The destroyed dam held half the water storage capacity of the Three Gorges Dam. The downstream consequences of such a reservoir are self-evident. Setting aside ideological bias, let us examine the military pros and cons on their merits.
At present, Ukraine is the attacking party; Russia is the defending party. Once Russia recognized it lacked the capacity for large-scale offensive operations, it began constructing extensive layered permanent fortifications along the contact lines to hold off Ukraine. Ukraine had already proven through repeated experience that solid fortifications are highly effective at slowing an attacker’s advance and grinding down their combat strength. Over the past six months, therefore, Russia built strong layered fortifications along all contact lines, laid minefields on their outer perimeters, used natural terrain features to anchor defensive lines, and waited for Ukraine to come.
Over those same six months, Ukraine replenished 200,000 fresh troops. By late May in particular, the balance of immediately deployable mobile combat forces reversed for the first time: Russia had grown from its initial 145,000 to 370,000, while Ukraine had declined from 570,000 to 365,000. During this period, Ukraine conducted eleven conscription mobilizations; Russia conducted one, adding 200,000 troops.
In the just-concluded Battle of Artemivsk (Bakhmut), Russia’s main forces were largely idle across all contact lines, or played only supporting roles. The overall pattern was building fortifications, digging trenches, stockpiling supplies, and holding position. The main assault force at Artemivsk was always Wagner’s 50,000-plus men — and even the units covering Wagner’s flanks were the newly formed Third Corps of mobilization troops, not Russia’s core contract-soldier units. Wagner burned through over 30,000 convict soldiers; by the time Artemivsk fell, only about 20,000 remained. Against them, Ukraine rotated 28 brigade-level units through the fight. Wagner soldiers stripping shoulder patches from fallen Ukrainian troops confirmed 28 distinct brigade-level insignia — meaning at least 28 brigades committed combat elements and suffered casualties. Some may not have deployed entire brigades, but at minimum one battalion from each saw combat. Ukraine’s 93rd Brigade, 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, 81st Airmobile Brigade, and several others were rebuilt two or three times over; some brigades were ground down to just two or three companies before reconstitution. According to leaked American intelligence, Ukraine lost more than 50,000 killed in this city alone. Adding the wounded, the losses were devastating. The greatest consequence of these losses was the needless attrition of experienced, combat-ready mobile forces that were intended for the counteroffensive.
For either side, what genuinely matters is battle-hardened veterans with proven battlefield survival instincts — troops who can maneuver and fight. These experienced mobile forces are the primary factor determining battlefield trajectory. Hastily conscripted troops are useful enough for digging trenches and building fortifications, but when real fighting starts, they won’t produce results for quite some time — the same holds true for both sides. Take Russia’s newly formed Third Corps: when tasked with protecting Wagner’s southern flank, a single battalion-sized probing attack routed two companies of the 72nd Brigade. Granted, it was armored troops striking infantry — but those infantry were not without anti-tank mines and anti-tank guns. That is precisely the difference between raw recruits and veterans.
The Actor (Zelensky) was forced to burn so much of Ukraine’s combat strength at Artemivsk out of necessity: without doing so, he could not secure continued outside support. And to keep that support flowing, he had to constantly prove his value to his backers. So he was compelled to feed experienced, battle-ready veterans — the very troops earmarked for the counteroffensive — into the Bakhmut meat grinder, where they purchased nothing of battlefield value. This drastically reduced both the quantity and quality of mobile forces available for the major counteroffensive.
— Commander, 2023-06-21 23:46
Before the counteroffensive, intelligence indicated that Ukrainian forces on the eastern front were primarily equipped with Soviet-era weapons, while the latest NATO advanced weapons had been allocated to Ukrainian forces in the southern Zaporizhzhia direction. The counterstrikes toward Artemivsk’s southern flank at that time were therefore merely to clear supply lines and cover a withdrawal. Even if an attack was to be launched in that direction, the correct move would have been to strike Soledar — hitting the northern flank from the high ground — not pushing into the low-lying terrain of the southern axis.
If Ukraine’s primary counteroffensive axis is Zaporizhzhia, then it needs not only to launch feints on the eastern front, but also to send small raiding parties across the border into Russian territory to create noise and disruption. The bigger the commotion, the more it can use a small force to pin down Russian forces on the northern and eastern fronts. But even that is not enough — because Russia’s troop level is no longer the 140,000 of the previous campaign when feints worked; it is now 370,000. Furthermore, back then Russia had built no fortifications and, when Ukraine struck, had no choice but to pull forces from the east to plug gaps in the south. Over these six months, Russia has come to understand reality and constructed solid permanent fortifications along all contact lines, waiting at ease for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. With more than twice the troops, even if Ukraine breaks through somewhere, Russia no longer faces such desperate shortages that it must strip forces from another front entirely — enough strength is pre-deployed nearby to seal any breach.
