Why Ukraine can't beat Russia’s 'elastic defence' | About That 

it's always been kinda weird when the media keep reporting massive russian military losses while never reporting any ukrainian millitary losses

They laughed at the Russians when they were building the defensive lines claiming how easy it would be for Western engineering equipment to demolish the line.

Anyone else remember military " experts" claiming russia was supposedly running out of precision guided muniton by March of 2022.

I'm a tank driver, but I admire the dragon's teeth. This product costs $16-18. It has been effective for more than half a century and has become many times more effective in combination with drones and modern artillery.

Finally a video where comments are not turned off…

The most obvious answer to why Ukraine couldn't defeat the Russian fortified lines is because it couldn't reach them. But ultimately, the reason why it couldn't reach them is the same as why it wouldn't have been able to breach them, no air and artillery superiority.

It's incredible that the mainstream media is only now talking about this. The independent commentators on youtube have been pointing this out for about 5 months or more, since about the start of the counteroffensive.

You guys conveniently miss out the part when Russia was on the outskirts of Kiev and then started turning around after an almost finalized peace agreement brokered in Turkey. Thats when Boris Johnson is sent to Kiev to prohibit Kiev from finalizing any peace agreement.

This is how the USSR defended Moscow from the German advance. The Blitzkrieg relies on spearheads, breaking through the defensive line, then meeting up behind the enemy, and destroying the encircled forces. The Soviets denied this, by retreating the entire line, as soon a spearhead broke through anywhere along the line. This made the next line of defense stronger than the first one. If a spearhead broke through that line, they did it again, until eventually, the line was so strong that spearheads could no longer break through. They gave up huge amounts of territory, but they didn't care, because they knew they would win it all back when the German army depleted itself against their increasingly stronger defenses. The Ukrainians are falling into the same trap.

Dont generalize world. China and India not against Russia. It's the West only fighting Russia.

The Russian multi-layered defence in Ukraine is a lot like the Soviet multi-layered defence at the battle of Kursk in WW2

Ukrainian population WAS (!) 43M before the conflict. And bear in mind Ukraine also officially claims and therefore includes Crimea and Donbass' population in their stats. (And that's about 6-8M)

its time to call in the legendary Ghost of Kiev.

In other words, Russia took what it wanted and Ukraine won't get it back

I'm impressed that CBC actually showed this item. Respect. However, the part "Russia is taking proportionally more casualties", is hard to believe in my view. Yes Russia is most likely taking much more casualties in Avdiivka as they are the attacker there. However, Russia has been on the defense for half a year+ on most of the combat line, to counter the Ukrainian 'greatest offensive'. Especially Robotyne has been a cauldron slaughterhouse of the Ukrainians. They keep sending troops there but they're surrounded on 3 sides and in a valley, with the Russians on hills. It's insanity. So 1. Russia is on the defense mostly 2. has air superioty 3. has greater artillery capacity 4. has greater drone production. Sorry but there's no way that Russia is taking 'proportionally more casualties' if you combine all the above, unless Ukraine has alien tech.

When I told friends in the begining that ukraine was never going to win this, I got yelled at by some folks but after being a cold war soldier and knowing how the Russian warfare doctrine works , the writing was on the wall. While Russia made some glaring errors in the beginning they have continually forced Ukrainian units into pockets and destroyed them . Ukraine had defensive lines that had been improved upon for the last 10 years and the Russians slowly wore them down .

CBC catching up with what every intellectually honest independent commentator has been explaining for a long long very long long time.

This war is NATO vs Russia, and Ukraine provides the soldiers to NATO. Ukraine has no chance without NATO support.

"Russian forces collapsed"... what a joke🤣

This is basically the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war but eastern European version. The defense in depth is the key to Russian victory like it was for us (Iraqis), if the Ukrainians are unable to overcome these defenses they will experience what the Iranians did in 1988, and then Russian forces go on the offense and take more land before Ukraine submits to a ceasfire. It will take some time to get there, but the precedent is there.

