[Skybird]

Rule of thumbs values that are often given to describe the numerical advantage needed to go on the offensive, is 3:1 in favour of the attacker. In urban areas and house-to-house fighting even 5:1 to 6:1, and higher. Somehow I doubt the Russians can gain that. It got reported that during the attempted raid on/siege of Kyiv there probably were more Ukrainian defenders than Russian attacker in the areas in and around the city.



Two alternatives for the Russian I could imagine.

First, using groundforces to keep Ukrainian counterattacks away and shelling them from disaance, with long range weapons.

Second, conducting a highly mobile, fast and agile warfare to temporarily ensure numercial superiority in a place, winning the battle, and then quickly disperse, move away and to the next target and do the same somewhere else. - Some things speak against this. First, the war goal would need to be destroying the enemy in numbers, while the Russians want to occupy territory and thus need to hold ground, not moving away from it again. Socond, it woudl need good communication networks and routines, according tactical training, and a general doctrine calling for all this. - Their comms I cannot judge, they were bad in the past, but they may have learned from their initial mistakes, I dont know. The training is certainly not given, and the Russian/Sovjet military doctrine is not like that, too, so i would be surprised to see the Russians behaving like this. They tried several spearhead raid with their arimobile unisy whihc were considered to be their elite unites - THEY ALL FAILED and partially got shreddered to pieces.