Ukraine War: The Battle For Pokrovsk
With the orcs approaching Pokrovsk at an unusually rapid pace, a deeper look at this front is warranted. Ukraine should be brewing a counteroffensive, but does it have the resources?
Credit where credit is due: over the past few months the orcs have managed to put together a reasonably effective offensive campaign on the Pokrovsk front. With a key defensive line breached as Novohrodivka falls into enemy hands, it’s fair to label the situation in Pokrovsk a serious crisis.
As I’ve previously asserted that Syrskyi is likely setting a trap for Moscow’s troops on this front, I think I owe folks a focused update before coming back on Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday in the US with a standard weekly overview. Kursk at the moment looks stable, though the fighting is very intense, so I’ll cover it in the usual weekly update.
My standing hypothesis about the Pokrovsk front remains that Moscow is overstretching itself, opening the northern flank of the Pokrovsk front to a devastating counterattack. The null hypotheses - the default setting, you might say - at this point should probably be the opposite: Ukraine is in serious trouble, as many media sources and analysts allege.
In science, there are two basic forms of error, both of which you are always committing to some degree. One is to improperly include relevant data, the other is to exclude it. There is always some noise in data, which is why statisticians spend so much time (if they’re competent) estimating how confident their results are. The customary setting varies by field and even more in any applied setting.
It’s a common misconception pushed by a certain breed of scientist that science demands strict criteria for ruling in data, but not ruling it out. They will also insist that a phenomena must be proven to exist before its possibility can be considered in a scientific sense, which forms an obvious loop: how does one decide what exists in the first place? This is why theology and science are best kept separate - each works in different domains using incompatible core assumptions.
Those who make this claim typically insist that experts must be trusted to say what exists, assert the natural categories of things. All this position does is claim that one kind of error is more tolerable than the other. Sometimes this is true, but both types should to be considered to avoid drawing skewed conclusions.
Null and alternative hypotheses are mutual ideas, they do not stand in opposition; one doesn’t exist without the other. Which is which doesn’t matter from a statistical perspective - either way the point of science is to examine differences and similarities in the data to derive reliable, predictive understanding.
That’s why I’ll cover the Battle for Pokrovsk from two competing points off view. They aren’t mutually exclusive - both sides could just be muddling along without a coherent plan of action - but in general there’s at least some strategic logic that structures the behavior of each side. Where their forces choose to go on the map offers the foundational dataset for evaluation.
It’s a myth that scientists are totally objective in their work. This is impossible - the choice of what field to work in implies a value choice. Science itself is a biased enterprise, seeking to understand the world from a human context, for human purposes. We want to live, and survival depends on quality knowledge. That’s why I don’t pretend to hide my total support for Ukraine - its victory in this war is necessary to avert a global catastrophe over the next decade.
Pick an international issue, and if the global community can’t stand up to toe a hard line on Ukraine’s territorial integrity, then this alleged community doesn’t exist. In that case the smartest thing for anyone to do is to get to a part of the planet that will remain a refuge, relatively speaking, in the hard years to come.
All places never suffer equally in a crisis. One of the many ironies of Putin’s assault on Ukraine is that Ukrainians are more likely to survive and thrive long into the future once this is finally over. They’ve already endured the worst - and despite inevitable setbacks, they’re still winning the war.
This will hold true even if Pokrovsk falls - to be clear, even if the null hypothesis holds, that only means the orcs will be able to assault the city directly and maybe conquer it this year. But that will finally exhaust Putin’s ability to sustain a major advance barring access to a new source of military aid - like China.
Moscow is in a race against time that it’s slowly losing - whether the tide stops in front of or inside Pokrovsk, it’s on the wane. Ukraine is preparing to strike back, and Kursk was only the beginning.
The Enemy’s Plan1
Most analysts in and out of Ukraine now broadly agree that Moscow is making a run for Pokrovsk. For accountability, I should be clear that I thought the orcs would turn north to support the assault on Toretsk long before now.
