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Strictly speaking, they could try and sweep the eastern border before turning towards crimea, with the goal of prioritizing Donbas first and foremost. The issue here is that if the Ukrainians retook the Donbas, a lot European support would start to waver if they could get the 'back to February 2022 lines' as an armistice condition, and they might cut back support there in a way they wouldn't if Ukraine was still in a 'we're fighting to hold on!' narrative on the eastern front. Winning the east means ending the only likely European support that might make retaking crimea possible.
I am not arguing that Ukraine intended to let the Russians advance at Bahkmut, but the boomerang effect of 'the more you publicizing a heroic resistance, the more it hurts when it fails' only hurts you on the return if it actually hurts you. At this point, my read of European politics is that European support will increase, not decrease, if Russia makes advances in the Donbas, meaning the Ukrainians have a... not incentive, but silver-lining, to lean on to prioritize other efforts. While there are certainly some western advocates who would use any Ukrainian setback to argue for an armistice, these people were pretty discredited last year during the height of Russian advances, and that was before western categories of aid began to expand to heavy offensive weapon categories.
I hate to resort to Kreminology, but my read is that Putin has been doubling down on a bet that he can make the Europeans, but especially the Germans, stop supporting Ukraine / stop sanctioning Russia before the Russian economy starts consuming itself in earnest, or at least cause a fundamental political rift between Germany and the Atlanticist/NATO alliance.
A lot of not just last year, but the years before, suggests the Putin sees Europe, and especially Germany, as the political center of gravity for resolving Ukraine. As much as Putin's narrative has focused on NATO and the US, Putin caused the Maidan crisis as a result of German-led European influence in rising Ukraine, engaged in the Minsk talks with Germany and France, attempted to leverage Nord Stream 2 gas over Germany, threatened German government formation with the Polish-Belarus migrant crisis, tried to raise German advancement of Nord Stream 2 as the pre-war way to avoid war, attempted this winter's gas shortages to make Germany more than anyone else buckle, played to German fears to block arms shipments, and various other German-minded framings. Even the Ukrainian electricity grid targetting and the Ukrainian food disruption have arguable German-tailored narrative targeting- destroying the Ukrainian grid is a threat to the disproportionately German investments in Ukraine, a significant risk to a country whose government is as industry-interest-driven as Germany, while Ukrainian food shortage fan the flames of middle eastern migrant crisis that, well, have driven many years of German policy. This would provide a more meaningful political goal to the power grid attacks than 'hope to terrorize Ukraine into submission,' as while terror bombing has never really worked, frightening investors has.
In this read, Putin thinks he can win- or at least get a win worth continuing the pain- if he can break the German-Atlanticist alliance. If Germany and the pro-Ukraine coalition decisively split, it breaks the American-NATO alliance at a foundational level, breaks EU politics at a fundamental level, and presumably places Germany in a position to re-connect to Russia economically and break the counter-Russian alliance in the west as Germany turns from a cornerstone into a key problem who, by its mass, drags a lot of its most integrated neighbors along with it. Even if you accept you've already lost the military war, breaking your enemy coalition at least gives you time to lick your wounds.
I think this is a flawed and almost certain to fail, overestimating Russian ability to shape the perceptions of other countries, but then I have for many years said I believe Putin is a strategic mediocrity, not a strategic genius. (My expectation is that the route of pro-Russian interest groups in Europe will continue, with being 'soft on Russia' a political poison that coalition parties seek to use against eachother, and that German industrial interests will be more interested in maintaining European and American economic ties than Russian ties.)
Another line of effort for Putin, though this I'm less convinced on, is that Putin believe he can continue fighting with Chinese support. If he can frame the conflict as a major interest for China, then he might be able to get gradually progressing aid from China, to the point that he can counter the superior NATO industrial/economic support to Ukraine with industrial/economic support to Russia. This would presumably be in the form of Chinese ammunition and investments in the Russian industrial complex, not Chinese tanks, but hey, desperation.
(Again, I don't think this would work. China is pretty clearly already prioritizing European market ties over supporting Russian military success.)
Regardless, the Russian strategy since late last year, and at least the power grid attacks, has pretty clearly been political-based, not military-exclusive. The annexations were maximalist, but also a pretty clear framing device to shape subsequent negotiations, while the (lack of) Russian escalation-response following them would be a far better signal of flexibility for the negotiations than the decidedly less impressive alternative, that the Russians were seriously floating the prospect of tactical nuclear response and were shut down hard.
First of all, it would be as hard for Ukrainians to take Russia-controlled Donbass as it's hard for Russia to take Ukraine-controlled Donbass. It's a patchwork of towns and industrial zones with several well-established lines of defense. Second, if they somehow succeed, they'll have to dedicate more and more troops to guarding the border turned frontline. That's probably why they aren't really trying to retake the Starobelsk area.
I agree with you. I don't think a Donbas offensive by Ukraine over a drive to the coast would be a good idea, but it would certainly an idea some of their more reluctant backers would prefer over any attempt at Crimea.
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