It's a massive advance for such a short time in this war. I don't know if it will be worth the losses and diversion of personnel and resources for Ukraine. Some part of the Russian military really fucked and some part of the Ukrainian military did a real good job with this one if they can hold onto it or make Russia pay dearly to take it back.
It was two of the better armed Ukrainian strike brigades against literal conscripts. And I am not saying that as a perjorative, it's just that is how you run defense-in-depth when you have a 'border front' as long as Russia's. Conscripts are expected to retreat or surrender until military assets actually equipped to deal with whatever is happening can be mustered and the situation is contained. Unlike with the Donbas, there hasn't been 6-8 years of entrenchment going on so there is no reason to expect it to look exactly like the Donbas front.
The Ukrainians appear to be basically doing a really heavily armed raid, which is unlikely to do any real permanent damage, unless they can start fucking the natural gas pipelines in Sudzha to the Czech and Hungary, but is meant to fuck with Russian morale and increase Ukrainian morale. Which idk how it has worked, because it is not like there is any accurate polling on attitudes outside of the war watchers.
I don't think anybody 'fucked up', it's just another occurrence in the conflict.
unless they can start fucking the natural gas pipelines in Sudzha to the Czech and Hungary
That pipeline starts in Sudzha and then travels through the territory of Ukraine. Ukraine could destroy this (turned off) pipeline at any time if they wished to. This is a red herring and not the objective of the raid. The objective was to seize the NPP and blackmail Russia with it
The fuck up for me wasn't the performance of the border guards who as you pointed out seemed to have performed as needed given the intended Blitz to the Kursk NPP was slowed enough to give the Russian forces time to organize and halt the progress of the Ukrainian special forces. For me the fuck up was Russian intelligence not catching the build up of special forces on their border in such quantity with all the vehicles and supplies they would end up assaulting with. On the other side, the Ukrainian military was somehow able to hide this operation from the Russians and executed their mission about as well as anybody could've realistically expected. Apparently the military leadership in Ukraine thought is was a foolish thing to try to do and clearly wasn't successful in accomplishing what Zelensky wanted.
No the mission was to take the NPP and they failed and got routed. They never even got close to their objective. They sacrificed all of their equipment and best troops for a 2 week long PR victory and an acceleration of the ongoing collapse of the Donbas front. This was a very risky all-or-nothing hail mary and it failed before even reaching like 15% of its goal. It will result in thousands of dead Ukrainians for absolutely no gain whatsoever
Most of the fighting in Donbass is in or around the Ukrainian defenses and trenches they've built since 2014. Likewise Ukraine failed their offensive last year because the Russians built their own defenses.
This is the biggest reason the war seems to be slow, and the fact there is way too much urban fighting. Almost every little village needs to be completely destroyed. The open fields both sides capture are easy exactly because because they're a trap for massive artillery and drone attacks.
It's a massive advance for such a short time in this war. I don't know if it will be worth the losses and diversion of personnel and resources for Ukraine. Some part of the Russian military really fucked and some part of the Ukrainian military did a real good job with this one if they can hold onto it or make Russia pay dearly to take it back.
It was two of the better armed Ukrainian strike brigades against literal conscripts. And I am not saying that as a perjorative, it's just that is how you run defense-in-depth when you have a 'border front' as long as Russia's. Conscripts are expected to retreat or surrender until military assets actually equipped to deal with whatever is happening can be mustered and the situation is contained. Unlike with the Donbas, there hasn't been 6-8 years of entrenchment going on so there is no reason to expect it to look exactly like the Donbas front.
The Ukrainians appear to be basically doing a really heavily armed raid, which is unlikely to do any real permanent damage, unless they can start fucking the natural gas pipelines in Sudzha to the Czech and Hungary, but is meant to fuck with Russian morale and increase Ukrainian morale. Which idk how it has worked, because it is not like there is any accurate polling on attitudes outside of the war watchers.
I don't think anybody 'fucked up', it's just another occurrence in the conflict.
That pipeline starts in Sudzha and then travels through the territory of Ukraine. Ukraine could destroy this (turned off) pipeline at any time if they wished to. This is a red herring and not the objective of the raid. The objective was to seize the NPP and blackmail Russia with it
The fuck up for me wasn't the performance of the border guards who as you pointed out seemed to have performed as needed given the intended Blitz to the Kursk NPP was slowed enough to give the Russian forces time to organize and halt the progress of the Ukrainian special forces. For me the fuck up was Russian intelligence not catching the build up of special forces on their border in such quantity with all the vehicles and supplies they would end up assaulting with. On the other side, the Ukrainian military was somehow able to hide this operation from the Russians and executed their mission about as well as anybody could've realistically expected. Apparently the military leadership in Ukraine thought is was a foolish thing to try to do and clearly wasn't successful in accomplishing what Zelensky wanted.
Sorry for the crazy late reply.
No the mission was to take the NPP and they failed and got routed. They never even got close to their objective. They sacrificed all of their equipment and best troops for a 2 week long PR victory and an acceleration of the ongoing collapse of the Donbas front. This was a very risky all-or-nothing hail mary and it failed before even reaching like 15% of its goal. It will result in thousands of dead Ukrainians for absolutely no gain whatsoever
Most of the fighting in Donbass is in or around the Ukrainian defenses and trenches they've built since 2014. Likewise Ukraine failed their offensive last year because the Russians built their own defenses.
This is the biggest reason the war seems to be slow, and the fact there is way too much urban fighting. Almost every little village needs to be completely destroyed. The open fields both sides capture are easy exactly because because they're a trap for massive artillery and drone attacks.