890 days in...
This was the first map from ISW, showing the extent of Russian advances:
Invasion on multiple independent axis north of Kiev, leveraging Belarus to approach Kiev from both sides of the dominant geographic feature in the whole country, the Dnipro river.
A Russian advance from Crimea is already across the Dnipro river at Kherson.
This first map also indicated the site of missile attacks and included formation symbols. They dropped these to clean up the map, and because nobody wanted to learn the symbol for a motorized division.
A few days later the Russians were threatening Nikolaev on the Southern Bug river, the last large natural barrier to defend the land approach to Odessa.
Mariupol was falling under siege and Kharkov was threatened with envelopment on both sides.
In the north the westernmost threat to Kiev was approaching city suburbs. The Russians' Feb 24th air assault on the Hostomel airport had been counter attacked and driven into the woods, but the Russians overland mechanized advance captured the airport on Feb 25th. The runways had been rendered unusable before this point to prevent airborne reinforcement of the air assault.
Mid March the attempt to bypass Nikolaev further north stalled out.
The left bank of the Dnipro had been further consolidated by the Russians, but the front line isn't near Zaporizhia, the regional capital.
Mariupol is encircled and progress continues in Luhansk and Donetsk has the Ukrainians force a slow advance and don't suffer any large scale encirclements.
The axis advancing on Kiev west of the Dnipro is stalling out, but consolidating in the east.
This is high tide in the north, and it becomes clear the Russians lack the logistics to field, much less the firepower to push, the northern pincers on Kiev.
The Russian pull back entirely in the north.
Biggest defeat in the war so far (I mean to today).
Nut jobs tried to dig in around Chernobyl(!) before somebody realized they didn't have firepower to push anywhere anymore. We'll learn in the future how much of that was because they didn't have the logistics stockpiled to feed a real fight on this front.
Russian airpower isn't in anyway comparable to US, and when you consider the level of air defenses they tried to fly air support into, they were doomed.
The US spent a lot of time and effort on SEAD and softening up [read: killing while instilling moral and physical helplessness in the enemy] in Desert Storm. It's hard to appreciate what it's liked to be bombed for weeks and weeks, able to do nothing but pray it's not your turn.
Anyway, the strategic concession of the entire north front threat I think can't be overstated. The hope to decapitate the seat of power taken off the table. Major cities in the NE of Chernigov and Sumy retained for Ukraine's war effort.
While the Russians consolidated rural territory on the right bank of the Dnipro north of Kherson they were counter attacked in their efforts to cross the Bug and retreated to Kherson. Threat to Odessa, and effort to cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea lifted.
Mariupol still under siege and Russian pincer attempts in Luhansk and Donetsk can never get a breakthrough to exploit.
Into May the Russians are still making exceedingly slow progress in Luhansk and Donetsk, but Ukrainian counter attacks have relieved Kharkiv's flanks and the Russian crossing of the Dnipro is being slowly reduced.
Jumping ahead a few months to September as fighting focused over the summer slowly reducing the Russian crossing of the Dnipro in the south, with the continued grinding advance by the Russians in the center at Luhansk and Donetsk reinforced by the units withdrawn in the northern advances on Kiev earlier in the war.
With the focus on the south Ukrainians achieve strategic surprise and clear much of Kharkiv oblast with a rapid advance on the northern end of the line that the Russians stabilize by the end of September.
Within two months of the surprise advance clearing Kharkov the Ukrainians succeed in compelling the Russians to retreat from the right bank of the Dnipro, and Kherson is liberated in late November.
From this point the conflict is strategically frozen.
Ukrainian counteroffensive hoping to reach the sea of Azov and break the land bridge to Crimea comes to naught, and Russian offensives in Luhansk and Donetsk are still slow grinds.
Reminiscent of mid-late Korean War.
ISW map today, hardly changed from the end 2022, the relative scale of the Russians recent attempt to again threaten Kharkov show how little headway is made compared to 2022. Maneuver warfare seems dead in the age of drone ISR and attack response.
Then suddenly in the last week Ukrainians again achieve their own strategic surprise, with an offense in Kursk oblast, invading Russian territory in what so far appears to be a Ukrainian (as opposed to Russian ex-pat, or other foreign legions) driven offensive. Not simply a raid, but an effort to grab some bargaining chips and create international and internal embarrassment for the Russians.
As a confessed Thomas Jackson superfan this is the most intriguing part of the war so far.
“Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.”
― Stonewall Jackson
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