I always aim to work out what Moscow could do that would present the worse possible challenge for Ukraine, because in general this is how you plan to cope with being surprised. Once you determine how an enemy could defeat your best course of action, that tells you how to hedge against this possibility in a way that ensures any surprise only leads to the rapid adoption of a modified plan. In short, shoot for the best-case outcome, but always be ready to respond to the worst to prevent it from becoming catastrophic.
If Toretsk were surrounded right now, its fall would be deemed likely. Instead Moscow’s resources went west, wetting the soil of Ocheretyne, Prohres, and Novohrodivka with their blood. Supplies feeding the survivors have to cross that much more space under threat of drone attack. In a way, that’s a win for Ukraine.
It’s difficult to be sure whether ruscist generals truly believe they can take Pokrovsk or this offensive is more opportunistic in nature. It might simply be aiming to keep several Ukrainian brigades under constant pressure while threatening to cut off others holding the line of the Vovcha farther south. An assault on Pokrovsk itself might not be in the cards, though Ukraine has to assume that’s the orc plan.
By advancing south along the Vovcha river as aggressively as they’re pushing troops towards Pokrovsk along the rail line, the orc generals in charge reveal an apparent desire to get a second logistics route established through Karlivka. If they can encircle Ukrainian brigades west of the Vovcha, that’s great, but the main goal is to make sure that Ukraine can’t cut off the spearhead formations with ease in a counterattack.
I’m beginning to suspect that the orcs have made the region between Toretsk and Avdiivka an effective boundary point between operational groups. North of Avdiivka ruscist forces are attempting to reach Kostiantynivka by grinding through Chasiv Yar and Toretsk. This binds a large number of Ukrainian forces in place, allowing a simultaneous push west towards Pokrovsk that can, if successful, turn either north towards the rear of Kostiantynivka or south towards Velyka Novosilka and Vuhledar.
Whatever Moscow’s original intent, I now evaluate the Battle for Pokrovsk as an attempt to create a deep breach of Ukraine’s lines that pushes Ukrainian forces away from occupied Donetsk city. This isn’t a war-winning offensive, and even though the pace has been fairly rapid in recent weeks, it will very likely culminate before entering Pokrovsk. The strategic purpose is to bleed Ukraine and help sustain the illusion that Putin can eventually grind his way to victory.
However, around 300 orcs are removed from the board every single day on this front - 9,000-10,000 a month. The effort is also showing clear signs of cannibalizing other fronts, drawing increasingly limited supplies of armored vehicles and artillery pieces into a cauldron Ukrainian artillery and drones are pounding from three sides.
Politically, intensifying a push to Pokrovsk serves as a useful distraction from the ongoing debacle in Kursk that Putin is desperate to play down. Though Ukrainian forces are fending off counterattacks in Kursk, the front has forced Moscow to thin the lines in Chasiv Yar, Kharkiv, Kupiansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Toretsk is under threat, but still isn’t even close to surrounded, which means Moscow has a long, tough fight ahead. Chasiv Yar still stands mostly free, despite Moscow’s infantry groups out of Bakhmut creeping across the canal into the Novyi and Zhovtnevyl districts.
Operationally, pushing to Pokrovsk makes sense using military logic from two years ago. It’s usually ideal to threaten places that your opponent can’t simply ignore. Taking it would put Ukraine in an extremely difficult position across the southern end of the Donbas front.
There’s a big caveat, though: how far you can safely and effectively push fighting forces is now strictly limited by drones. A thirty kilometer front is difficult to cover against ground attack, but when you’re having to push trucks to a front when the enemy can hit all routes with drones and artillery, the cost soon gets very high.
Also, the closer a defending force gets to their main supply base as they fall back, the tougher their resistance tends to become. There is often a morale cost to be paid in any retreat, but if the soldiers involved understand that there’s a deeper purpose they’ll tolerate the frustration in anticipation of striking back. The change in mood that came over Ukraine when a chunk of Kursk fell is indicative of how public expectations matter.
