The Daily Kos speculates (intelligently) on the coming Ukraine counter-offensive:
Between Army vet kos and Mark Sumner the Daily Kos has great coverage of Ukraine's Freedom War:
Can you feel the buzz in the air? Ukraine’s big counteroffensive is coming! And just like mock drafts before NFL draft day, war analysts (and Russian generals, maybe) are poring over maps, trying to divine Ukraine’s gambit.
Let’s start with the map of all Russian fortifications, painstakingly tallied from satellite imagery by the American Enterprise Institute’s Brady Africk. (Yeah, yeah, it’s a right-wing think tank, but this map is solid.)
We’ve discussed this before. There are two obvious moves.
The circled city is Starobilsk, where literally all the roads and rail lines in this vast region meet. It’s the logistical hub of Russia’s war effort in the region. Remember how liberating Kupiansk forced Russia to retreat from all of Kharkiv oblast? Liberate Starobilsk, and Russia will be forced to abandon most of Luhansk Oblast. Meanwhile, key supply lines from Belgorod and other Russian cities to Ukraine’s north would need to be rerouted.
Ukraine would need to punch through Svatove, to Starobilsk’s west, while putting pressure on Kreminna to keep Russia from overcommitting to the north. Now here’s the interesting part. Take a look at the map of Russian fortifications:
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/23/2165137/-Ukraine-Update-So-many-counterattack-options-but-here-s-one-that-could-break-Russia