The Russians are not looking at making a huge breakthrough at Donbass. Just as you said, terrain is bad. Instead, what appears to be is a huge blob that is intended to bait the Ukrainians into concentrating their forces there and launching counteroffensives against it. While in a defensive position, the Russians would be able to stop these counteroffensives in a piecemeal manner. The purpose is not take ground but to literally grind and ground away the opposition in a brutal Clauswitz style. The opposite of what the US did, which is to take ground rapidly in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, only to leave tens of thousands retreating into the countryside that will later mount an unwinnable, infinite insurgency war. Once the opposition has withered away, then you roll them over.
Forming pockets and literally chewing the bubbles away with blobs was something again you see in the Ostfront. However, if the pocket is formed too quickly, leaving advanced forces stretched, they are left vulnerable to a counterattack and forces breaking out from the pocket. So these pockets are meant to be made and gradually slowly, allowing more enemy forces to move into the pocket, then trap them into a pocket and grind them down. Don't confuse this as a Blitzrieg war, meant to gain territory. The purpose of this strategy is to draw the opposition into the front and kill them.
When faced with such a strategy, the proper counter strategy is to fall back and reform a line, but usually the body politic (Hitler in those days; Zelensky, MSM and other body politic today) insists that every inch of sacred land must be fought and blood shed upon, which is exactly what this meatgrinder strategy is counting on.
I'll reply in consideration to both sides of this war.
Before the war started I thought the war would be a very attritional type of war (especially given the Russian military reforms), however I did not expect 2 main things to actually happen:
- The Russian thunder runs up north
- The lack of Russian mobilization which I thought was critical to this war, I guess so far I am wrong.
The key reason why I thought the war would be a very attritional type of war is mainly due to the fact that Ukraine in 2022 is not the Ukraine of 2014, they actually have a military now compared to before (Funnily enough its ground forces are better than most of NATO pre 2022 war aside from like Turkey, USA & co). Additionally even with a full scale mobilization, that entails Russia committing over 1 million manpower to Ukraine, a lot of the fighting will still come down to encirclement of settlements, and sieges unless if the enemy has no will to resist which is not the case. Especially given that there is a whole new leadership for 8 years and increased amount of military units, modernization of the military, military units that were cycled through the "ATO" for combat experience as the Ukrainians called the Donbass area, and the heavy increase in nationalism. Essentially they (Ukraine) were preparing for this very moment for years. Unless if the enemy breaks like the Iraqis, one should expect a more drawn out conventional conflict entailing many sieges, and rooting out of resistance. This rapid victory was extremely plausible for Russia in 2014, but I do not think they (Russia) were in a position to restore the old president back then hence our situation now in 2022.
Now given the current situation, to be honest I am not sure what the Russian political objectives are, the most we are fed all comes from the Ukrainian side, and NATO + NATO aligned news. One officer from the Russain central military district iirc said something about seizing ground in the south and east of Ukraine, however take that with a grain of salt. So to be honest, I don't think any of us can even say what is a "victory" for the Russian side or what is a "defeat". They are not in war mobilization mode like the Ukrainians are and are maxed out on using their enlisted, volunteers, ukrainians (from areas under russian influence), and some conscripts. So in terms of manpower we can expect mainly just replinishment of losses, not whole new units committed to the front. Given Russian material conditions, their main advantages dispite such an approach is the fact that they have an immense amount of artillery, mechanization, and access to CAS.
I cannot verify atm but there seemed to have been some attempts from Ukrainians to counter attack in certain areas in kharkov oblast, I read this from the russian reporters on the ground, it seems like if this were true, there are attempts. However these attempts don't amount to anything other than casualties due to the fact that they are attacking into units with immense amount of firepower.
We also do see some Russian advances along the Donbass-Kharkov front, one of them involves Russian forces cutting one of the roads used to supply the Ukrainians along the severodonetsk, kramatorsk, slavyansk area. One of these advances is to the south of Izium, there are some other advances but given the manpower constraints (any russian manpower flowing would moreso be simply propping up or replacing losses), the russian forces will mainly be reliant on their firepower and mechanization, this factor has been doing them well in 2014 Ukraine while supporting the militias, and in Syria.
From the Ukrainian side you say the proper counter strategy would be to fall back and reform a line, however I don't really see where to fall back? In Donetsk their defences are the strongest, for 8 years this place has been entrenched, some places with tunnels look like they came straight out of the hezbollah playbook. The area is heavily mined and entrenched, has key urban areas to defend. Right now given how Ukrainian forces are reliant on SUVs to sneak armaments to this front, and the lack of much armor presence other than the sporadic tanks + apcs used in failed counter attacks, their main "mechanized" vehicles stem in their clever usage of SPGs and MLRS, the MLRS being particularily effective in hit and run attacks against Russian forces to attrition them. A retreat from here given the large mass of troops whom aren't really mechanized anymore would be extremely risky, the pre war mechanized forces have been attrited, a retreat would entail many being stuck here on this front and a severe risk of being on the receiving end of Russian mechanized troops, air power, artillery, and missile strikes. If the Ukrainian troops stay, they can continue to bleed the Russians or at least buy an immense amount of time as each little forest, each little village, each little nook and cranny has to be cleared. The Ukrainians have effective defensive tactics here and make heavy usage of such concealment and defenses to improve their odds. This is the where a huge portion of Ukraine's best troops are, and their defenses, to attempt a retreat at this moment can lead a disaster. Additionally all those heavy ATGMs like the javelin are best employed in entrenched positions or preprepared ambush locations, right now for what Ukraine has left, this is the most effective usage of their conventional troops.
The key thing Russia can do is to escalate, especially after Bryansk was struck, apparently they did finally strike at Ukrainian rail lines, if so this is a big headache for the Ukrainian side; this also hints to us at how Russia was approaching this war, they never targetting all the rail lines in the west until now when their missiles are already capable of doing so, they also didn't target things related to livelihood such as electricity on the western side of Ukraine, I have nothing conclusive about such decisions made but this might hint to us at something in combination with the lack of mobilization. However on the Donbass front what I think is logical given their (Russian) current constraints and advantages would be to try and slowly inch forward and cut off roads used by the Ukrainian side to trickle in supplies to sustain their troops. Around Izium as I've mentioned this seems to be the case, the Russians inched forward and seized one of the roads, however it is only logical that they try to inch their way forward and strangle the 3 main settlements in the region by sieging them out, leading to a decisive blow on the Ukrainian military. I think once the mud is fully gone, that is the most probable move, but just like you I do not expect any kind of giant armored push, the russian battalions don't even have much tanks in the first place, it's pretty much a bunch of artillery with some supporting units.
Now I will say even upon the defeat of the immense amount of Ukrainian troops in Donbass-Kharkov oblasts (This is a big if, we don't know what will happen and what Russian leadership even wants), I don't think the war will come to an end any time soon. The western aid has been flowing to western Ukraine even after the war started, there is a high likelihood there will be units constituted in the west, the amount of SPGs given and some of the armor may be rather inconsistent, logistically a nightmare with aging NATO and old Warsaw Pact gear heavily mixed, however such equipment can be used to arm up new units to continue fighting. This is worse compared to what Ukraine would have pre-war in terms of trained conventional mechanized units, however there is still fighting power left in such a case so in general we have to just wait and see, the fog of war is very immense.
