Well from a Ukrainian point of view, this is the gist that keeps on giving. They already know how to trade territory for time… and now it’s not even their territory.

For the Russians though:

• General mobilisation or not… either you anger the populace or you lack manpower for all your warlording needs…

Then about the “hot” fronts:

• Retake Russian soil now and divert assets away from the east
• Keep the assets to the east flowing screw kharkiv.
• Split assets evenly between both and fail on both locations.
• Pull material from other parts of the fronts creating weaknesses that will be exploited.

Manpower is not the biggest issue here, materiel is. Manpower they could mobilize, but I doubt they can magically make more afv’s tanks and other stuff appear… if they had more they would use them in the Donbas, they are all in by now.

And finally, how to approach retaking your own land while trying to maintain it is an SMO.

• Slow, steady and with finesse in order to not oblitherate 1000+ km2 of your own country
• Same old tactics and use BM21 grad systems and fab500’s to turn your own villages into a post apocalyptic wasteland littered with uxo.

It seems like Ukraine though this through, I hope they can pull it off.