for the United States and Britain, they are not afraid of Ukraine's destruction, how happy do you see US Vice President Harris laughing in Poland? All the U.S. needs is Ukraine to break down, Russia to be sanctioned, Europe to fall, and then it can feed itself.
Under the leadership of the United States, the civilians of Ukraine are not cared about, and the longer they fight here, the more beneficial it is to the United States. In fact, whether they win or lose, Ukraine has already lost, because the battlefield is here for them.
Sixth: The Russian military's countermeasures and war expectations
Of course, as far as we are concerned about specific wars, the strategy and tactics adopted by the Ukrainian army are like this, so naturally the Russian army cannot sit still.
With the current strength of the Russian army, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be swallowed up in one gulp. For example, in Lviv, the core area of West Uzbekistan, it is unlikely that the Russian army will attack directly.
Now that the Two Armies of Ukraine and Russia are fighting in more than N cities, the Russian army is unlikely to attack in an all-round way, because its strength does not allow it to come.
The Russian army is most likely to carry out a fierce attack in the direction of eastern Ukraine, and eating the main force of the Ukrainian army is much better than taking Kiev and then carrying this big burden.
However, the Strength of the Ukrainian Army in the direction of East Ukraine is also quite large, and it is not realistic for the Russian Army to swallow it in one bite, it should be selectively eaten one by one, such as Mariupol.
Moreover, this kind of eating is not necessarily a strong attack and hard fight, but a comprehensive consideration of strategy and tactics, and the rhythm of political and military battles at the same time. When the U.S. military hit Iraq in 2003, the same was true.
The tactics of the Russian army after the state of silence on March 5 were roughly the following:
First: continue to intensify the attack on Ukraine's military infrastructure, weaken the potential of the Ukrainian army to fight, not only to fight people, but also to fight weapons, fuel, parts and ammunition, without these supports, it is useless to have troops alone;
Second: fight a public opinion war within the theater of operations, forcing the Ukrainian army to release civilians, and then the Russian army prepares for firepower at night, directly weakening the living forces, fortifications, weapons and ammunition of the Ukrainian defenders, and such an attack is carried out every night, so that the Ukrainian army cannot be rested;
Third: continuously compact the battle line during the day, narrow the encirclement circle, and compress the living space of the Ukrainian army;
Fourth: On the front line that we cannot see, the war of rebellion and offensive warfare is also under way, in order to shake the will of resistance of the Ukrainian army and disintegrate its combat effectiveness;
Fifth: mobilize security forces in the rear to strengthen the protection of the logistics line, so that the firepower and weapons of the front line operation are in a relatively perfect state;
In addition, in order to make up for the shortage of infantry, Russia also mobilized "volunteers" in Syria to participate in the war, and its number is not easy to assess, which may depend on the follow-up combat needs.
Under the change of the Russian army's tactics, the current Ukrainian army is relatively passive.
Although the total strength of the Ukrainian army is quite large, it does not dare to move in many directions, and the main force on the east Ukrainian side is constantly being depleted. And this kind of attrition is not only the loss of veterans and combat backbones, the key is that war resources are sharply depleted.
In the case of Russia's air supremacy and the continuous supply of subsequent weapons and ammunition, the main combat equipment of the Ukrainian army is constantly consumed, and the only things that NATO can provide to the Ukrainian army are single-soldier anti-tank missiles and individual air defense missiles.
Not to mention how many such weapons can be obtained by the main forces of the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine, the key is that in large-scale wars, these weapons can only increase the losses of the Russian army, but they cannot stop the Russian army's attack.
After all, the means of the Ukrainian army to attack the Russian army mainly rely on these equipment, and the Russian army's means of attacking the Ukrainian army can be more. Once the main battle equipment of the Ukrainian army is worn to a certain extent, the unit structure is difficult to support, and a sudden collapse is likely to occur.
Once the operation has entered this stage, then the Russian army can harvest a large number of results with minimal battle losses, and the results of the previous N-day stalemate battle will finally be displayed.
The focus of the Russian army's current operations is definitely in the direction of East Ukraine, because this is the key to achieving the de-militarization of Ukraine, and its style of play is definitely attrition to force the Ukrainian army to collapse. Once the main force of the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine was taken, the battle in Ukraine was basically over. It is not easy to rebuild the military industry and army of a medium-sized country!
Therefore, for the Ukrainian army, the greatest pressure is not the garrison west of the Dnieper River, nor the Kiev garrison, but the main Force of the Ukrainian Army in Eastern Ukraine. For example, the garrison in Mariupol has repeatedly asked For help from Kiev, but can Kiev send reinforcements?
Reinforcements cannot be sent, the situation is getting more and more serious, and we cannot sit still, so we will see the war reports of Ukraine's great water injection and the deeds of "divine soldiers", to put it bluntly, we hope to boost morale, and expect that "if we hold on, there will be a way."
In the context of the insufficient strength of the Russian army, the Heavy Army group of the Ukrainian Army still has considerable strength, so the brutal battle will continue, which is a kind of attrition-type wrestling. If the Russian army's battle losses are too great and the soldiers cannot be replenished, then in the end it can only be difficult to ride the tiger and be stuck. If the Ukrainian army really can't hold out, it may be solved one by one, as it was in the late Stage of the Syrian War.