Talk:2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive

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Text and/or other creative content from this version of 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive was copied or moved into Timeline of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with this edit on 2 August 2023. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Mealie, Daniel; Barros, George; Kagan, Frederick W. (17 September 2023). "Ukraine's Operations in Bakhmut Have Kept Russian Reserves Away from the South". Institute of the Study of War.
"Miscalculations, divisions marked offensive planning by U.S., Ukraine". Washington Post. 4 December 2023.
"In Ukraine, a war of incremental gains as counteroffensive stalls". Washington Post. 4 December 2023.
Biddle, Stephen (29 January 2024). "How Russia Stopped Ukraine's Momentum". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 29 January 2024.

Battle of Neskuchne was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 12 September 2023 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Updated Map

It might be a good idea to have the map at the top of the page to only contain liberated areas in 2023. It could be kind of confusing for people unfamiliar with the war to see all the huge blue areas and then see "Russian defensive victory".

Why are Russian losses in the infobox listed as "heavy"?

From what i know Russian forces did not suffer from heavy losses given they were able to launch their own offensive almost immediatly afterwards? D1d2d3d29 (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least they are not nearly as heavy as Ukranian ones given that Ukraine apparently stopped the offensive because they units comitted to it started running out of infantry D1d2d3d29 (talk) 16:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It suffered much smaller losses than Ukraine and, overall, probably relatively minor losses, unlike Ukraine, and this was the reason why it was then able to conduct its own offensive. Bortak42 (talk) 16:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Russian losses were minor, Ukraine was throwing everything and the kitchen sink at them (wasn't it something like 10-20 thousand artillery shells a day at one point?), and quite a few villages were lost, but they probably weren't bigger than the Ukranian losses, and probably smaller than the Ukranian losses percentage wise D1d2d3d29 (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not only in percentage terms, but also numerically, and several times over. They certainly suffered significant losses. Just as the Russian forces can be said to have suffered significant losses, the Ukrainian forces were literally massacred and few of them remained. Bortak42 (talk) 21:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Massacred? They certainly suffered massive losses given that they apparently only stopped the counteroffensive when the units assigned to it started running out of infantry, but the 47th brigade was able to take part in combat related to Avdiivka shortly after the counteroffensive was over so it couldn't have been that bad

I have no idea wheter Russian losses were lower or higher numerically, all we can say for certain right now is they were much lower in percentage terms since Russian forces were almost immeditaly able to start offensive operations (including some in the Robotyne axis) D1d2d3d29 (talk) 21:46, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd estimate a 10:3 casualty ratio of 10 Ukrainian KIA/Wounded per 2 injured russian 1 of a russian judging from the infamous bradley boneyard although it might be 4:1 or less BarakHussan (talk) 00:21, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The bradley boneyard happened at the very start of the offensive when they tried to zerg rush the first RU defensive line with dozens of armored vehicles, and it was probably the peak of UA casualties by a large margin and should not be used as reference for the months of combat later D1d2d3d29 (talk) 13:33, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The listing of "heavy" casualties under both seems largely speculative, and I suspect there will only be speculative numbers until there is an armistice. Actively warring parties aren't likely to release their own casualty figures. It would probably better to just omit the subsection entirely, or to list casualties as "unknown". Glass Snow (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

> It would probably better to just omit the subsection entirely, or to list casualties as "unknown"

I second this D1d2d3d29 (talk) 16:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article should reference the Institute for the Study of War less

I just did a ctrl+f and found 19 mentions of them in the article, not as a source, but straight up namedropped in the article

The reliance on ISW as a source when so many people in the community consider them a bad source is very worrying to me D1d2d3d29 (talk) 16:10, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ISW is not a reliable source of information, but a neoconservative propaganda mouthpiece. Bortak42 (talk) 17:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is not justified to say ISW is "namedropped", as it is precisely because of the nature of the source that its name typically ought to be mentioned in-line, to allow better or quicker distinction from newspapers (etc) as sources. Fewer citations of the ISW in this article would in my view be preferable, although the claim of it being a "bad source" seems insufficiently supported at present. Perhaps Wikipedia admin (rather than contributors) will let their view made known through the guidelines soon.--CRau080 (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Name of the article