Morale is a tricky business. Though I’ve been writing that Ukraine would strike back in 2024 and not wait for 2025 for almost a year now, my work doesn’t (shouldn’t) raise public expectations like pronouncements from Kyiv would. What I hope it does is remind people that big wars take a long time to play out - Ukraine didn’t start churning out attack drones and now ballistic and cruise missiles in a day. There is substantial lead time involved in planning major operations. Understanding what will be possible in the future is important to keep in mind, but it’s best to be conservative about what you promise to achieve.
That’s why I follow a policy of being forthright about what Ukraine probably can’t or won’t do while also describing what it might or should try to accomplish. It’s easier to view short-term setbacks more objectively when you keep in mind the fact that all efforts are additive. Victory in Ukraine won’t stem from any single battle or technological innovation, but their interconnected impacts on Putin’s system.
By all accounts Moscow is being positively reckless with its troops, apparently under the impression - or trying to create it - that Ukraine’s defenses are about to crack. Wave after wave is thrown into the fight, and ordinary soldiers pay the price. As many as Moscow is able to recruit each month are killed or crippled in Ukraine.
Signs of the well starting to run dry can be found in the massive bonuses that Moscow has to offer to get conscripts or mobilized soldiers to sign contracts. Their training is poor, and the equipment keeps getting older - more scarce, too, leading to increasing use of motorcycles and golf carts.
Though quantity does have a quality of its own, as they say. And all the caveats and context in the world can’t negate the obvious fact that the orcs keep on blowing through what on the map look to be viable defensive lines.
Even if Ukraine is following some clever plan, this hurts on every level - tactical, operational, and strategic. Even if you’re only faking retreat, having the rear guard come under sustained pressure can upset the most brilliant strategy. Everything beyond the personnel actively engaged with the enemy is a matter of hope and aspiration: it’s those exchanging fire who make reality.
The Hrodivka-Novohrodivka-Selydove-Karlivka line marked one of Ukraine’s best chances to catch and halt the enemy advance on a fairly short front. Between Karlivka and Kurakhivka, Ukrainian brigades have been fighting well east of the Vovcha since the orc march west began last winter, and their rear is now under threat. If the orcs can get another five to ten kilometers south of where they are now, 59th Motorized, 46th Air Assault, 117th Territorial Defense, and 15th Offensive Guard Brigades all risk being cut off.
Closer to Pokrovsk itself, the rapid loss of Novohrodivka means that another useful chunk of high ground right on the rail line is in orc hands. Unless Ukraine can stabilize the area right away, the 47th and 151st brigades are going to have to make a stand at the outer suburbs of Pokrovsk. As it’s a major rail and road hub, the closer the enemy gets the more damage this infrastructure will suffer. The defense of Hrodivka could be unseated if the orcs are able to push much closer to Myrnohrad. Defending Selydove is also set to get tougher, though the high ground on either side of the town is hopefully defensible enough that Ukrainian forces can hold.
If Ukraine does ultimately have to pull every brigade back west of the Vovcha, this will at least shorten the front, the river shielding one flank. If Ukraine is forced to keep pulling back here that wouldn’t be catastrophic, as the Solana river will make it very hard to reach Pokrovsk from the south and the Kurakhove reservoir limits Moscow’s ability to move behind the Vuhledar front.
To bring Pokrovsk under anything resembling a proper siege, the orcs will need to punch through Hrodivka, reach Myrnohrad, then seize control of it and the highway to Kostiantynivka. To get this done they have to deal with the line of the Kazenyi Torets, which sits in a shallow canyon covered by higher ground Ukraine has controlled on the northern flank for months. That won’t be easy.
On the south side of Pokrovsk sits the M-30 road and a north-south rail line, both of which Moscow will need to control to contest the urban center. But the route Moscow needs to take to get around Pokrovsk here runs across two tributaries of the Solana. Another twenty kilometer exposed flank will have to be covered, and to do that will probably mean pushing Ukrainian troops across the Vovcha then back to the edge of the Kurakhove reservoir.