I hope everyone remembers the phrase "As long as it takes" when USA promised Ukraine to help defeat Russia, please remember this. Especially when the blame game finger pointing goes in overdrive.

The claim that Russian forces are historically used to taking higher casualties than the Ukrainians makes little sense. The vast majority of Ukrainian soldiers in WW 2 were in the Red Army, fighting ferociously against the Nazis and making enormous sacrifices.

"This war has no clear winner..." Denial is a river in Egypt. 😅

Ukraine should have taken that peace negotiations 2 months after the war started. They would have kept all the territory they lost

That Ukraine's 2023 offensive would fail was obvious before it even started.

Problem is the Ukrainian tell the the Russian months before they start their offensive... They allow the Russia to build defence

It's pretty ridiculous that they're running this now. Wild.

so your saying RUSSIA is playing chess in a gazebo while ukraine is playing in the sand box and it,s starting to rain

You can't compare russian military resources and human resources with Ukraine even when UA got many of the top weapons from western countries. Russia got adopted fast to the current warfare and managed to overcome sanctions and boosted military industrial capacity with again, human resources. Unfortunately this conflict would have never bring results that western countries were expecting for. So what is next? Negotiations for peace? After so many deaths of innocent people and lost of territories?

At 2:58, is the world denying that the Russians withdrew as part of the ceasefire deal?

The Ukraine war is already lost because the objectives (to regain all territories including Crimea) as set out by the Ukrainian Gov't have not been achieved. Air superiority would have been essential in this undertaking and a steady influx of cash and resources that would outperform the influx of cash and resources on the Russian side. This is a simple calculation and should have been taken into account and acted upon immediately at the start of the war. Russia has always had the potential to outperform Ukraine in terms of war economy and war output so there should be no surprise why Ukraine is losing right now. The spending by the West would have to match the current Russian spending and equipment replenishment, as well as a serious plan for achieving Ukraine's air superiority (F16 is NOT an air superiority jet - please look that up on your own as to why). I personally do not foresee any of those remedies happening. Ukraine will likely loose the Eastern Provinces and Crimea will remain Russian.

Russia wasn't forced to pull back, Ukraine negotiated a ceasefire and Russia accepted part of the terms, which included pulling its troops away from Kiev.

This video is correct but doesn't put enough emphasis on the effect drones have had. Neither side can amass a lot of force in one area without the other side knowing about it in real time. So when the Ukrainians tried to advance over the summer, the Russians were always ready for them. And the same is now playing out as the Russians try to advance.

Sad situation for people of Ukraine. Ukraine got chance to stay neutral and peaceful. But unfortunately Ukraine government took wrong decision.

What you "forgot" to mention is that russian retreat from Kiev was due to peace agreement signed by Ukrainians and later discarded when Boris Johnson flew to Kiev and promised Western support if Ukraine would keep fighting. Conveniently, just after that famous Bucha happened which gave Ukraine a plausible reason to break the treaty. That's when the real War started.

Russia retreated as a gesture of goodwill to enable peace talks but Boris scuppered the talks told Zelensky to choose war

US war planners wanted Ukraine to focus all NATO-armed brigades to attack in Kherson and sever the Crimea land bridge. They expected to recapture Crimea in 3-6 months. Instead, Ukraine attacked in multiple fronts, trying to recapture Bakhmut. Also, the US war planners didn’t expect the minefields and drones to be so effective. They also overestimated the invulnerability of NATO armor. The NATO-trained brigades consisted of 70% troops with no combat experience. They had no air support. It was a failure before it started.

when you bet with your country and your allies start to leave you

Ah the program will be changing and CBC here to provide you the new thought pattern. I remember when CBC really wanted me to know that Ukraine would probably win and that I should support that Turns out we should think that a settlement makes sense. Thanks cbc

Dragon teeth and trenches doesnt work they say, Russian only send soldiers to the battlefield with shovels they say...

Now that the truth can’t be denied… Here comes CBC!!

