Day 21 Summary. We are three weeks in.
https://militaryland.net/ukraine/invasio...1-summary/
Here's a Day 21 summary from a different source, the Institute for the Study of War. (Reputable, with several big name retired US Generals like Jack Keane and David Petraeus.) It isn't dramatically different than the ones I've been posting, but does have some additional information that's interesting.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgro...t-march-16
They assess the current Russian forces around Kyiv as inadaquate to take the city. Russian offensive operations northwest of Kyiv, where most of the Russian attacks have been, have so far been small scale, on the company to battalion scale. The Russians have been unable to advance effectively on Kyiv from the east because they have failed to take cities closer to Russia like Sumy and Chernihiv, so have had to devote forces to those fights in the rear that would have otherwise advanced on Kyiv.
We knew that the Russians have sent in pretty much all of the forces they had staged around Ukraine before the invasion. Those forces have proven to be insufficient, so the Russians have been pressuring Belarus to enter the war. But Belarus so far has resisted the pressure. (They've seen what's happening to the much larger Russian forces.) So the Russians have been calling up reserves from all over Russia and Russian military stationed overseas from places like Armenia. Apparently cadets from officer training are being graduated early and sent directly to the front. Other reports have the Russians bringing in thousands of Syrian fighters.
Apparently many Russian units have taken so many losses that they are combat ineffective, so the Russians are reorganizing the remains into new units along with the newly arrived reservists. The ISW believes that these new makeshift units will suffer even worse command and logistics problems than we've already seen. Several top Russian generals have been killed in battle. They might be hard to replace, but they do indicate that some Russian generals are leading from the front rather than issuing orders from the rear.
The ISW believes that the Ukrainian Air Force still has some effective punch in the southwest and is part of why the Russians seem to have stalled out in front of Mykolaiv. The recent Ukrainian attack on the Russian supply and helicopter base at the Kherson airport was conducted with Ukrainian air support.
The ISW reports satellites have seen some 13 Russian ships off the port of Odessa. Their opinion is that the Russians won't attempt an amphibious landing by naval infantry (marines) which is likely to fail unless Russian ground forces are attacking the city from the other side and drawing away defenders. There isn't any sign of that yet.
The Russians have made little or no attempt to enter the center of Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv since early in the war and attempts to encircle it have been unsuccessful so far. So they just sit in the northern industrial outskirts and shell downtown mercilessly.
But the Russians have had more success in far eastern Ukraine where they have taken most of Luhansk oblast and seem to be advancing in Donetsk oblast. The port of Mariupol remains surrounded and street fighting is underway. The Russians have reportedly taken the main hospital and the city is being pounded by artillery. Both military and civilian Ukrainian casualties are probably high. Mariupol is expected to fall in coming days.
