Do I agree?
Yesno.
This is coming weeks too late. Check my summaries all the way back to April and compare: I do not understand, after nearly three months of this war, what serious analysts still can’t stop daydreaming about Russians making major advances like all the way to Poltava and Zaporizhzhya and whatever else. It was clear right since April that even trying to connect, say, an advance from Izium in the north and Vuhledar in the south is out of their reach.
But, one from Lyman (via Bilohorivka) to Popasna – that’s within their capability.
It’s similar in regards of the Ukrainian counteroffensive north of Kharkiv: it must be crystal clear by now, that this is not ‘forcing the Russian command to make hard choices’. They gave up Kharkiv already two months ago. They can’t care less what’s going on there. All that might matter to them – all provided the Ukrainians bring in their artillery there – is going to be the situation in Vovchanks.
Thus, ISW, ‘all nice and fine’, but it’s about the time for the people there to start getting more realistic in their assessments of the RFA. On the other hand, considering no end of complaints about the US armed forces severely suppressing anybody thinking ‘out of the line’, any kind of ‘risk takers’…. Well, no surprise the ISW can’t think past the tip of its nose.