I disagree. Moving to the Left Bank makes an excellent diversion against the Russian concentrated in the north east, and with a minimal number of forces.
Either the Russians move ASAP some forces to this area or the Ukes reach Crimea.
That is quite a stretch though, regardless how you look at it. They are nowhere near reaching Crimea. Minimal number of forces is also quite questionable. I would take a wild guess, and that is all it is, it probably costs Ukraine some multiple in personnel to hold that stretch of a couple kilometres (that has virtually no depth) than what it costs to Russia to hold it where it is at. What those lives are worth is also debatable, in terms of what they are getting in return.
Of course, it's certainly the most difficult place to be for an Ukrainian soldier. But they do remarkably well. It's not just hit and go. They do hold a position.
Without a doubt it is difficult. They are sitting remarkably well in, like I mentioned, a stretch of 2 or so kilometres with likely no prospect of moving forward. Just sitting and rotating when possible and it isn’t often. Evacuation of the wounded is again questionable at best. As was described by the article I cited earlier, they are waiting for hours, likely much longer. I would guess that most do not make it. Again, all speculation on my part.
Putin said that his forces were about to eradicate them in a matter of hours. Two weeks later they are still there.
I haven’t heard. Perhaps. But what does he know anyway?
There is one thing to understand: In this war either you advance or the other advance. Ukrainians had to protect the Right Bank to prevent the Russians to come back. The Russian shell everyday their defensive positions across the river. The Ukrainians had to do something to stop the shelling. One of these things is to cross the river to attack the positions of the Russian artillery.
There is no advancement here. No advancement for the Russians in this direction is forecasted in any foreseeable future. It is highly unlikely that the Ukes will advance beyond where they are either, but will keep sustaining the losses until no longer possible.
Like seaspear mentioned, Ukraine has the elevation advantage on the right bank, so if it was all about controlling the Russian artillery, there would be no urgent need to “hold” a point on the left bank at all, but likely occasional random raids would do just as much.
Again, it all comes to how much one values the lives of the personnel sent to the grinder. I would tend to think the rate of survival is not very high compared to the opposite.
The other reason is that they could reach Crimea easily if they succeed in crossing the river in large numbers. So they try to settle a bridge head there. And, as I said above, the Russians are forced to divert troops there to avoid that.
Again, they would not reach Crimea easily. There is nothing easy about it. The amount of the required resources to pull it off would be immense and likely impossible to stage, especially provided the need for heavy equipment. If we allow for that possibility, Russia would allocate a lot more resources towards it (and it appears they can afford it for the time being) and there would be no Ukrainian “foothold” in Krynky. Most likely, Russians are “annoyed” but comfortable with the way things are.
If there was a breakthrough by the Ukrainian forces towards and beyond Tokmak, I would think your theory would be valid, to some degree. In the absence of such, I think it is close to insanity holding that position.
It is hard to argue anything with any sense of validity here though because we do not really know the losses sustained by any side here though. But logic suggests this is not in the favour of Ukraine.
Another solution for the Russians is to blow a dam to flood the river banks. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they already plaid this card. Ukrainians know that they won;t do it again, so they can attempt to cross.
I do not believe there was any definitive answer to who “they” were yet. Lots of speculations, some more valid than others, but no definitive answers.
Crossing is likely impossible beyond what the Ukrainians are doing currently.
In Bahkmut and Sievirodonetsk, Ukrainians stopped the Russians as much as they can, but, according to them, their goal was to eliminate as many Russian troops as they could. They said that it's better to kill Russians there than retreating in an apparent economy of Ukrainian soldiers lives and having to kill them anyway 200 km or 400 km further west.
And it makes sens. You either fight or surrender immediately.
I would venture a guess, there aren’t that many (relatively speaking) Russians involved here that would be actively involved elsewhere. And again, we do not know what the losses are here. The assumption always seems to be that the Russians are losing significantly more troops than the Ukrainian side, regardless of the circumstance. Clearly that cannot be valid in all circumstances. The UK MoD is again tweeting about the 90% Russian losses citing some “Russian military blogger”
Appears to be similar to the “shovel tweets” from months back without any validity, but it is being reported everywhere. We will see what happens. Russians took Bakhmut after those tweets.
Also extremely important is to prevent the Russians from closing the land gap between the eastern front line and the Dniepr (and the Zaporyzha bassin). If the Russian fill this gap, all the land east of the Dniepr is definitely lost. That's precisely what they did.
I would appreciate you expanding that thought. I am not entirely sure what you mean by “closing the gap” and “all the land east of Dnepr is definitely lost”. And how does this relate to Krynky.
The following thread in Tiwtter talks about Krynky. For those who do not have Twitter (does it work?):
@emilkastehelmi: Ukrainian operations on the eastern bank of the Dnipro river, in the village of Krynky, have been ongoing since October 2023. In this thread, I'll analyze the current situation and the future of the...…
threadreaderapp.com
For those who do have Twitter and prefer it that way:
t.me
www.abc.net.au
en.defence-ua.com
Russia jails officer for buying wrong hardware to protect Crimean bridge