Most observers (Western and Russian) seem to have expected Ukraine to go over onto the offensive sometime in the 2023 campaign season. Such a move was well telegraphed and a natural extension of Ukraine’s stated objectives of taking back occupied territories from the Russian Federation. By mid-June, it was clear Ukraine had started an offensive effort, launching probing actions at multiple points along the front and finally showing some of the heavy Western equipment it had received over the last six months. Those initial attacks ran into the teeth of heavy Russian defences, and progress since then has been slower than the Ukrainian High Command may have hoped. Initially I had planned not to touch these developments for some time – but with the recent information environment extending the full range of takes from ‘Ukraine has lost the war’ to ‘everything is according to plan’ I thought it was worth making an effort to try and clearly interpret (as far as possible) the data as we have it now. So I hope you find this examination of the campaign of the last few weeks useful, and I’ll see you all again next Timestamps:00:00:00 – Counter Offensive

00:01:16 – What Am I Talking About?

00:01:46 – Caveat On Information Quality

00:03:50 – Background

00:11:29 – The Kakhovka Catastrophe00:14:11 – The Push South Begins

00:24:20 – Russian Performance

00:35:28 – Assessing Attrition & Effort

00:52:21 – The Strike Campaign

00:59:24 – Evaluation

01:08:25 – Channel Update