A month later... the Ukraine War in maps.

[WarGamer]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682

This is the status nationwide. Currently Russians are nearly static and Ukraine may be making some headway with counterattacks West of Kyiv.

I expect Ukraine to clear the Russians away from the Western side of Kyiv. Some are reporting the Russians are setting up defensive positions farther to the West, probably to take advantage of geography and cover.

In the South, Ukrainian defense has fought the Russians to a standstill. It's taking weeks just to defeat Mariupol.

In the Northeast, the Russians are absolutely stood up straight in front of Kharkiv.

Not counting Crimea... the Russians control around 10% of Ukraine.




This map was created 2/22 and there are reports that the Russians have withdrawn another 10km from Bucha to better defensive positions.



And lastly the South.

After seeing that his dream of capturing Ukraine whole was ridiculous... plan B for Putin will probably be to grab land along the Black Sea from Luhansk in the East to Kherson in the West and Zaporizhzhia in the North. I predict that peace treaty or not, Putin will simply annex this area and dare Ukraine to throw him out of those areas.



Here's Mariupol. The Russians have only entered the city from the East/West with a force confirmed to include Chechens.



And in the North, from Sumy to Kharkiv the Russians are ineffective, low in supplies and ammunition.







My own take about what will happen next:

Russia.

Russia will consolidate land that's been seized. They will withdraw their overextended position such as West of Kyiv. In fact, I think they'll withdraw ALL troops from the West of Kyiv. Taking Kyiv was a pipe dream and they will back off. They will secure the Belarus border and continue to bombard and harass Kyiv with Artillery, rockets and missiles. They will keep a force to the East of Kyiv to maintain sufficient pressure to prevent Ukraine from reinforcing the South or Northeast cities.

Then I predict the Russians will withdraw from Kharkiv and Sumy South to the area taken near the Black Sea.

Their end goal may be to back away from Kyiv and the Northeast and secure the area from Luhansk to Kherson, a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. They will set up defensive positions and basically "dare" the Ukrainians to take it.

Air power. The Russians have used air power very poorly. If they "could", they'd be running 24/7 Combat Air Patrol over Ukraine with the sole goal of eliminating the Ukrainian Air Force and achieve Air Superiority/Supremacy. Seeing as how they haven't done that, I suspect their front line fighters like the SU-35s are either poorly maintained or few in number.



Ukraine:

Ukraine has a bit of a predicament. They need to define "victory" and try to achieve that. If victory is to get every last Russian out of the Country, frankly it's not going to happen without leadership change in Moscow. The humiliation for the Russians would be unbearable.

So Ukraine needs to decide how they will "end" the war. IMHO, they will (and should) continue to fight hard and inflict as many casualties as possible to put pressure on the Putin administration. The problem with that is... the longer the war runs, the more cities are flattened and civilians killed.

If they kick the Russian out of Ukraine in 3 years and the top 10 cities are rubble and 2 million people are dead... isn't that a Pyrrhic Victory?

On the other hand, the longer the war goes... the more it hurts Russia financially.

So I expect strong resistance where the Ukrainians win nearly every engagement but I'm not sure how they'll retake the South and the East.

I think there will be a peace deal... maybe before Summer. It will allow Putin to say "We won, denazified the country (lol) and took more land in the South"

And Zelenskyy will remain in power... as a Hero. I predict fast admittance to the EU and probably NATO. It will take a few years because the EU has a process where they look at the function of the government, anti-corruption measures and finances.

In the end... like ALL wars, it will have been an incredible waste of life.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Thank you. ❤

🌻🇺🇦❤🇺🇦🌻 Slava Ukraini! 🌻🇺🇦❤🇺🇦🌻