In short, ruscist troops have crossed over the easiest country on the road from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk. With their supply lines extended and vulnerable and casualties extreme, Moscow’s push looks set to culminate on the outskirts of Pokrovsk in a few weeks. It might end even sooner if Ukraine commits additional brigades to the defense, as appears to be happening. 71st Jager has apparently moved down from the Kharkiv front, and 15th Kara-Dag, an Offensive Guard brigade, seems to have arrived from the Orihiv front. And those are just the ones posting combat footage that’s likely at least several days old.
The situation does not appear hopeless, But it ain’t exactly great, either. Ukraine’s margin for error on this front is pretty much gone. It’s even possible, if Ukraine underestimates how well its troops can hold the line or a local brigade makes a mistake, for Moscow to have troops inside of Pokrovsk by mid September. This would represent close to a worst case scenario, likely forcing Ukraine to send in a large force to restore the defense despite the high probability of heavy casualties.
The loss of Novohrodivka in and of itself is not a major defeat, but it does appear to signal some combination of stress on Ukrainian frontline units, a ruthless ruscist will to advance at any cost, and insufficient resources. Losing a town the size of Ocheretyne hurts because the orcs will use it as a base to build up troops and supplies. That lessens the impact of moving away from their supply depots in Avdiivka. Not critically, but if Selydove and Hrodivka fall too, Ukraine is down to its core defensive layer, the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration itself.
The failure of Ukrainian forces to slow this offensive down with greater effect is potentially a sign of the sacrifices the force has had to make to build up combat power ahead of planned offensive operations this fall. Even if Syrskyi has a sneaky plan in motion that fully anticipated Moscow’s steamroller style assault, it could be derailed by a lack of adequate resources given the limited number of fresh troops reaching the front. If that happens, the Kursk offensive risks looking exactly as its critics imply: a gamble that didn’t pay off.
In this case the critics would still be wrong: the Kursk Campaign is forcing Moscow to deplete its operational reserves for several fronts, sacrificing any ability to respond to another surprise. They’d otherwise be available to commit to Pokrovsk if Ukraine doesn’t, as I assess, have an operational reserve preparing to deploy.
With the risks of the null hypothesis scenario covered, I’ll turn to the more hopeful option.
Syrskyi’s Trap2
The main reason why I assess that Syrskyi is setting a trap for the orcs is the stark similarity between the unfolding Battle for Pokrovsk and a Cold War exercise conducted by US forces in Germany. During the 1970s, American military professionals rediscovered a keen professional interest in how their German counterparts in World War Two had fought the Soviets at the operational level.
The USSR was at the apex of its power then, while the USA was still floored by the defeat in Vietnam and transitioning to an all-professional force. To cope with the need to defeat a Warsaw Pact assault on West Germany with a smaller but more devoted force, the USA embraced technology. Abrams tanks, Bradley IFVs, and F-16 jets along with networks, satellites, and all the other nifty stuff that made the 1991 Gulf War such a lopsided affair were the result.
A need to develop an operational plan capable of fending off the numerically superior Warsaw Pact - AirLandBattle - drove American officers to consult with peers who had done it before. After Stalingrad concluded in the winter of 1943, the German army that had conquered most of Europe had bled out. Yet it held on across the Eastern Front for another year and a half, throwing back Stalin’s winter offensive at Kharkiv before wasting Germany’s last reserves in the Kursk slugfest.
After fighting the Soviets for over two years, German officers had learned a thing or two. One of the most important lessons the best of them picked up was to never, ever get in the way of one of the massive Soviet steamrollers. These featured intensive, sustained, and comprehensive bombardment of defensive positions in a target area. Literally nothing would be left to resist the onslaught of tanks and troops - but only along the first visible defensive line.
While screening the advance with scouts and damaging it wherever possible, German officers learned to let the thing mostly run its course before unleashing a savage counterattack, ideally against one or both extended flanks. This took advantage of the information hoarding that plagues centralized Soviet style systems, overwhelming exposed regiments and destroying them before parent divisions could respond by scouring the battlefield with artillery.
