so ....."Its not an offensive at this stage, its been a probing...

so ....."Its not an offensive at this stage, its been a probing action with very few troops committed to the attack."

you are saying 30,000 origninal troops was "very few "?
now INCREASED to 40,000

sounds to me like you are making excuses for how little bang russia has got and for the slow advance - which we saw pushed back for the first time this morning in Vovchansk