Totally – but I think in the west, people were conditioned to expect breakneck speeds similar to the initial invasion and push towards Kyiv by Russian forces or the rapid advance last year of Ukrainian troops that pushed out Russians from Kyiv suburbs and northeastern Ukraine.
In my mind, a “failure” would mean that they gained nothing – not even a few small villages.
3 months for getting past the screening line while losing majority of your combat capability is… well… abysmal.
while losing majority of your combat capability
We’re watching this conflict unfold from a million miles away, how could you possibly know that they’ve lost most of their combat capability? That wasn’t mentioned in the article. If the article is paywalled for you, I was able to read it entirely with Firefx’s easy-read button.
You should check out Telegram and Youtube, you have numerous videos and photos of destroyed Ukrainian armor, drone strikes on radars and artillery, while analysts count everything. The brigades were already at most 50% of capacity before the offensive, but many have been rendered combat ineffective since, meaning there are too many casualties to be able to continue operations, so the reserve brigades (many of which were meant to exploit the breakthrough if it succeeded) have been rotated in already. In short, Ukraine broke its teeth on the screening line so now they are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the front. After the offensive stalls for good and the Rasputitsa begins, Russia will most likely begin its own offensive, which will be disastrous for Ukraine.