The war of attrition is not a stalemate by definition, because one side is bound to ran out of resources due to attrition. Same goes to people. Unlike Ukranians, Russians have been using its people sparingly, because they had an advantage in artillery, air support, drones and ew capabilities.

That first lady spend 2million usd on a single shopping trip😂 they spent us dollars so happiliy😂

Russia has the right to defend itself

This war from the start was about weakening Russia, not about Ukraine`s victory. You`ll see it clearly in future

From Russia with Love 🇷🇺 ❤

Someone finally talking more realistically rather than emotionally from mainstream media. Maybe now we will move into trying to settle rather fight our dispute.

I will save you time: - Ukraine does not have air superiority - Ukraine does not have artillery/guns/tanks superiority - Ukraine shells, rockets and other ammo types stock are much-much lower than RU has. - Ukraine already mobilized 20% of it’s human resource and also 20% fled from Ukraine (40% in total) during past years while RU mobilization is currently somewhere between 8-12%. That's all folks. Have a nice day.

Russia: is on defensive positions for about a year now, has 5-7 to 1 artillery advantage (80% of losses in this war are from artillery), almost complete air superiority, officials say there is completely no need for another partial mobilization like last fall, borders are open - any men can freely leave the country. Ukraine: threw 15 brigades on a frontal assault, without any air cover, through heavily mined open fields with close to zero results. The country is in the state of general mobilization for almost 2 years already, men 18-60 are prohibited from leaving the country, there are dozens videos every week about total mobilization of ordinary people right on city streets, recent laws lifted the restrictions to draft students and people with incurable diseases, ukraine officials openly complain about shortage of combat manpower in media. Pro-Ukraine crowd - Russia is certainly taking more losses!!! Complete absence of logic, some people really think that Star Wars Stormtroopers exist in real life

It's hard to believe Russian is 'losing' when I see pictures and videos of teenage Ukrainian boys being conscripted into service.

The War is happening inside Ukraine. So they're already at a lost, As the destructions in the economy, industry, agriculture, the general community, and the way of life are all happening in Urkaine. Not to the mention, that they are spending a huge deal of their military assets and resources in defending rather than destroying their enemies.

People like scott ritter, Brian berletic, etc are telling this for past 15 months in their youtube channels. Main stream media picking this up now shows, you are preparing the minds of people, to accept the same facts you lied for past 2 years. As usual good job in manipulating the news and people.

"could Ukraine actually loose the war?" It was always in the cards from the get go, that they where still standing after a few weeks was cited as a miracle by everyone. I was pulling my hair that Ukraine didn´t negotiate a peace agreement at the peak of their last counter offensive when they had some leverage.

As far as the map is concerned, viewers do need to take into account that the biggest change is in the western/southwestern part of the front, which is the result of the Ukrainian offensive in Kherson last year. That offensive actually concluded in the first half of November 2022, so since then the change is even less. Barely noticable when you look at it from the scale these maps are showing. Biggest changes happened with Wagner advancing towards Soledar and Bakhmut etc. from late 2022 to May 20th this year, but even that change is barely visible at this scale. Really makes it funny to remember all the news headlines during the summer this year which talked about big Ukrainian breakthroughs, which just didn't happen. Or when they were saying how Ukraine has almost encircled Bakhmut, when in reality they advanced very slowly on the flanks of the city. It is important to remember not only the Russians are pushing their propaganda, our media is also pushing it's own propaganda and lying to us.

It is always difficult to decide if the ignorance of a report is the product of a lack of knowledge on the part of the writers and commentators, or simply falsehoods. The vast majority of the Ukrainian general staff is Soviet trained (as is the Russian), they have a clear understanding of the tactics of the other side, and the tactics are similar.

2022: Russia on the verge of defeat 2023: Why Ukraine can't beat Russia’s 'elastic defence'

Ukraine's counter offensive is long over. Currently they are using the Leopards and western aid for defensive purposes. Russia has been conducting small scale operations along the entire front and currently have begone besieging Avdiivka. The Ukrainian gains in the last six months have been overturned. It's sad to admit but they are losing this. Just recently Republicans voted against a new AID Package. Without help Ukraine is done.

