Am I suppose to ignore the dozens of videos at the initial invasion showing grad systems firing and heavy artillery bombardment on the outskirts of Kiev, Northern, Southern, Donbas region? Or is it only considered massed indirect fire if it used to level entire cities into rubble?
Another thing to consider, the majority of those initial videos were around the cities. We never saw what actually happened on the frontlines in the trenches, plains, and forests far outside those cities because there was no civilians to record it.
The West claimed 15k casualties in late March and then claimed again the very same 15k casualties by late April. That either means A) they are lying or B) Russian casualties have significantly declined. Couple weeks ago, I heard someone mention that UK officials said that the bulk of the Russian forces has not been committed into the Eastern region. Seems to me that the majority of the heavy fighting has been blunted onto the militia and mercenaries.
The Russians past the first 3 days aside from long range missile strikes, sporadic fires, and other CAS started to bring up their artillery park. However it still doesn't change the fact that they rolled in with long columns where the supply trucks were subject to ambushes and had AA not even fully deployed hence why there was even instances of abandoned AA, destroyed AA in exposed positions. This wasn't any old attack, they simply drove in, otherwise why was there not only VDV driving into a city center, but even gendarmes, riot police speeding on the highway way past any kind of proper fire support just to rush into settlements? This is especially damning when one realizes units like the national guard are more of a support role in a conventional conflict and do a lot of policing, counter insurgency, and are mainly decently kitted infantry that are motorized. Past the initial few days once Russian forces dug into Antonov, you start to see the artillery and AA put in much more work as they were deployed in numbers and where properly deployed leading to much more fires used en-mass. It doesn't make sense to use manuever units like that when they are fairly limited, unless if the intention was different hence why I was suggesting that given such manuevers, negotiations in sumy and kharkov, that the political leadership had a different approach in mind rather than taking a more conventional war approach. The political leadership calling this a "special military operation" wasn't some joke, you can even see the execution that it was more akin to something like the '68 prague operation.
In Donbass things were as usual as you know with how the front was established for 8 years already. Otherwise as I said sending in long columns like this rushing into Kiev is simply not by the book, not by their training, etc. While the initial phase was dragging on I think the approach taken to seize Izium in the first phase is much more indicative of doctrine. What I've been trying to say the whole time is that there's a reason why on all fronts aside from Donbass, the Russians tried to speed through to the extent of throwing VDV straight into a city center, why large concentrations of Ukrainian troops were not targetted when they clearly had the capability of doing so, this was with intent albiet mistaken intent the same mistaken intent as not targetting more infrastructure, troop concentrations, manufactories and so forth to inflict more shock to allow for more concrete breakthroughs and damage inflicted on the enemy. If we cannot see eye on this then I can only just disagree on this point in terms of the Russian approach early on. I personally think it wasn't the worst of results, such rapid advance did let Russia seize the south intact without having to resort to dispersing their troops and actually fight over settlements, though of course along the other axis they had to withdraw yet Ukraine could not even eliminate a Russian unit even in the most over-extended positions (And then the Russians can just withdraw due to being fully mechanized).
There is one thing to attack, but there is another thing to waste maneuver units without proper employment of fires and AA, this is not about leveling entire cities into rubble it is about actually fighting
under fire support and not having your
rear lines get harassed all the time deep into enemy territory, having actual AA cover,
proper flank protection and being dispersed enough so as not to be jam packed on the roads sitting like ducks as in Kharkov, Sumy, and Kiev where there was long columns just being funneled in while Ukrainians are more freely allowed to manuever around which is not the case now with the current fronts. There were Russian troops, special forces placed along flanks, in forests, and so forth from their own retelling and some foreign volunteers mentioning fighting on such flanks, the issue in the end for russian forces was simply intent. As I mentioned they attempted to negotiate around Sumy and Kharkov for example, it did not succeed, those areas are supposed to flip but they simply didn't. It would've been better to seize the majority of these locations as intact as possible but things did not ideally. This doesn't mean a complete failure, it just turns out some things just don't pan out as intended.
As for the rest I am not even disagreeing I just explained why I simply handwaved 180-200k. The numbers you suggested as a range is very similar to mine and I already said I handwave things as they are always fluctuating + no partial mobilization. This is alongside the fact that there are troop rotations and casualties, and if you check what I said previously I don't even think the western claims were close to correct in the first place. I even discuss here the recent BBC article mentioning the low enlisted deaths. This also plays into how there is a sizable portion of the casualties blunted onto mercenaries, militias, and volunteer units as you even mention here. There is no disagreement here and I don't see the point of this, we can handwave these things for now and then just wait for official numbers post war. As for what NATO aligned officials say about the Russian forces there being held in reserve, I don't know however it's plausible, in the end we shall see. Anyways I don't have any contention with you here.
