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Why Russia Refuses to Defend in Depth, but Defends Forward
A persistent error they consistently choose not to rectify
It has been a few days now since Ukrainian troops started knocking on the doors of Verbove in the Robotyne Section. I began noticing something really weird, or I may say, something really stupid.
You must have been watching how Ukraine is advancing around Bakhmut. They lost the town in the last week of May. Since that day, they haven’t set foot inside the town, but instead, they have been grinding the Russian forces to the east and west of the town. They are advancing on the flanks. They will capture the supply routes. Then they will encircle the town and allow the Russian units to get out of the town on their own.
This reduces the cost of lives Ukraine has to pay for the town’s capture. If you are a member of Putin’s regime, you should know that your enemy has a plan, and he generally sticks to it. Ukraine did exactly the same while liberating Robotyne. This is not a set-in-stone strategy; Ukraine will never do something like that, but this is their preferred strategy if they think the enemy is trying to draw them into urban combat.