On the contrary, I am absolutely OK to discuss losses, risks and benefits, but I have the feeling you are not and will come out with something else (e.g. your favourite fixations Nuland and Nordstream) or some troll farm parroting. Let's try to see if you actually have any data or you are ... just saying...
1. what do you think are the loses for Ukraine in three days?
2. How many Ruzzian PoW has Ukraine made?
3. How many km2 has Ruzzia lost in these 3 days?
4. What is the benefit for Ruzzia of Ukraine being (some sources claim) 50km, loosing several localities including Sudzha 5000 habitants?
Let's compare:
1b. How long did it take for Ruzzia to take Avdiivka and how many loses would you say were there?
2b. How many loses would you say takes Ruzzia to take and equivalent bit of land and localities in the Donbas?
3b. How long in advance did Ukraine noticed that there would be a Kharkiv offensive from Ruzzia? Why Ruzzia did not notice the Kursk offensive?
I can tell you about risk to Ukraine is, if they are not able to move forward and later build defences fast enough, having to retreat in a hurry.
There seems to be quite a bit of air defence combined with surveillance and FPV drones, IFVs and some tanks have been seen so threats have been considered as they know now very well how the Ruzzian army operates.
This has been pulled out right under Ruzzia's nose, so I guess one of the risks out there is to the head of the Ruzzian military intelligence. To his head properly said.
1-From what i read the consensus seems to be that this attack caught Russians unprepared, Russia didn't expect such brazen frontal attack. Such "blitzkrieg" is typically to attacker advantage as long as they can sustain movement and keep outmaneuvering defenders. No clue on absolute numbers, believe i read RU side claimed 1k UA losses.
2-If we only view these past 3 days, as Ukraine advanced for the first time since the counteroffensive, and caught Russia by surprise, logically UA would take in more PoW than RU. But overall i believe RU still has overwhelmingly more UA's PoWs than UA.
3-Operations is still ongoing so it's all fluid and no one will release true numbers, but some reports claims 100s of km^2 on first 3 days, reportedly since then Russia has already liberated Martynovka. But once again it's still ongoing
4-What's the benefit for Russia loosing land
rhetorical question.
1b-Silly propaganda attempt, more specifically, false comparison, trying to equate taking a well fortified city on the frontline for years to a surprise attack across the border taking few villages.
2b-Again trying to compare attacking well fortified position to a rushed surprised attack.
3b-All of western intelligence is concentrated on Ukraine. NATO has exponentially more satellites than Russia, so naturally it's intelligence would be better. Don't think anyone would argue against that. Plus it's hard to predict such suicidal attacks.
Now, how high were UA losses protecting Avdiivka, and what are RU losses during this operation?
So if Ukraine will retreat in few days you'd concede that this operation was a failure?Russia Appears to Partly Halt Ukraine’s Cross-Border Assault, Analysts Say
...
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst from the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes satellite imagery and social media content from the battlefield, said in an interview on Saturday that evidence suggested that Moscow had been able to stall major advances in Russian territory late in the week.
“We’re now entering the phase where the easy gains have been made,” he said of Ukraine’s initial advance. “This phase, for the first three days, saw the most rapid movement,” he added. “And yesterday, I think, we started to see the effects of the Russian response.”
To counter the incursion, Russia’s military appears to be relying mostly on units that were already deployed near the area, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Most of those units consist of military conscripts and irregular forces, as opposed to the battle-hardened soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
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So far, Russian forces have not let up in their frontline pushes. In recent days, they have made some inroads near the embattled eastern Ukrainian towns of Chasiv Yar, Toretsk and Pokrovsk, the Institute for the Study of War said. On Friday, the British Defense Ministry said that Russian troops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine had gained ground, pushing to about 10 miles from Pokrovsk.
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The new offensive has also alarmed the Russian public, and if conscripts are killed, that could bring the war home in a way that losses along the front lines have not.
...The Ukrainian authorities, perhaps preparing for retaliation, said on Friday that they were evacuating 20,000 people from the Sumy region, across the border from Kursk.
As expected, looks like Russia is tapping into it's 300k of conscripts on it's land, instead of pulling contractors from the front line. Desperate attempt to destabilize Russia from within. Should know in few days how well that worked.
Militarily, seems like UA is not only planning for a possibility of a retreat but also expecting Russia won't be satisfied with just getting it's territory back but will push further and enter Sumy.
Ukrainian volunteers evacuated dozens of residents, and their pets, from northern Sumy region in anticipation of more Russian attacks in response to Ukraine's cross-border military incursion into the Kursk region...
Sumy Governor Volodymyr Artiukh ordered 28 villages evacuated from a 10-km (six-mile) zone hugging the border. National police said on Friday that 20,000 would have to leave.
Seems that we can both agree that regardless of the outcome, this operation brings negotiations closer. Which everyone should welcome.
But these events also set yet another terrible precedent onto our world. Now countries can openly equip third country and just pay for their soldiers to invade/attack another country, while claiming not to be a party to the conflict. I'm sure a lot of good will come out of this in the future. This of course has been done many times before in our history, but never with countries openly admitting to it like now. If UN will let this slide, it would be catastrophic, would mean that they managed to completely destroy the core idea for UN.