Bro said it's demoralizing for the BOTH sides when Russia defeated the biggest Ukrainian counter attack. I guess even Russians are disappointed that NATO-equiped super army didn't give them enough fight. Lol.

Russia is the strongest country on the planet. I could have told you this when it first started

Very well explained video, just need to point the following: first, in 3,15 Russia didn't lost "almost every gain", they kept the most strategic ground in Jerson, Zaporihie, Donestk and Lugansk; second, in 9:00 many open source analysts have been claiming that Ukranians are taking a much higher toll than Russians, in part due to the lack of flexibility.

What isn’t mentioned is the large minefields in between Russias defensive lines. Especially in front of the 1st true defensive line that slows the mechanized advance to crawl….

“There’s no clear winner in this war?” Right

I’m no military expert (far from it) but I believe the biggest problem is Ukraine’s intentions were painfully clear from the beginning of the offensive - which was to cut the crimea land bridge and force a serious water problem to force Russia to sue for peace.

Also you're not allowed to say there was this 2015 peace deal with the same name as the Capitol of Belarus, but some guys in This Atlantic Alliance didn't wanna follow

They said last year russia was down to shovels lol

7:10 I remember this analyst saying on BBC how Ukraine would enter Melitopol.

The fact that this video is still on RU-vid proves the double standard of policy regarding the permissible on the platform!

Russia started the war with far to few personal for a protracted war, when they fell back during the summer that retreat lasted until new mobilized troops and equipment werr introduced. Then the lines were stabilized. It should be noted that Russia has far more than just three lines of defense. During the Ukrainian offense Russia actually managed to capture more territory than Ukraine. It should also be noted that the this reporter either flat out lied about Ukrainian current population or is just an npc script reader and is not informed. Ukraine started this war witg 43 million. But over half have fled and many many have been killed or injured. Russia meanwhile has taken in so many refugees that there population has increased and thats not even counting the annexed regions adding to the population. And i wonder when reporters will admit that Ukraine has been taking proportionally more casualties than Russia. This is what happens when you fight wars dominated by artillery and missiles where the opposition has 10 times your capacity. The same is also happening with drones. Russia produces 300k per month, Ukraine gets 30k

LOL this is hilarious at this point.

Nato lost, how embarassing. Russia is a mightier power

0:50 I mean USA was the one to persuade Ukraine away from Russia

Ukraine TV said Ukraine has total casualties of 1.2m and people go on about Russian casualties. The war is over, women and children are on the front lines. Every day it continues, the peace settlement gets a tiny bit worse for Ukraine.

"This war has no clear winner" sounds like coping to me

What's full invasion??? Full why???

8 months later august 11, Ukrainians have invaded Kursk and Russia has lost 580,000 men. Sweet.

Ukraine 🇺🇦 lacks manpower and artillery capabilities.. simply means they have lost the War !!! They have lost so many soldiers than Russia 🇷🇺 that’s the reality now! Sorry poor Ukraine 🇺🇦

Oh, now CBC and the rest of mainstream media are beginning to "realize" it? lmao. What a racket.

Lets not just talk about the similarities. Lets talk about the differences; in numbers of casualties. For reasons shown in the video, The Russian casualties were comparetively low. For every 1 Russian killed, 8 Ukrainians were killed. There are almost no men left in the Ukrainian army. With well over 500,000 Ukrainian dead so far, women are now being used to fill the gaps, many of them pregnant.

Why people think Russia is weak? They are the number 2 in the world for a reason.

Fighters from over 30 different countries helping Ukraine & still they were no match for the Mighty Russians. 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺

Good points, tanks were developed to defeat trench warfare. Defence ALWAYS has the advantage. To defeat prepared defences you need combined arms, Ukraine has little air power. Ukraine's best bet could be to hit Russian logistics so front line troops run out of ammo, food etc

There is no "stalemate" here my friend. A stalemate is between equally matched armies.

Your absoultely wrong. Russia is just not willing to sacrifice it’s top tier weaponry on Ukraine, if it may need it to defend itself from the West...

