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An Assessment of the War
Every so often we need to look at the war and where we are. To be precise, we are in the messy middle. This is we trade terrain middle, and we keep fighting until we are both exhausted, or one deals a knockout blow. The question is how much of that can Russia ultimately keep.
They threw all they had at Sveredonetsk. At this point, it’s the same at Lysychansk. Russia is trying to push Ukrainians off the city. The push seems to be towards the administrative border of Luhansk. This will include cities to the west of Lysychansk. This includes cities like Kramatorks, and in my opinion, the Russians have almost no force left.
This concentrated offensive is leading to major losses for the Russian military. In any other force, we would see major degradation of power, as well as moral issues. Or at least Russia likes to pretend they are not facing these issues. Why at one point they came up with the theory that Ukraine had lost 50,000 troops. If you use the standard three multipliers, this is 150,000 Ukrainians who would be out of the fight. This is a significant portion of the active force and should make the collapse of the Ukrainian military theoretically possible.
It is not.
Ukraine is pulling tactical retreats while inflicting major losses in the east. At the same time, they are running a counteroffensive in Kherson, where they…