Russian fortifications are as formidable as advertised. The bad news is those answers were not great, if you’re Ukraine or its backers. The good news is that, weeks into a counteroffensive, we have some clearer answers to those questions. Experts were also uncertain how well Ukrainian troops would be able to maneuver with advanced weapons, like main battle tanks, and whether they could overcome supply and logistics challenges. This, despite sober analysis from plenty of observers who said this counteroffensive would more likely be a slog, especially given the impressive, heavily mined Russian fortifications along a vast front line. But Kyiv’s past successes and Moscow’s past failures, the deliveries of new advanced Western weapons, and a fresh crop of Western-trained Ukrainian recruits all had a lot of folks very hyped - maybe overly so - about what Kyiv could achieve. Ukraine had tried to tamp down expectations about the counteroffensive long before it had begun. But it was a real victory in Ukraine’s otherwise lackluster weeks-old counteroffensive. It wasn’t a full breakthrough - at least not yet. At the very end of July, Ukrainian forces liberated Staromaiorske, a tiny village in southeastern Ukraine.
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