I don’t see how they have the front line forces to man the trenches either. Especially the ones On The Russian border.
They have also installed trenches on the wrong face of hills etc.
Russians are great at using minefields, something they practice and Ukraine has lost many vehicles to Russian mines. Frankly that is the most effective defensive tool they have. They know how to use them.
I agree, mines have been effective and the Russians have been using a lot of them. I saw the transcript of an interview with a Ukrainian combat engineer and the questions were initially about Russian tanks, specifically whether the engineer was more worried about older tanks with ERA or newer tanks without. The engineer wasn't that worried about either because he rarely saw Russian tanks. His two biggest concerns were Russian artillery and Russian mines.
One thing the west has been providing lately that has largely slipped under the radar is mine clearing equipment. Among these are the mine clearing charges used to clear a lot of mines in one go. It's an explosive line that is shot out from a mine clearing tank that can be over 100 m long. When set off it explodes all mines within a few meters on each side of the rope. Mine dozer plows for tanks are also being provided. These are two outwardly angled blades that mount on the front of a tank and they either set off or push mines out of the way of the tank. I believe an array of mine detecting equipment has also been provided.
In the opening phases of the assault, these mine clearing vehicles are used to clears channels through the minefields the rest of the vehicles will use to get through.
One thing I haven't seen the Russians use much is barbed wire. Barbed wire in front of trenches and other fortified positions make it more difficult to attack those positions. Without wire unmounted infantry can get close to the trenches much more easily.
Once the trenches are cleared of enemy troops, getting vehicles across them requires another type of engineering vehicle. One is a bridge layer that deploys a complete bridge across the trench, but those are better kept in reserve for bridging streams. The other tool is a large bundle of sticks or pipe that is mounted on a tank. The tank pulls up to the trench and releases the pipe which falls into the trench making it easily passable by vehicles. The British ARVE corps pioneered this in WW II with bundles of sticks, but pipe is most often used now.
Then the Russians have the option of redeploying those men on the Russ/UKR border to trenches further west
Because the Russians have the outside lines in this war, shifting troops from the north to some other part of the line takes time. Moving at their fastest getting troops from the Kharkhiv area around to Mariopol is going to take a week at minimum. If the Ukrainians are doing things right, they won't have a week.
Getting into Crimea will be tough for the Ukrainians, so they might be able to move them around into Crimea in time, but Ukraine could turn Crimea into a large encirclement fairly easily. With Ukraine pushing at the land access points in the north and on the Azoz Sea coast further east, they can interdict supply into Crimea to a point where the Russian navy bringing it into southern ports that will potentially be under HIMARS fire will be their only supply route open to them. Supply into Crimea will drop to a trickle. Crimea at that point could turn into more of a trap for Russia than an asset.
Perhaps that argument is true, but it grates on me that RUSS can invade another country and turn it into rubble while crying 'Nukes !!' if they get an iota of misery.
And more importantly, respecting their border as sacrosanct just invites more aggression. Countries or people, the way to handle a bully is to bloody its nose. UKR would do well to not specifically target civilians the way RUSS does, but military infrastructure should be more than fair game. To us armchair quarterbacks it is a war game; to UKR it is a war of survival. I for one would support putting this war on an even(er) playing field.
Ukraine has attacked military assets in Russia many times. Things like the attack on the strategic bombers made headlines, but they have attacked military facilities around Belgorad many times. Lobbing some mortar shells at Russian trenches on the border around Kharkhiv might be part of the plan to keep the Russians pinned down in the north while the attack in the south of east develops.
