This is a quick thread on Russian plans, maps, and trucks.🧵
We are going to start with Ukraine & explain. 1/
Most people have no clue as to how truely large Ukraine is. So, to cure that, I have gone to the thetruesize.com appin order to educate people.
In this case by laying the US state of Texas over Ukraine. The Texas-Louisiana border to El Paso is roughly the distance 2/
between Ukraine's Russian & Polish borders.
The distance of Kyiv from the Belarus border to be about that of the Oklahoma border to Dallas, Texas.
The tip of Crimea to the Ukraine-Belarus border is roughly from Brownsville Tx to the Red River border w/Oklahoma. 3/
Driving from Texarkana on the N.E. tip of Texas to El Paso at the western tip is 814 miles & 12 hours 13 min. non-stop on US interstates with a 75 mph speed limit
There was no way the Russian trucks like this were going to make it from Belarus to Kyiv 4/
Putin's generals thought it would take 3 days to overthrow the Ukraine government and 12 more days for the 190,000 troops to occupy the entire country of 43 million people, twice that of Texas.
That is one Russian conscript per 266 Ukrainians & 3.1 sq. km 6/
This plan assumed the Ukrainian military would put up a token resistance and the newly installed Puppet government would arrange the surrender of Ukraine's army of 250,000 men and 45,000 man territorial defense force without any weapons or soldiers going insurgent. 7/
Nor do those armed Ukrainian numbers include the six annual conscript classes that filled up that 250,000 man army in the eight years of fighting in the Donbas.
Assuming 1/2 of 250,000 x six, that is 730,000 combat veterans who would take great exception to Russia's puppet 8/
Assuming only a perfect plan for the Ukrainian Army, territorials plus Russians faced only 150,000 of those conscript classes. Russian & puppet forces would only outnumber them 3.2 to one in a popular insurgency.
That isn't enough to win.
9/
See these #'s
"However, when facing broadly popular insurgencies, counterinsurgents lost every time they possessed a force ratio advantage of 5-1 or less, failed half the time with odds between 6-1 and 10-1,
...but succeeded three-quarters of the time when outnumbering the insurgents by 10-1 or more."
Short form:
Putin lost the moment he decided to invade Ukraine.
Russia has no political or military options to achieve successful war termination. 11/
The only agents in this war with the power to achieve war termination in Ukraine is the Ukrainian people.
Not the Ukrainian government
The people.
Ukraine is engaged in a national people's war against a Kleptocratic potentate. 12/
The Ukrainian people's terms are "We want the Russians gone, all our lands back and even then we will still keep fighting Russia while Putin is in power."
No Ukrainian government can force them to settle for anything less. 13/
Since Putin's 15-day plan has failed & Ukraine's military is fighting. Lets turn to another map that represents the reality on the Ground in Ukraine.
Ukraine is big.
So big that we have a lot of space between conventional armed formations like the WW2 N. African campaign. 14/
There are more armed Ukrainians than Russians in Ukraine.
While the Russians are fighting conventional Ukrainian Army unit for cities and choke points.
The Ukrainian territorials are fulfilling a role much like the colonial militia of the American revolution.
They are
15/
...filling the the space between armed units and destroying Russian Army truck convoys in the 21st century like the Colonial militia destroyed British army foraging parties around Philadelphia in the 18th century & impelled then to retreat or starve.
President Zelensky claimed on Mar 9, 2022 that more Russian equipment has been captured than Ukrainian equipment lost in the campaign to date, and thus all Ukrainian losses have been covered in operational units by Russian AFV trophies, especially MBTs.
/19
Contrafactual Short form:
Ukraine is winning the vehicular firepower war of attrition with Russia because it has trained & combat experienced reserves from its previous conscript classes to fill those tractor captured Russian AFV's.
Long conventional war favors Ukraine.
20/End
PS.
Yes, the thread turned out to be long, not short.
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It has been clear for about 18 months that the Ukrainian military has put in the time to master and digest the materials in the US Strategic Bombing Surveys for lessons on how to take down an industrial economy.
The latest rail ferry strike is just the latest example.
USSBS🧵 1/
This was the "Biden vs Trump Debate moment" for USSS Director Cheatle.
In a situation as "1st shot at Fort Sumter" volatile as this, Cheatle needed to "Come to Jesus," be 100% truthful & offer a full mea culpa admitting to her follies.
Worse, both she and her superior DHS Secretary Mayorkas were very publicly caught out as lying on the most important facts regarding the lack of protection for former President Trump.
While I utterly despise @JDVance1 public statements on Ukraine...
...the collapse of the @JoeBiden candidacy reinforces his "Hillbilly Elegy" candidate brand at the expense of Democratic Party's negative campaigning with non-Democrats, and the working class generally.
2/
And @JDVance1 statements that the USA doesn't make the munitions or have a ship building infrastructure for a multi-front war...
Nor are there any plans to have such a mobilization supporting that logistical capability
The rate of increase of Russian ground force casualties tracks a collapse of skills from the attrition of competent Russian officers without a Russian training establishment capable of replacing them.
The "Next 100k" of Russian casualties always happens faster.
2/
It also tracks the collapse of the Russian army motor transport that is preventing both medical system casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) and the resupply of forward positions with food, water and medical supplies.
I've really happy with the AFU's increasingly effective drone counter-air efforts and the drone swarm strike Millerovo air base near Rostov-on-Don underlines this improvement.
ISO container fuel tanks can be shipped in via Iran and fix this damage in weeks.
2/
The ability to build fuel storage like lego bricks has been around since 1969, when the UK firm Andrews of Aintree Ltd fielded the concept through international transportation regulations.