Truth be told, had Germany committed to this style of fighting throughout 1943 instead of launching the set piece grand assault against a predictable part of the front (Kursk), it might have bled Stalin out before the Red Army made it through Poland in 1944. Luckily, Hitler insisted on a grand battle at Kursk after imposing what proved to be fatal delays to rush new, largely untested gear to the battlefield.
In the exercise I referenced before, the US generals running it decided to bring in a pair of the most effective operational level German generals from the entire war, names that very few non-military folks have ever heard: Balck and Mellenthin. When asked to offer their plan to defeat a Soviet assault in the sector assigned to the US Army at the outset of a war, they took just a few minutes to lay out what they’d do. In essence, they’d have nearly all their troops simply get out of the way, allowing the Soviets to thrust a hundred kilometers to the outskirts of major German urban centers. Then they’d hit the spearheads from two sides, cut off the vanguard, and annihilate the Soviets trapped in the pocket.
Their American counterparts were floored, both because the Germans developed a working plan and communicated it much faster than any American planning staff, but also because they were willing to take such a huge risk with their own territory. This was politically out of bounds for a senior American officer.
The Germans, for their part, had a hard time understanding why the Americans couldn’t see that the inferior force has to be daring, taking advantage of the enemy’s tendency to overreach to avoid suffering horrific and irreversible losses. Combat is about leveraging asymmetry, it isn’t an arm wrestling contest. If you opponent thinks that’s the fight they’re in, great: you get to choose the moment to kick them in the groin or draw a blade. That’s called seizing the initiative.
In the end the Americans were satisfied with the merits of the plan but demanded that a cavalry regiment be expended as a speed bump to slow the Soviets down. This satisfied the American bureaucratic need to cover all bases, even if that means some are inadequately defended. Was one plan inherently better? Probably not. American and German professionals simply had different institutional concerns, and in the event the Soviets might not have behaved as planned.
Syrskyi, like any other professional who winds up leading a democratic country’s defense institutions, is probably a well read dude. I bet that off the top of his head he can cite a hundred more examples of past battles where some russian commander got caught by surprise and crushed than I ever could. It is his business to use his knowledge to repeat history; I’m just an autistic guy with a frustrating passion for understanding human conflict.
So I remain pretty confident that all is not what it seems on the Pokrovsk front. Historically, it makes sense to let Moscow push farther than it can sustain a spearhead then counterattack. Trying to maintain a firm front is a recipe for heavy casualties, because Moscow may come at you dumb, but dumb can work. When your enemy is less adaptable at the tactical and operational levels, a war of movement is more in your favor, as Ukraine is presently demonstrating in Kursk.
In the defense of Avdiivka Ukraine never unleashed the kind of operational counterattack I thought it might as the enemy’s lines extended around the city. But six months ago Ukraine was nearly out of shells. It hadn’t developed drone operations to the degree they are routinely run now. And Moscow hadn’t extended the front nearly as far west.
Thirty kilometers is about the size of the initial breach of the Sumy-Kursk border. Two battlegroups about a reinforced battalion in strength tore a ten kilometer gap in the line and pushed fifteen kilometers inside enemy territory. Within days a 100 square kilometer incursion had grown to over 1,000 as additional battlegroups rushed through the gap.
If Ukraine can pull off anything remotely like that along the northern wing of the Pokrovsk front, Moscow could wind up with tens of thousands of soldiers partly or even wholly cut off. Moscow has at least half a dozen brigades and as many regiments fighting in a classic pocket. Unless the flanks are extremely well protected, this can swiftly turn into a disaster.
Timing is utterly crucial in this sort of operation. The enemy needs to believe that the retreat is real and ideally chaotic. In the best case scenario, the enemy thinks that you are too preoccupied with another front to realize the danger. Enter Kursk, which while drawing off several experienced Ukrainian brigades by no means involves them all.
As I wrote earlier this week, there are at least half a dozen Ukrainian brigades that haven’t been particularly active with respect to posting combat footage on social media - a useful indicator, since no matter what you do some soldiers will record and post stuff. The ones showing up in Pokrovsk lately were recently engaged in fighting elsewhere. Syrskyi will at least be trying to build up an operational reserve capable of launching another major attack.