Its not a question of Ukrainian morale. Its a question of who has a greater will. Ukrainian Will + Western Will < Russian Will. Ukraine needs its allies to stick with it to win, they won't. Its not their country, they're not willing to send their own soldiers to fight. Russia is clearly willing to send lots and lots of soldiers to win. At the end of the day, Russia will fight this war as long as Bashar Al Assad has been fighting in Syria. The West will forget the conflict, just like Syria. And Russia will win.

CBC you ought to be publishing articles on how the world needs to come together and stop this war. For goodness sakes 2 years of human destruction. What a disgrace.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

Why no one is talking about why Russia backed out from Kiev is because there was a contract with Ukraine which later on was violated let's put the truth where it is

Next CBC report : The Mystery behind Zelensky's Sudden Disappearance

Russian forces did not "collapse". Russian government pulled back according to agreement achieved in Turkey to end the war. But then Boris Johnson told Ukranians not to sign the agreement, but "just fight" instead. If you want to be factual you have to say that the Russian troops pulled back from Kiev without fighting.

In Ukraine left maximum 25 mil people.43 is unreal

Russia is not only fighting Ukraine its fighting NATO

como piensan que van a ganar a Rusia es un pais enorme, un pueblo que tiene miles de años acuesta, en tema de guerra y battalla. Es una potencia en todo sentido

I'm pro Russia, and usually don't really watch Western news. But I didn't really notice any bias in this. Great video! I'm astonished

few month ago @cbc told that wass easy to regain crimea!

Ukraine has the backing of NATO and the U.S & still couldn’t make a break through ! Now they’ve lost the war & there Military. 🔥💀🔥

Russia has been clear winner since a year ago, they are absolutely not taking heavier proportion of casualties, the balance is between one Russian to 5-10 Ukrainian, sometimes more...Ukraine stated in needs 20,000 new troops a month, so even with that estimate, 22 months x 20,000 will be a lower estimate at 440,000 KIA with likely another 600,000 injuries, which is staggering loss to the Ukrainian people... Boris holds vicarious liability for those lives...

The offensive was always doomed. The whole Idea that Ukraine could win was just crazy. They should have accepted the Minsk agreement and all this could have been avoided. Unfortunately a lot of lives lost for a worse outcome than Minsk agreement.

This has nothing to do with elastic defense per se. Nothing has changed in that perspective in decades. What has changed is effectively real time detailed intelligence about enemy movements. You can't assemble a large assault force in one location to prepare your attack without being spotted. Indeed, both sides are having their AFVs attacked and destroyed by drones and arty on the way to the front before they even reach their initial contact line. THAT is the change in this war which has never routinely occurred before and it is driven by young men flying light cheap drones multiple km behind enemy lines and being able to either directly strike targets or relay coordinates to arty. In the past you could assess where best to mass your forces against a single area in the elastic defense, breach those lines and roll up the rear of that left, right, or both directions. You can't do that when the enemy can see exactly where and what you intend and can attack you with standoff weapons in your assembly area and on your way to the contact line....effectively disrupting your attack before it starts. This is why Ukraine is using small units with a few AFVs in support. Even the Russians have learned this after losing many thousands of AFVs, including many hundreds in their more recent Adiivka assault. They are now back to a mostly infantry push supported by arty. What could break the stalemate in favor of Ukraine is many long range missiles, like the PSM (might as well try out the new system), combined with hundreds of more modern aircraft, more of your own AA, and the best anti-radiation missiles to take out the enemy AA. In other words, the reality on the ground can only be changed by a different reality in the air because if one side could achieve air dominance then all those cheap drones that operate near the front lines don't matter if your own artillery, AFVs, etc. are destroyed deep in the rear.

According to the Western media, Ukraine has defeated the Russian Army like 28 times lol

Yes once again they do note that part of the reason the Russias went in, was to stop the Ukraine army which was growing all the time helped by the US to take back the Crimea. Otherwise how hell did they manage to drive back the Russians in the first place that first year?