Russian President Vladimir Putin said recently:

[E]veryone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.

This is the lead in to why the West is completely missing the point of what the Russians are doing in the Donbass. For instance the BBC recently reported Russian missiles hitting a reservoir dam near the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. It goes on to state -- "Ukraine said the strike was revenge by Russia for its recent counter-attack. This was an apparent reference to Ukraine's recent military successes in a swift counter-offensive in the country's north-eastern Kharkiv region. It has seen Ukraine's army reclaim swathes of occupied territory, forcing Russian troops to retreat. In his speech, Mr Zelensky said the reservoir had "no military value at all".

Zelenski is no military strategist, but a political hack. The Ingulet river, which the dam restrained, flows mainly north to south through Kryvyi Rih (Russian spelling: Krivoi Rog) to then turn southwest before it ends in the Dnieper. On its southwest flowing part it demarcated the border between the Ukrainian and Russian held territory. During the Kherson 'counteroffensive' Ukrainian troops had used pontoon bridges to cross the river and to attack on the southern side. The hopeless attack across bare steppe continued throughout the last days despite huge losses on the Ukrainian side. The hit on the dam was not in 'revenge' but will raise the Ingulet river and speed it up. It will wash away those pontoon bridges. The Ukrainian troops south of the river will be without resupplies and more easy to defeat. Or so the Russian's hope ... With the river now flooding they will be cut off from the northern side. This attack had a clear military value. It is not a 'terrorist' act. Water diversions for military purposes are a standard tactic in larger military operations.

Rivers and water ways are effective defensive barriers. If anyone has noticed, in the Kharkiv-Izium area to the north, the Russian forces moved out of the region because the Ukro-Nazi offensive was known that it was going to happen. The sparcely populated Kharkiv-Izium area was less important to hold than centralizing these Russian forces in the Donetsk area. The objective of the Russian operation was to protect the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts from UkroNazi genocide. The move out of the Kharkiv-Izium area was to avoid unnecessary Russian troop loss. The Russian forces pulled back to the eastern side of the Oskol river and are now protected by it. At the southern end, near Lyman, the Siverski Donets river is used to cover the Russian forces. These are strong positions, hard to attack, that can be held by a limited force. So, the Kharkiv-Izium area was withdrawn similarly to the earlier Kiev campaign was. In fact back in April, the Ukrainian side flooded large areas north of Kiev to stop Russian troops from moving towards the city. This is the same tactic just used by the Russians yesterday when Russian missiles hit a reservoir dam on the Ingulet river. It has effectively left Ukrainian forces stranded and cutoff.

With all of this said, we know in the Kherson region that the landscape is pretty much open steppe geographically. Defending against the Ukrainian offensive campaign there, this is like a turkey shoot for the Russians. And indeed it was. The Ukrainians are purported to have lost over 4000 soldiers. This amounts to more than 2 brigades. What's more, the Kharkiv-Izium offensive in the north is said to be even worse for Ukrainian losses than the Kherson Offensive. The Russians casualties have been consistently minimal and the estimated ratio is 1 to every 10 Ukrainians. With the Ukrainian offensive this ratio has to be even higher.

Notes taken from Moon of Alabama.