The name "2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive" is quite weak. This should be called the " 2023 Kherson-Crimea-Zaporozhia-Donetsk counteroffensive" or "2023 Southeastern counteroffensive". The name should be similar to the previous ones, such as Kharkiv or Kherson, and not Ukrainian, because all of them are Ukrainian, and this concerns the regions affected by the hostilities. Bortak42 (talk) 9:40, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I know i may be beating a dead horse here but i found even more examples of the institute of the study for war being a comically bad source

https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1790125238954471837

They can't even interpret their sources right D1d2d3d29 (talk) 15:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That X (formerly Twitter) post has been deleted, as I have just checked.--CRau080 (talk) 17:47, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was a post by this user (Jompy (@Jonpy99) / X (twitter.com)), who created a fairly detailed count of vehicles visible in Russian storage bases in satellite pictures, ISW was quoting him and he pointed out that they misrapresented his data in a fairly hilarious fashion

Maybe you can try to DM him personally and ask about it if he deleted the post D1d2d3d29 (talk) 15:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Russian Victory

Gonna have to call out this, Manyareasexpert, revert the removal of russian victory. The counteroffensive was a ukrainian failure based on WP:RS reference by that edit^[1]. To remove that with the excuse of "Not in the article body, not in sources given" is unjustified since it has a source for the victory cited attached to it (headline also explains it was a failure).

^ Barnes, Julian (11 December 2023). "U.S. and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive". The New York Times. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 16 April 2024.

BarakHussan (talk) 22:46, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The counteroffensive was a ukrainian failure based on WP:RS
This is true
it has a source for the victory
and this is not. Therefore the infobox can say "UA failure" but it cannot say "RU victory": [1] .

@Sinclairian, you should not change the infobox to "Russian victory" [2] because neither the sources nor the article itself do not say that. And the infobox should summarize the article and should correspond to what sources say. ManyAreasExpert (talk) 08:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An Ukrainian Failure is a Russian Victory, that is how a victory works. To try to jump through hurdles to say this is not the case is like saying D-Day was a german failure instead of an Allied Victory. This is WP:RS by grounds on implications. If it weren't a Ukrainian failure then Russian Victory would not be the case. Placing both would be an effective point but to say one cannot exist because it only states Ukrainian Failure would not be neutral or factual. BarakHussan (talk) 00:15, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you fall into this bias when discussing an offensive or a counteroffensive---A's failure is B's victory---A's failure in a battle doesn't necessarily mean B's victory(not mentioning failure has 3 types in any war---operational, strategic, and tactical), a case in point is this one, (Operation Barbarossa), and the result is very simple---Axis strategic failure; But it does not say "Soviet victory", because not only USSR is far from victory, but also it involved huge territorial changes up until the eventual failure of Nazi's Operation Barbarossa.

ONLY when discussing a war, then we can say the eventual outcome is, say, "A's victory"(as in so many wars, not limited to WWI, WWII, Sino-Japanese War, or even all the wars in Middle East), because you're talking about a whole package, not an individual item. Bf0325 (talk) 00:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The original outcome didn't use the correct failure type, this we have to note. But to stretch it as "Ukrainian failure" or "Russian victory" without discussing the correct type of topic is unwise---ONLY when discussing the eventual outcome of a war, then we can simply use "A's failure" or "B's victory"; other than that, for a battle, it could be "A's strategic/operational/tactical failure", or "B's strategic/operational/tactical victory", or even "Inconclusive", and we got lots of battles and Wikipedia terms on WWII to consult with and emulate the way they depicted.

Plus, if I were so argumentative about failure or victory, then trust me, your name BarakHussan is not far away from Barak Hussein, then it's a pretty typical Arabic name, right? Don't deny that! If you can't counter or refuse, then that's my victory, and your failure, anyway! If you countered or refused but without any proof or show me why, then that's still your failure! Bf0325 (talk) 00:11, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Barnes, Julian (11 December 2023). "U.S. and Ukraine Search for a New Strategy After Failed Counteroffensive". The New York Times. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 16 April 2024.

[1]