This seems the obvious and logical thing for the Russians to do, which probably means they should not do it!
The could concentrate their forces along the lines of the green arrows, with the idea of cutting off any Ukranian forces in the area marked "A".
If the Ukranians see this one coming, they could retreat to Cherkasy to a line of prepared defense there. It is easy to say "line of defense" but it is probably not a thing that could be done as the front line might be 300 miles long. Maybe the best thing might be to have a tank on tank battle at that position. Because of maintenance and supply issues, maybe only half of the actual Russian tank force might get there, making for a more even fight.
As in the last war, the importance of anti-tank guns and placement of mines is vital.
The Russians have a rather capable mine exploding tank, which is all very nice unless you are being targeted by an anti-tank gun while doing your mine exploding thing.
Their supply lines will be extended and hence vulnerable.
Someone has noted that there are no forests for the Ukrainians to hide in in this area, so the war in this area may be a different story.
It would be pretty hard to hide an infantryman on a large flat area that this part of the country appears to be.
Because of this factor and the lack of weapons supplied by the allies, I say the situation by 30 July 2022 will be as per the picture below.
At which point Putin might say that was all he wanted anyway, so how about lifting them pesky sanctions?
At this the free world needs to say: You leave, then we might lift the sanctions. We would need Mr Putin to appear in a court and tried as a war criminal. All highly unlikely.
So what would happen then? Probably a war that drags on for years, until Putin dies of old age.
As a friend commented, funny how Covid stopped nicely just in time for this to happen?
After years in Afghanistan the US pulls out for no seeming good reason....except that maybe they wanted the decks clear because they knew this was coming?
I think US intelligence did know this was going to happen, at least 5 years before the event.
The various armchair generals (me included) all said:
"This war should be all over in 3 weeks, Russia will win ".
I have a funny feeling that the US intelligence knew that the Russians would run into trouble, and that Russian logistics and maintenance were not good enough.
They would also have pretty good projections of what the Russians would do next.
What the US could do(?) is flood Ukraine with SAM batteries, good enough to shoot down high flying jets, and low flying helicopters. This alone would redress the air power side of things.
To counter the numerical superiority of Russian tanks it may be possible to bring more ground launched cruise missiles. The US are already sending 100 Switchblade drones, a camera operated remote controlled flying bomb. All very nice but the Russians have more than 100 tanks.
It may pay to target the fuel supplies of the tanks. In World War 2 the allies concentrated on knocking out the German petrol supplies, which hastened the end of that war.
Update as at 27 October 2022
Just shows how bad an armchair general I am.
The Ukrainians appear to be punishing the Russians quite badly and are currently pushing them back, with a possibility of taking Kherson.
There seems to be a bit of talk about a dirty nuclear bomb being let off and putting of the blame onto the Russians. At least that is what the Russians are saying.
Such an event would not advantage the Ukrainians, as they are on a winning streak at the moment. Not to mention polluting their own land for generations to come. So it makes no sense for the them to do such a thing.
The Russians, though, would have a lot to gain from such a horrific idea......
