Russian forces appear to be struggling to conduct successful ground assaults to take and hold additional ground despite having conducted a successful battlefield air interdiction (BAI) campaign and infiltration missions to degrade Ukrainian defenses and logistics in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.[6] The urban terrain of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad is not conducive to mechanized, motorized, or mass infantry assaults intended to expand control of terrain, unlike Russian infiltration missions.

The Russian military command has dedicated better-trained and better-equipped units to BAI and infiltration missions than they have to ground assaults. Elite dedicated drone operators of the Rubikon Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies are responsible for interdicting Ukrainian logistics and downing Ukrainian drones in the Pokrovsk direction, and Spetsnaz elements are responsible for initial infiltration missions aimed at disorganizing Ukrainian defenses and creating holes for standard Russian infantry to exploit on subsequent infiltration missions.[7] Russian forces are also struggling to extend logistics that would more easily enable Russian infantry who have already infiltrated into Pokrovsk to consolidate positions and accumulate personnel for further assaults.[8]

...

The Russian military command has proven willing to tolerate the significant losses and time required for such campaigns.[10] The Russian military command may fear that reducing the Russian force presence or tempo of offensive operations anywhere else in the theater may provide Ukrainian forces with an opportunity to make gains or redeploy forces elsewhere. The Russian military command also likely seeks to maintain the facade that Russian forces are making substantial advances across the entire theater, contrary to the battlefield reality, and redeploying forces and means away from some areas of the front at the scale necessary to quickly collapse the Ukrainian pocket in the Pokrovsk direction would undermine this Russian narrative.[11]

Food for thought - What does an offensive about to fail look like? How will journalists and analysts not quite willing yet to challenge status quo narratives about the inveitability of the Russian offensive first describe it before the blossoming failure becomes undeniable?