The offensive is slowly becoming a disaster show for the Russians.
According to local sources, Russian soldiers are knocking on locals' doors in villages in the Northeast, wanting to buy food, fuel and booze "for whatever money". There are reports of tankers going around with empty fuel canisters asking for fuel, also there is looting of local stores by Russian soldiers.
https://www.unian.ua/war/ne-diyshli-d...
Also in other places, things are looking increasingly grim for the Russians. As I've said before, they indended this to be a blitzkrieg, which obviously didn't happen. At the start of the offensive, their primary objectives were the following:
1. take out Ukrainian comms and break the chain of command via a series of preemptive missile strikes
2. break through the Donbass line of demarcation and press westward, link up with troops crossing the border north of the line
3. encircle Kharkiv and pacify the local defenses and/or force a quick surrender
4. break out of Crimea and press westward towards Odessa and eastward towards Mariupol, the latter group was to link up with the troops breaking through the demarcation line, encircle Mariupol and establish a land passage between Russia and Crimea
5. quickly take over the northern cities of Chernihiv and Sumy, then proceed towards Kyiv
6. take Hostomel airport next to Kyiv and use it to land elite paratroopers, then as a staging ground for the siege of Kyiv
7. link up approaching forces and encircle Kyiv, then force a surrender
These were the Russian plans, roughly speaking. Out of these 7 goals, ZERO were achieved.
1. Ukrainians got intel in time about the incoming missile strikes, and shuffled everything around. Consequently, Russian missile strikes only had limited effect, the Ukrainian chain of command and much of their hardware remained operational.
2. The Donbass demarcation line holds still, Russians couldn't break through anywhere. Moreover, the Russians breaking through above the line were PUSHED BACK by Ukrainians, who launched a counterattack, with Russian forces fleeing back towards Russia.
3. The Kharkiv encirclement failed, Russians got bogged down, that's where they suffered their first significant losses. Kharkiv is on Ukrainian hands even now.
4. While the southern breakout from Crimea was inutially successful, Russians were once again held up at Kherson and Melitopol, thus couldn't advance much or link up with any other groups. Consequently the Crimea land bridge project failed.
5. Russians got bogged down both around Sumy and Chernihiv. In the end they decided to bypass the two cities altogether, and move towards Kyiv instead.
6. Russians first took Hostomel airport with a huge helicopter deployment, which was considered reckless at best by military experts. Later Russian paratroopers were dropped in, who are considered their elite forces. Ukrainians managed to defeat them and kick them out of the airport, which is a huge loss of face for the Russian army.
7. Troops from the Northeast and Northwest are trying to link up for an assault on Kyiv while bypassing cities, but in the process are taking losses due to Ukrainian harassment. As of the writing of this, Russians are still not ready for encirclement, let alone siege. Currently the indiscriminate shelling of Kyiv is underway instead.
We can draw the following conclusions:
> Russians greviously underestimated the Ukrainian defense forces.
> The Russian army was given very unrealistic objectives they couldn't complete, suggesting strong political pressure instead of rational planning.
> Russian missile strikes and air forces are very poorly organized, therefore ineffective. With such overwhelming air superiority they should have already decimated Ukrainian defenses. This did not happen so far.
> Russian logistics are very poorly organized, as illustrated by the info in the beginning. Soldiers' morale is low, and lack essential supplies such as food or fuel.
> Putin is slowly realizing the extent of the problem. As a sign of this, he called on the Ukrainian Army to rise up against their government, and told Kyiv he's ready for negotiations. As a rule of thumb, you don't do this when your victory is certain.
> The more time passes, the more desperate Russians get, and the more brutish methods they'll resort to, such as the aforementioned indiscriminate bombing of cities. This in turn causes massive discontent both at home and among the troops. Even according to Russian propaganda, their troops are there to liberate Ukrainians from the "evil nazi junta", not to murder their Ukrainian brethren. This is where the myriad cross-border familial and cultural connections seriously backfire for Putin.
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