Most observers (Western and Russian) seem to have expected Ukraine to go over onto the offensive sometime in the 2023 campaign season. Such a move was well telegraphed and a natural extension of Ukraine's stated objectives of taking back occupied territories from the Russian Federation.
By mid-June, it was clear Ukraine had started an offensive effort, launching probing actions at multiple points along the front and finally showing some of the heavy Western equipment it had received over the last six months.
Those initial attacks ran into the teeth of heavy Russian defences, and progress since then has been slower than the Ukrainian High Command may have hoped.
Initially I had planned not to touch these developments for some time - but with the recent information environment extending the full range of takes from 'Ukraine has lost the war' to 'everything is according to plan' I thought it was worth making an effort to try and clearly interpret (as far as possible) the data as we have it now.
So I hope you find this examination of the campaign of the last few weeks useful, and I'll see you all again next week.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PerunAU
Caveats & Comments: As mentioned in the video - the confidence level when dealing with a developing offensive is always going to be very low so those and all usual caveats apply with an additional emphasis for this episode.
I'd also like to note this episode was mostly prepared before the recent Wagner mutiny in Russia - and as a result largely reflects a state of affairs as it existed before that incident.
Finally I'd like to note that when talking about equipment removed from the Arsenal discussed in this video, the stated figure applies to a wider area of the base than shown on screen (which I'm aware might be confusing).
Sources & reading: I will include a list of sources as usual tomorrow (incredibly tired at the moment and they are saved on another system) but in the interim let me extend the usual credit to those twitter accounts and aggregators that posted some of the content featured in this episode.
Timestamps: See video description