Thread by @TheStudyofWar

NEW: It is premature to make assessments about the overall success of ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive operations occurring along several lines of advance toward several different apparent objectives.🧵(1/11)
isw.pub/UkrWar081823

2/ @washingtonpost reported on August 17 that the US intelligence community has assessed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach #Melitopol in western #Zaporizhia Oblast and will not achieve its principal objective of severing the Russian land bridge to #Crimea.

3/ The unverified intelligence assessment reportedly states that effective Russian defensive operations and dense minefields have constrained Ukrainian advances and will continue to do so. washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

4/  Anonymous US officials reportedly stated that Ukrainian forces will advance to within several miles of Melitopol but not further.

5/ A Ukrainian advance to within a few miles of #Melitopol would bring the critical road and rail connections on which #Russia relies to supply its forces within range of Ukrainian artillery systems, severely compromising Russia’s ability to continue to use them for that purpose.

6/ It is unclear from published reports why US intelligence analysts have reportedly concluded that seizing Melitopol is the only way #Ukraine can sever the Russian land bridge.

7/ ISW has, in fact, assessed that Ukraine has many options for severing critical Russian ground lines of communication along the northern Sea of Azov coast of which the seizure of #Melitopol is only one. isw.pub/UkrWar081823

8/ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken notably offered a diverging opinion from the alleged intelligence assessment on August 15, stating that the prospects for Ukraine’s counteroffensive to make significant “strategic gains” will remain unclear for at least a month or longer.

9/ ISW has consistently assessed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will be a protracted, non-linear series of operations, which will likely continue to occur in phases of differing tempos.

10/ The Ukrainian counteroffensive is not a discrete set of scheduled operations, and current counteroffensive operations are likely setting more favorable conditions for larger significant operations.

11/ ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations are significantly degrading defending Russian forces and that the overall degradation of the Russian defensive line creates opportunities for any UKR breakthrough to be potentially operationally significant.