Putin is fighting back

Vladimir Putin is fighting back and I reckon he thinks he's in with a chance to improve things on the battlefield before winter sets in. There are two reasons for this. First, his missile bombardment followed by kamikaze drone attacks on Kyiv and other cities have caused terror and fears for the future. Just what he wanted. And second the first batches of the 300,000 mobilised reserve troops have arrived and are settling in to help defend towns and cities taken from Ukraine. All the intelligence and defence experts are saying that the reservists are ill-trained, badly equipped and lacking in motivation. But while that may be the case with the basic troops, Putin has mobilised a lot of reservists who have skills which could play a crucial role in boosting Russian defences. This will include technical skills. So the combination of kamikazi harassment and more troops pouring in might just give Putin the edge he has been desperately searching for and blunt the Ukrainian counter-offensives. The poor Ukrainians have got to put up with electricty blackouts and shortage of water supplies because of the deliberate Russian targeting of critical infrastructure. So conditions are deteriorating. The war is going to get worse, much worse for the Ukrainians over the next few months unless the current counter-offensives in the south and east make a significant breakthrough, such as seizing back of the southern city of Kherson. If they do that, the Russians will be trapped in the south. But it's going to require a huge effort and right now progress is very slow. Meanwhile, Putin is hoping his "special military operation" is getting somewhere at last.