Compared to the vastness of the battlefield, either side’s forces will always feel insufficient. Therefore, the ability to strike unexpectedly at the enemy’s weakest, least-defended point — concentrating local force there — is often the key to victory. In Ukraine’s previous counteroffensive, the strategy of attacking where the enemy must respond worked brilliantly: Russian main forces were drawn south, the eastern front was left depleted, and three Ukrainian brigades tore through the defensive line by surprise, causing a general collapse of the Russian eastern front. This time, however, Ukraine no longer holds an overwhelming numerical advantage, Russia’s main forces have remained intact through these six months, and their positions are fortified. For the counteroffensive to succeed, Ukraine must maximize local concentration of force and strike with surprise. Yet achieving that surprise will grow increasingly difficult. Over the past six months, Russia launched two low-earth-orbit optical reconnaissance satellites capable of maintaining 24-hour battlefield surveillance through alternating passes. Just days ago, Russia launched another satellite capable of penetrating cloud cover to identify ground targets as small as one meter.
The previous feint succeeded not only because Russia was desperately short on troops and could be drawn out of position, but also because Russia had no satellites in orbit and no airborne ground-reconnaissance aircraft — new electronic reconnaissance planes were still in development; old ones had only air-to-air detection capability and no ground surveillance, were few in number, and half had been destroyed by Ukrainian special operations. At that time, NATO’s satellites and electronic reconnaissance aircraft had crystal-clear battlefield visibility, while Russia was nearly blind. In manpower, Ukraine’s immediately deployable mobile combat forces outnumbered Russia’s by more than double. Russia had not yet grasped reality, was stuck in a stalled offensive posture, and had built no fortifications — completely unprepared to defend against Ukraine’s counterattack.
Ukraine has since acquired more advanced weapons: longer-range, higher-precision British and French missiles, possibly German missiles as well, plus Patriot air defense systems and Leopard 2 main battle tanks. But Ukraine’s battlefield manpower now falls below Russia’s — especially experienced, mobile combat troops. While these newly acquired weapons pack a heavier punch, suppliers have been extremely restrained in quantities provided. This means these weapons can only function as the tip of the spear for piercing defensive lines. Without a breakthrough, there is no follow-through; and even if a single point is breached, the available mobile forces and equipment must be sufficient to exploit and expand that breakthrough to reach the objective. This is precisely why enough experienced, combat-capable troops are needed to advance in echelon from the breach point — consolidating and expanding gains. But when the defending side holds solid fortifications and larger reserves, a breakthrough in the line won’t collapse into a rout; it will become a grinding back-and-forth. If your follow-through is insufficient, you cannot sustain that kind of attrition, and the entire initial investment of the counteroffensive comes to nothing.
To maximize local concentration of force, Ukraine needs diversionary operations in secondary directions — using a small force to achieve an outsized effect — so as to draw the enemy’s main forces away by attacking where they must respond. Otherwise, if the defender correctly anticipates the main attack axis, they will deploy their main forces to hold fortified positions against it. Far from achieving surprise and creating local numerical superiority at a weak point, the attacker would run straight into steel — and exhaust their remaining combat strength in the process.
To prevent a repeat of being “attacked where they must respond,” Russia withdrew all personnel, supplies, and equipment from the western Dnieper bank in Kherson to the eastern bank, and constructed three interlocking layers of permanent fortifications along the Dnieper — over a kilometer wide at this stretch — with minefields laid on the riverbank approaches. Over the past six months, Ukraine sent small special operations units multiple times attempting infiltration by assault boat, only to be repelled each time by Russian defenders. This defensive line has clearly been effective. Kherson Oblast is bisected east-west by the Dnieper; the Ukrainian-held western bank is higher ground, while the Russian-held eastern bank sits lower. If flooding the area by destroying the dam was intended to create marshland unfavorable to mechanized advance, the floodwaters would first and foremost inundate the lower-lying eastern bank’s fortifications. Those three interlocking fortification layers have already proven highly effective and were built at great cost — they are far more valuable than a swamp. Why would you destroy them yourself? Taking it further: the dam’s floodgates are under Russian control. Even if the “flood the army” strategy were genuinely on the table, would it not be far better to wait until Ukraine launches a large-scale river crossing and then open the gates? During the Korean War, Chinese forces flooded American troops crossing a river precisely by controlling reservoir gates — not by blowing up the dam in advance.
