A Year Of Little Movement Represents Strategic Russian Failure

So whatever happened to all those strategic disasters about to befall Ukraine based on western experts and media's reporting about "inevitably" successful Russian assaults on Kharkiv, Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Kurakhove and Vuhledar? The silence is deafening, experts...

And meanwhile, Ukraine continues to thwart every weak attempt Russia has made to 'retake' Kursk. Yup, it's been one for the books, but not in the way those susceptible to Russian propaganda probably imagined. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

The Russians, though they have been trying for months, still havent taken Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove and Vulhledar—and we are almost in October. Maybe they will take one or a few of these places before the end of the year—but its hard to see a great Russian breakthrough and seizure territory before the fighting becomes restricted by winter. By any historical measure what we have seen is extreme Russian losses for small gains. If in early May, when the Russians launched their supposedly strategically brilliant Kharkiv Offensive, this was going to be the map on 1 October it would represent a Russian failure.

A Week (Really Year) of Relatively Little Movement.

Ok, the front line moved less this week than the week before. Yes, the situation in Vuhledar is not great (so its now being described, inevitably as strategic). Yet. early in the week there was discussion of the Russians overwhelming the Ukrainians, and forming cauldrons of Ukrainian forces. There were also stories of significant Russian improvements and signficant Ukrainian shortcomings.

All I can say, is by the standards of modern military history—none of this extreme reporting about the present situation—or all of 2024—makes the slightest sense. In 2024, only very tiny amounts of ground have changed hands. Here is a map of the front line on 1 January 2024.

And here is today’s map.

The Russians have gained a tiny bulge of land north of Donetsk and the Ukrainians have taken a tiny slice of land in Kursk. And the Russians though they have been trying for months, still havent taken Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove and Vulhledar—and we are almost in October. Maybe they will take one or a few of these places before the end of the year—but its hard to see a great Russian breakthrough and seizure territory before the fighting becomes restricted by winter.

By any historical measure what we have seen is extreme Russian losses for small gains. We have also not seen any major Ukrainian successes. However Ukraine was cut off entirely from US aid for the first third of the year.

If in early May, when the Russians launched their supposedly strategically brilliant Kharkiv Offensive, you had said this was going to be the map on 1 October—I think it would be said that it represented a Russian failure.

I will leave it at that.