But before committing, it’s ideal to get a sense of how taxed your opponent’s resources are. Moscow’s desire to reach Pokrovsk appears to have been clear to Ukraine going back to May, when Ukraine named the town as a primary orc objective even when that looked like a stretch of Moscow’s resources.
Kursk couldn’t ever be counted on to draw ruscist reserves away from Putin’s main effort in occupied Ukraine, but other fronts are bound to suffer. This happened in Ukraine’s 2023 campaign after it shifted its efforts to concentrate solely on the Tokmak front. Then Ukraine lacked the resources to push hard in more than one place and take full advantage. By hitting an area that Putin couldn’t ignore, Syrskyi forced Putin to reveal what fronts he truly cares about, forcing him to make tradeoffs again.
Next Tuesday I plan to lay out some options for Ukraine’s next punches, but given the importance of Pokrovsk I’m inclined to think that Syrskyi will eventually be forced to unleash one counterattack here. That along with holding a buffer zone in Kursk, even one not much bigger than Ukraine presently has, would count as serious wins for 2024 that mark the end of Putin’s hope for any level of victory going forward.
It could be enough, so long as Ukraine is able to launch additional campaigns in late fall and early spring to keep Moscow from recuperating, to set the conditions for a final campaign in the summer of 2025. This opportunity is why Ukraine’s allies must move swiftly to fully equip Ukraine’s new brigades with modern gear.
There are no real red lines, no serious chance of escalation into World War Three or a nuclear apocalypse. Putin’s regime simply isn’t committing suicide. They’re not going to die for the sick old man, not now.
Ukraine’s Military Reboot - Consequences?3
That Syrskyi may be preparing a nasty ambush for the orcs in Pokrovsk is only a hypothesis, but one backed by useful historical parallels and demonstrated Ukrainian tendencies throughout this war. It’s at least as strong as the one Putin’s backers prefer: that Ukraine’s army is finally cracking.
If that were the case, I’d expect more fronts to be visibly on the verge of collapse. In addition, I’d expect to see more fresh - if inexperienced and poorly equipped - brigades rushed to the front. While it sounds cruel, the hard fighting by the formations fighting on the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk front these past six months has been a necessary, tragic sacrifice.
They are the anvil, and hammers are preparing to fall. Ukraine recently ordered mandatory evacuations in the area south of Selydove and between Toretsk and Kostiantynivka. This sort of order has often been a prelude to a buildup of forces that Ukraine would prefer not to have closely documented.
Whatever happens next will likely hinge on the price Ukraine is paying for the military reboot that I have assessed in prior pieces that Syrskyi initiated after taking over from Zaluzhnyi. Facing dangerous staffing shortfalls, Ukraine had to mobilize more of its population starting in May. Too many soldiers have been fighting for two or more years without a break and are physically and morally exhausted.
But it takes several months for mobilized soldiers to go through refresher courses then train on new gear under contemporary doctrine with their units before heading to the front. Do what Moscow does, dispatching mobiks with maybe two weeks of training, and your casualties will be twice as high for half as much success. Ukraine thankfully appears to avoid doing this, though reports to the contrary do emerge now and again.
With not enough soldiers available to immediately replenish every brigade, and many of those actively serving work out, Syrskyi faced a terrible choice. He could weaken the front line pulling entire brigades, ensuring that territory and casualties would be lost as the others were forced to cover more ground. An alternative was to rush a massive mobilization, allowing weary soldiers to leave the front but probably having the same net effect as the first option thanks to the uneven quality of their replacements.
A third option was to send soldiers so far assigned to rear area duties, like food and supply service, to staff frontline formations. Comprising a slim majority of Ukraine’s personnel, a cultural divide very likely threatened to emerge separating those who had been to the zero line from their more fortunate peers. Veterans would be rotated out to join fresh recruits in new and restored brigades to develop a coherent reserve ahead of future offensives.
