Poster Comment:
This is a short video of Ukrainian soldiers in mud. Heavy tanks and artillery would get stuck in this mud. The temperature has to stay below the freezing point of water so snow does not melt for months. Videos in Belarus show a little snow on the ground. It is freezing even in the warmest part of they day. Russia has to wait for 1) more trains full of armor 2) more snow 3) more soldiers.
The plan is to pin down the Ukrainians at Sumy is which due west of Kharkov but to send their main army to Kiev and to cut them off. Sumy, if cut, would stop all train traffic and electrical power transmission. The Bakhmut area in the Donbass is an ongoing major, fight to the death battle. When it is over, Bakhmut will fall and the entire Ukrainian line in the center of the country will collapse. I keep seeing cemeteries of Ukrainian soldiers buried in sections by the month of their death.
I think Putin might try to end the war very quickly, even before Russian Orthodox Christmas which is January 6th. That is possible. The Ukrainians are using Nazi battalions to force others to fight to the death in suicidal human wave attacks. About 1,600 of 30,000 Polish soldiers have died so far. If I were Putin, I would attack those Nazi battalions really hard on Day One. If they get the idea, they are targeted for extinction, they will scatter. This will allow regular soldiers to surrender.
Russia will have 1,000 MLRS rocket launchers that can fire 12,000 guided rockets over 120 miles with 600 pound warheads. That and a thousand cruise missiles and Iranian rockets can attack Ukrainian military units. Also 50,000 artillery shells a day plus 1,500 tanks. If the Russians start just a few days before Christmas, the Ukrainian army in the field might surrender before the Epiphany or Orthodox Christmas.