10-02-2022, 04:49 PM
I’m probably revealing my ignorance here, but is defending “more territory” the right metric? Area of territory defended is meaningless, or Russia would be in big trouble having to nominally defend the largest country on the planet. But Russia doesn’t really have to defend Siberia, or even the border with Finland (and there are reports that it isn’t). So, really, it is a question of the line of defense, right? I suppose that now that Ukraine has extended its control in Karkiv to the border with Russia, it does have to worry about Russia attacking from Belgorod or Belarus again, but it took Russia months to set up an attacking force from there, so I presume Ukraine will know if it is threatened again. So, as Russia retreats to consolidate its own vulnerable lines, that also reduces the breadth of the lines for Ukraine. I think under that logic, the advantage that Russia gets is that it can concentrate its forces so it will be harder for Ukraine to push further, but I don’t think it means that Ukraine will have a harder time defending its territory once it is consolidated. What am I missing?
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