For Ukraine on the offensive, the Kherson direction is exactly the kind of axis that “attacks where the enemy must respond” — Crimea lies directly behind it, and no other axis could draw Russian forces more effectively. Destroying the dam amounts to throwing away a valuable strategic card in advance. Moreover, the flooding would not only create marshland hostile to mechanized advance — it would destroy logistics routes and infrastructure in the downstream Mykolaiv area and parts of Odesa, regions under Ukraine’s own control along the lower Dnieper. Is that not picking up a rock to drop on your own foot?
Destroying the dam is extremely disadvantageous for both attacker and defender. Even if the floodwaters wipe out the eastern bank’s fortifications, Ukraine could infiltrate by assault boat — but even if a small force establishes a bridgehead, the follow-on main force cannot advance, because the floodwaters that destroyed the enemy’s defensive network have equally destroyed the very infrastructure needed to sustain a large-scale advance. Of course, if Ukraine were confident it could break through in Zaporizhzhia and drive all the way to Mariupol — severing the land corridor — then Russian forces in the flooded Kherson east bank-to-Mariupol zone would be trapped, with no exit but a seaborne evacuation. The concept is sound. Yet once that intent is exposed and the main attack axis becomes clear, Russian forces from both Kherson’s eastern bank and Zaporizhzhia would converge for a decisive engagement in Zaporizhzhia, drawing in Donbas reinforcements as well. That eliminates surprise and turns the operation into a head-on war of attrition.
When you had 570,000 troops against 145,000, you declined a decisive engagement — but now with 365,000 against 370,000, you seek one? This is not the level of generalship of Syrskyi, nor of NATO commanders — unless a certain rumor is true: that the Actor mortgaged all of Ukraine’s remaining railways, power grid, enterprises, and infrastructure to Blackstone, the famous Wall Street capital giant, in exchange for funding to service debts and acquire weapons and equipment. If so, large-scale combat operations may be winding down before long.
One other possibility cannot be ruled out: when the Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive bogs down, Ukraine concentrates its remaining mobile forces from the Kharkiv direction and drives north into Russian territory — you fight yours, I’ll fight mine — creating a situation of mutual territorial occupation. So far, ordinary Russian civilians have been largely insulated from the war’s effects. That is precisely why formerly purged oligarchs organized three companies of “returnee battalions” alongside Ukrainian forces to enter Belgorod Oblast, producing a massive psychological shock among the Russian public. To prevent this shock from spreading, Russian forces immediately mobilized to eliminate and expel these returnee units. So in this counteroffensive, the biggest strategic feint by Ukraine may well come from that direction. Russia has established three new territorial defense brigades and is constructing fortifications along the border in response.
Xinghen: I’ve seen online analysis claiming that illuminating the enemy with fire-control radar wasn’t real — is Commander’s account accurate? If it is, that really is a major morale boost. 2023-06-22 12:32
Commander replies to Xinghen: I confirmed with people at the Beijing headquarters last night. What differs from the online version is the aircraft type and the unit it belongs to. The higher-ups want to use this to boost morale, but also don’t want to overly provoke the other side. 2023-06-22 19:06
Xinghen replies to Commander: Thank you for the clarification — I work at a defense research institute myself, and this is genuinely encouraging. 2023-06-22 19:17
Commander replies to Xinghen: You cannot reveal your work unit — have you forgotten the regulations?! 2023-06-22 19:19
Commander replies to Xinghen: There was also an element of coincidence — perhaps the other side didn’t expect this move and some of their radars weren’t in active standby mode. Just like when the Moskva was sunk: two of its three layers of defensive radar were offline. The only active one was the air-search radar, which cannot detect sea-skimming targets. That’s how it was sunk. 2023-06-22 19:22
Liange: The hard will get harder, the soft will get softer — that will be the new normal. 2023-06-22 12:45
Wang Jin: If that’s the case, it all makes sense. I was puzzled before by how efficiently the commendations and announcements were being publicized — it didn’t add up. 2023-06-23 11:08
Whatever the matter, do your best: Waiting for Commander’s next update. 2023-06-23 11:28
Steady Cat: Commander called it again. 2023-06-24 12:05
Student 473: What did Commander just post? It flashed and disappeared. 2023-06-25 18:27
Whatever the matter, do your best: This has truly become a proxy war now. 2023-06-26 15:34
Steady Cat: The provocation was a touch too light — or was it too heavy? 2023-06-21 23:57
Student 473: Outstanding. 2023-06-22 00:48