Is Putin's Invasion Failing? Why the War in Ukraine is so Slow

The invasion of Ukraine has slowed to a crawl. Many are still struggling on the ground, but the gains being made are minimal. So in this video we discuss why the progress is so slow and why Putin is still pushing onward.

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[TLDRnewsEU]

CORRECTION: At about 3:50, we say "the Ukrainian army" when we mean "the Russian army"

[TheWebstaff]

What you didn't mention is that Lysychansk is on a very large hill above the main city of Severodonetsk. So the Ukrainians are just lobing in rounds from an advantageous position.

[lask]

Judging by my own experience and information bubble I sit in, people in Kherson are still overwhelmingly pro Ukraine, Zaporozhye the same. Even in territories that were occupied since 2014 you can still find a significant chunk of the population that quietly sits there but kind of supports returning to Ukraine.

[raskuly]

Correction: 1:58 The Luhansk People's Republic did not declare independence in February, that was only when Russia recognized it's independence. The LPR declared independence from Ukraine in May 2014 following a referendum held without international observers.

[LahtariFIN]

A couple of points.

1. Severodonetsk is not a copy of the battle of Mariupol. Mariupol was completely surrounded for a long time, with an air-bridge by a couple of helicopters being the only way in and out of the city. Severodonetsk is only surrounded from three sides. Yes, heavy equipment may not be able to cross the river after the last bridge was blown, but food, medicine, and small-arms ammunition is most definetively still coming across. If you look at pictures from where the last bridge was destroyed, you can see that the river is no more than 50m wide. Sure, it may be difficult to evacuate old and infirm civilians or badly wounded soldiers across the river, but healthy, able bodied men and women should be able to swim across without any problems whatsoever.

2. Being a Russian speaker does not automatically make people in east Ukraine pro-Kremlin. There have been reports that because the so called "peoples republics" are so badly managed by their Kremlin overlords, people who live there, or have any friends or relatives in those areas have become totally disillusioned with the Russians. They can see that there is no police. No healthcare. No education. No justice system. The main reason why these puppet states are able to field their own armies, is because there is literally no other employment there for anyone. So people there "support" Russia, because the alternative would be to starve. Sure, there may still be some people that are truly pro-Russian, but these would mainly be the separatist leaders, many of whom have been recruited directly from prison, and are free only as long as they serve their overlords. But the majority of people in Eastern Ukraine are no longer interested in supporting Russia. The two separatist armies are mostly composed of ordinary men who signed up only to avoid starvation for them and their families. They have absolutely no motivation to actually fight. If and when Ukraine goes on the counter-offensive, we can start to see mass-surrenders of separatist taking place. Many of them will actually be quite happy to surrender, because the know a Ukrainian victory in the war will make life better for them and their children.

[Blake]

Wow, I had no idea that there were so many war strategists around until I read the comments.

[andzagorulko]

The part about segregation is only partially true. In southern cities, for example, partisan movements would not exist if there wasn't a significant pro-ukrainian portion, and yet there are such movements.
Also, according to some sources very few came for russian passports in Kherson (not so pro-russian).
And lastly, some people usualy don't want to leave until it's too late. And by that point russians aren't going to let them evacuate to ukrainian held teritories.

[crash.override]

"Humanitarian corridor" into enemy territory... This ain't it, chief.

[PsyNZ]

The Ukrainian soldiers aren't trapped. They can cross the river through various means. Losing the bridges simply lost them the ability to easily resupply and send over heavy weapons. They can get out if they want to, it'll just be more difficult.

[bazzfromthebackground]

"The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege."

[xax]

Severodonetsk is nothing like Mariupol....Mariupol was completely cut off and surrounded, in Severdonetsk just across the river are heavily fortified well supplied Ukrainian positions, blowing bridges just stops the Ukrainian soldiers driving out, they can still retreat across the river, they apparently have been using small boats and even swimming, the river is also apparently low at this time of year....I dont know why everyone is comparing it with Mariupol its very obviously not the same situation.

[SittingOnEdgeman]

A big part of the reason for the slow Russian advance: a lack of infantry. These units started the war at ~70% or so of their authorized strength (because Russian war doctrine maintains the skeleton of its wartime army and expects to fill out the meat with conscripts, just like a lot of countries), and the missing 30% was almost entirely infantry. The way the BTG is structured, you have something like 60-65% of the soldiers manning guns or vehicles, and the other 35-40% are infantry. They haven't declared war, so they have to mobilize secretly, illegally, or trick/persuade people into "voluntarily" joining. None of these bring the units up to 100% pre-war strength (even before losses, but particularly after you look at losses) and the Russians don't seem to be willing to leave their armored vehicles behind in order to make acceptable-sized infantry fireteams.

So what you have is the few infantry that do exist sit behind friendly lines until the enemy guns have blown things to bits, then you have a small fragment of infantry supported by overwhelming craptons of armored vehicles advancing forward into the shell-holes. Inevitably that means the unsupported armor gets mauled, the infantry takes relatively few losses, and you spend a lot of heavy ammunition and armored vehicles to gain not much ground.

[colmcorbec]

Probably because they don't like to be invaded. Just a thought.

[Michel-gvsr]

The problem with this appoach to land conquered is that it is not a linear process. At one point, one of the parties may collapse or it's strongest parts eliminated and things may go faster.

[aunulimansfield]

I love your nebula ad. It played on this video and was pretty funny

[milutinke]

5:30 The pace in Donbass is way more slower because those areas have been fortified with trenches and emplacements for 8 years already, and especially this year.
If you pay attention to the maps you can see kilometers of trenches with different patterns (eg, zig-zag), thenches are notoriously hard to defeat, even with artillery.

[SwedishSinologyNerd]

Cue that one scene from Blackadder Goes Forth where they've captured a square meter of ground and put the square meter in the general's office.

[FireElemental_FD]

Lysychansk is not Ukrainian occupied, it is Ukraine damn it 3:16

[BT]

“London is 1572 square km”
*rages since Map Men explained why London doesn’t exist*

[ЕдуардЛаптєв]

what do you mean by saying 'ukrainian occupied territory'? are you mad? it's just ukrainian territory.