The Armed Forces of Ukraine were able to advance up to 1,400 metres on different parts of the Bakhmut front during the day, Serhii Cherevatyi, the spokesman for the eastern group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said.
The primary Ukrainian challenge (just an armchair opinion) in this conflict, and particularly with counter offenses, is going to be the preservation of life while still trying to push Russia out. They simply have such a population disadvantage that Russia can afford a massive variety of stupid mistakes and still have advantage. Normally in war you could counter this with more guerilla, more lopsided, more 'underhanded' (what does that even mean in a war where Russia is committing atrocities daily) tactics. But I have a feeling a ton of the weapons and intel being supplied to Ukraine comes with stipulations that restrict almost all of these options.
I wish nothing but the best for them, I hope they can protect their country and their people.
But I have a feeling a ton of the weapons and intel being supplied to Ukraine comes with stipulations that restrict almost all of these options.
Are you not familiar with historical support of "moderate rebels" and so on by the US? The US has not even the slightest compunction about the most heinous war crimes. Even in western press it has been openly reported, among other things, that Ukraine is handing out guns to its citizens on an incredibly casual basis, which isn't a huge deal (if you want to be part of a gang, just join a militia) but isn't reflective of the sort of stipulations you are imagining
Ukraine is handing out guns to its citizens on an incredibly casual basis
That was only the case during the first few weeks when Kyiv was under direct threat and the regular citizenry was trying to defend their homes. Now, all fighters are in the TDF, National Guard, Regular Army or other government agencies.
Most signs indicate that UA is taking heavy losses while RUS occasionally cedes (and then often takes back) territory. This has been the pattern of the war. In addition, UA military statements are not generally credible, so always take a skeptical eye to these things - particularly from an English-language tabloid uncritically repeating MoD propaganda.
The overall "pattern of the war" is that Russia took a bunch of Ukrainian territory early on, and then has spent the past year having its meat ground and losing big chunks of occupied territory back to the Ukrainians again. Bakhmut has been notable because it was an exception to this overall pattern. We may now be seeing the pattern reassert itself there, though.
That is the common narrative among Americans and Redditors, but it is, as to be expected, based on an uncritical acceptance of numbers and stories from untrustworthy sources, sources with an obvious interest in keeping support for the sending weapons and other military support to UA. This post, for example, coming from Pravda UA and just passing along the message from the MoD. No critical look at any of it from liberals, just cheerleading based on vibes.
I stated a generalization based on reading widely for over a year. There isn't really one source or even a few, it's from many of varying quality and biases, including the UA MoD, the RF MoD, US gov, independent journalists on the ground, interviews with civilians, interviews with soldiers, military analysts (usually German and Austrian), and reading between the lines when, e.g., von der Leyen makes an oopsie about casualty numbers.