Chadstroma
Footballguy
My guess is that they are being cautious. Though these NATO trained brigades, even better trained and equipped than their 'legacy' units, are new and having learning curves. Certainly, even though the Ukrainians have been fighting for years (they were fighting long before the invasion) their military is still learning. This counter offensive is doing something that they have never done previously. Even their successful counter offensive last year was not nearly the same kind of operation. This is much larger against an entrenched defender with heavily prepared positions.
Rather than throw all their new units into the grinder and hope, they have been doing limited maneuvers with only a portion of their new units. I think that this benefits them in probing and testing the Russian lines but perhaps more importantly providing them a learning curve that they can learn from their mistakes without crippling their ability to continue to launch a counter offensive.
It seems the Russians are able to use their attack helicopters to much more effect than they have been able to yet in the war as the Ukrainian forces push forward and come out of their anti-air umbrella. The helos can hover low over confidently friendly territory, pop up and see further than troops with a MANPAD can, hit and get low again. This is basically the tactics that our military has developed with our attack helicopters such as the Apache and Cobra. My amateur brain is having a hard time trying to figure out how the Ukrainians can counter it effectively when their air force is still unable to be in such contested areas without unacceptably high losses.
Unconfirmed: 50km-long Wagner PMC column has reportedly managed to enter Russia through Rostov region. Shoigu appears to have failed.
![[icon]](/data/avatars/s/5/5167.jpg?1660313464){kind=avatar}