As this three year long war drags on, with so little progress on the ground that clearly the war is headed towards being a 4-year long war or more, there were 5 flashpoints that serve as good indicators of who is winning. These are the fortress cities of Ukraine that Russia has been fighting in/for for years but still can't take, proving Ukraine can stop Russia's advance cold whenever they want to.
These five invincible strongholds were Toretsk, Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Pokrovsk and Siversk. So long as Russia couldn't take these cities, it was logically implicit that they couldn't beat Ukraine, which is much larger than these five cities. What's most frustrating about these immobile battle lines, this World War I trench warfare where progress is measured in meters, is that Ukraine managed to take Kupiansk from Russia in a couple days. It's only when Russia attacks that taking territory suddenly becomes impossible and takes years.
Kupiansk is situated along a vital river barrier and rail line that connects Russia's mainland to their newly acquired Luhansk district. Without Kupiansk Russian logistics are severely crippled both during the war and economically speaking after the war ends.
Chasiv Yar is situated on a hill that blocks all progress in the region until taken, because all Russian forces would be sitting ducks due to Chasiv Yar spotters seeing them from the elevation. Chasiv Yar sits at a road intersection that links it to Konstantinovka, a major city that then opens the way to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Siversk is this small town with hills to the east, a river and dense forest to its north, and strong fortifications to the south. There's nothing particularly defensible about Siversk itself, but it serves as the logistics hub to the front line which is an ideal natural fortress. Russia hasn't made any progress in this region for years, losing Bilogorivka in a couple days but unable to take it back in the years since. Somehow invincible fortress territory only applies when Ukraine is defending it. Until Russia can close this pocket (they surround Siversk on three sides), they can't straighten their front line or continue their advance anywhere in the area (their flanks would be exposed to a counterattack situated out of Siversk if they kept expanding to the north or south of Siversk).
Pokrovsk is a road and rail hub that supplies the entire front line in the region. If taken those roads and railroads could help Russian logistics quickly expand deep into Ukrainian territory, with no urban or natural barriers of consequence all the way to the Dnieper river. Recently Russia had managed to take land directly to the south and west of Pokrovsk, threatening its eventual encirclement, but Ukrainian counterattacks have for the nonce scuttled those plans.
In all these cases Russia has lost these battles, spending inordinate amounts of time and troops trying but failing to take these towns. Russia is winning in other places, but those places were of less strategic importance, making minimal difference in the war as a whole. Furthermore, Russia is losing ground to Ukraine in the Kursk region, a portion of Russia proper, so it makes no sense for Russia to be trading their own territory for gains in far-off and out-of-the-way corners of Ukraine.
But finally a bright light shines down upon the Russian army. Hope has arrived. Toretsk has fallen. Russia can finally claim a single victory out of the 5 battlefields they need to win.
Toretsk is situated midway between Konstantinovka and Pokrovsk. By taking Toretsk you can threaten Konstantinovka from the south and Pokrovsk from the northeast. This will greatly aid in the capture of both those towns (which will happen after Russia finally takes Chasiv Yar and can put Konstantinovka in pincers).
More importantly, Toretsk, which was full of mines and hills and fortifications and high-rise buildings, making it a devil of a beehive to take, was only a dozen kilometers from the civilian population of Gorlovka, a heavily populated city in Donetsk. It was also similarly close to the capital of Donetsk, Donetsk itself. From this position, and due to all the elevations, Ukraine was happily raining down terror on the civilian population of Russian-occupied Donetsk. For years they have been using artillery, MLRS, drones, whatever they wanted to kill innocent civilians for fun from this position. The entire population of the region has been living in fear of Toretsk, which through some tragic coincidence is all located right next to it. With Toretsk taken the front line can be pushed sufficiently far enough away that only expensive weapons like HIMARS can attack the civilian population that voted to join Russia back in 2014.
Toretsk was like a bigger and stronger Avdiivka. Now that both those areas are cleared out Donetsk can finally live in peace.
There is still work to be done, because Sherbinivka is like Fort Worth to Toretsk's Dallas, and it still hasn't been taken. Until the remaining urban area is taken the battle for Toretsk isn't really done. But Sherbinivka doesn't have all the mines and terracones that made Toretsk so impossible to take, so it should fall much more swiftly.
I said in a previous post discussing the battlefield that 'everything starts with Toretsk.' I was right, Russia started by taking Toretsk. Henceforth things can develop in a much more interesting and positive manner.
Meanwhile, I'm playing my new video game Dynasty Warriors Origins. I'm trying to bring peace to ancient China as well as modern Russia. So far I love the game, in terms of gameplay and graphics. But I have a sinking feeling that the game won't cover nearly as much of the material as the previous iterations did. It's so detailed and thorough when it comes to the early portion of the story that I'm afraid there won't be any time left for the later half of the historical era. I've already noticed they've cut down on the number of characters featured in the game, and drastically reduced the number of weapons from 90 unique movesets down to just 10. Now, maybe a lot of those weapons in previous games were silly and didn't deserve to exist, but it was fun being able to change things up and play at least slightly differently in each stage. Instead I'm stuck playing the same character in every stage with the same basic weapons (sword or spear or chakrams or fists). Basically it feels like an incredibly polished subset of the previous games -- where they do one thing really well by giving up on all the other things. Maybe they plan to improve the game over time with lots of downloadable content packages or sequels?
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