This reduced the number of bodies taken from the domestic economy, though it didn’t allow for any large scale demobilization of the longest serving veterans. It also didn’t guarantee that the soldiers reaching the front would be highly capable or even willing to fight. Broadly speaking, someone between the ages of 25 and 27 who finds themself newly eligible for a mobilization they had to assume was in their future anyway is more likely to fight than a soldier already in uniform for two years who has so far stayed away from the worst danger and become accustomed to this.
Once in uniform, the risk and costs associated with certain jobs become starkly apparent. I certainly have no desire to ever go near a zero line, so how could I judge anyone who feels the same? Only a small fraction of Americans report in polls that they would fight if the USA were outright invaded; knowing that makes me extremely hesitant to ever stick my neck out for my fellow Americans.
Only a small minority have the right personality to actually thrive in combat, though they do exist - I’ve met them, and they wind up being main characters in my fiction because they’re so fascinating. Yet I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to endure drones, shells, and meat assaults for something as abstract as a country.
Yet at the same time, anyone who wears the uniform instead of fleeing abroad has to take on their fair share of risk. The enemy doesn’t care if you are only fit to mop floors, and those who sit behind a desk can die just as easily in modern war as a grunt in a trench. Someone who has been in the uniform longer should be at least marginally more likely to survive than a total newbie, and younger blood is probably better able to participate in offensives. Covering a defensive position is inherently less difficult.
Faced with an utterly horrific ethical and professional choice, it seems Syrskyi took the option that probably does the least overall harm. The pain gets spread around, and the net effect should be the future deployment of better trained and equipped (get moving, Biden! What would Beau say?) brigades that can inflict proportionally more damage on the enemy.
In the short term, however, the risk of soldiers being used in combat who aren’t adequately trained is embodied in a reduced ability to fight. A recent AP report that interviewed members of Ukrainian brigades fighting in Pokrovsk suggested that the quality of mobilized soldiers has declined of late. Part of the reason Moscow is advancing so quickly towards Pokrovsk may be a lack of motivation on the part of soldiers forced to go to the front without sufficient training to build confidence in their skills.
These reports have surfaced now and again, often appearing alongside other content that taken as a whole seeks to cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to win. This one has more of a ring of truth to it because the reporters took the time to present contrasting views where both sides have a point. That indicates a systemic issue, likely a complicated one to which there’s no immediate solution.
Ukrainian brigades that have been at the front for a long time can be expected to have more and more trouble holding ground against determined enemy attacks. If taken into consideration, however, this can play into a deception effort designed to lure the enemy into a trap.
But there’s no way to know for sure until it happens - or doesn’t. I’d be real nervous right now if I were the orc commander on the Pokrovsk front.
Conclusion
Ultimately, nearly all of the challenges that Ukraine has faced, aside from those imposed by Moscow’s attacks, stem from the inability or unwillingness of leaders like Biden and Scholz to come to grips with reality. The science of war is not as mystical and incomprehensible as some experts imply.
It’s really the simplest thing in the world. Behavior is the only signal that countries really have about their neighbors. Putin’s regime has made it absolutely clear that it recognizes no limits, boundaries, or legal codes. It does whatever it can get away with.
After the Second World War, some dedicated people devoted their professional lives to building an international architecture robust enough to prevent wars from getting out of control and consuming everyone. The generation of leaders that took power across the globe in the 1990s squandered everything, and here we all are.
Ukraine keeps on demonstrating that history is made through action. To maintain any hope of ever getting to a place where countries don’t have to worry about being invaded or bombed, Putin’s forces must be ejected from Ukraine at the earliest possible moment.
That means opening the inventory to Ukraine and removing all geographic restrictions on their use. Probably also forming some kind of quasi-government organization staffed by veterans from around the world who can form a competent military force and deploy to Ukraine as a coherent unit.
There is no longer any reasonable excuse for the democratic world to hold back. Make Ukraine the graveyard for Putin’s sick dreams.
To The Enemy Plan
To Syrskyi’s Plan
To Ukraine’s Military Reboot Consequences