Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 10, 2022 21 tweets 8 min read Read on X
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/
...let alone cross Ukraine North-to-South or East -to-West. What was the Russian General Staff thinking?

Well, we know because the Ukrainians captured the plans from a Russian Naval Infantry Colonel.

See:
5/
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,

10/
smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/manpo…
...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.

16/
Now we are going to address the mechanized battle of attrition between Ukraine & Russia.

Long road marches of 300 AFV's see as many as 100 fall out for mechanical defects.

When these are Russian, the fallen out AFV are destroyed, or worse, stolen.
17/
Over and over again.

All Russian operational losses and the repairable half of combat AFV losses are either permanent losses or they become Ukrainian Army GAINS.

/18

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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More from @TrentTelenko

Mar 29
War is a question of interests, not legality. Iran with, it's support of the October 7th attack, kicked off an existential war with Israel for the latter to prevent Iran from getting the A-bomb.

Israel won't survive as a nation after three Hiroshima class nukes...

Iran War🧵
1/
- riding ballistic warheads in a saturation missile attack - slam into its major cities.

The Trump Administration agreed with Israel on Iranian nukes both in the 12-day war and with the current war.

2/
The Iranian use of a space launcher as an ICBM against Diego Garcia made the current Iran war an existential one for the USA, given the EMP threat Iran represents to the unhardened American power grid.

Imagine the population of the American west - especially Las Vegas! -
3/
Read 9 tweets
Mar 27
How the mighty RAND has fallen.

Anyone claiming Iran will survive long term without explaining how Iran recovers from currency hyperinflation IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR marks themselves as incompetent yo-yo's.

1/3

bylinesupplement.com/p/why-the-iran…
Hand waving, "They will use ForEx from oil and barter instead of the rial" is ignoring what happened during January 2026.

I dare anyone to do a word search at that link for the text strings "hyperinflation," "Rial" or "foreign exchange."

None are present.

2/
The Iran questions at hand are as follows:
1. Will the Regime fall via a controlled air campaign driven collapse, or
2. After a protracted Syria style civil war with 6 or 7 figure #'s murdered by IRGC thugs, &
3. Will Iran destroy the Gulf's power & H2O supply while dying?

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Mar 26
The Mullah Regime of Iran is in very deep trouble. Any critical thinker can see that.

What I find remarkable is how many people who should know better are so blinded by their hostility to Netanyahu and Trump that they ignore the military context and the domestic context inside Iran.

1/Image
The outcome of this war was decided before it began. The January 2026 uprisings occurred because the Iranian currency had collapsed and the economy was collapsing.

This was due to a massive increase in American economic warfare starting right at the beginning of the second Trump administration. Inflation was over 100% a year in January 2026.
2/
The war has made this much worse. Hyper-inflation has now set in and that has only one ending. IMO Iran’s economy and mullah regime will totally collapse in 4-5 months, even if the war ends immediately.

Even if oil exports last until then, hyperinflation means the oil industry workers will go out on strike and the regime protection forces must seek other jobs to feed their families. The latter has already started to happen.
3/Image
Read 15 tweets
Mar 21
Nothing says hyperinflation like a ten million currency unit banknote.

The US and Western nations need to be three weeks into planning for relief and stability operations to prevent mass starvation in Iran after the Mullah Regime goes down.

After the Mullah's🧵
1/
The horrid impending humanitarian disaster reality for Iran is the current regime is a dead man walking because of hyperinflation.

Iran lacks the administrative ability to replace the current hyperinflated currency in the traditional manner...

2/
...of a three day closing of the banks and handing out new note for old.

In addition, the close down of the internet for security reasons combined with the striking of Iranian bank data centers means there are no operable credit or debit cards.

3/
Read 12 tweets
Mar 17
The US-Israeli air campaign against Iran is following Warden's "Five Rings" system strategy.

Mullahs & IRGC leaders are inthe dead center of the 5-rings.

The Basij are usually considered "fielded forces" by analysts who don't understand the role of Regime Security Forces in a totalitarian regime.

1/Image
Regime Security Forces live in the "System Essentials" ring of a totalitarian government as they control the communications and information in a totalitarian society as a part of their anti-coup mission.

2/ Image
The fact that any major leadership[ meeting of the IRGC or Basij is catching several smart bombs addresses both of the "inner rings."

3/
Read 8 tweets
Mar 17
People really don't understand how shutting down the internet has flatlined the Iranian economy.

There are no credit card transactions
No electronic bank transfers
No ATM transactions

1/
All the usual electronic traffic between residential & supermarket banks branches to main branches has to be done by paper, if it is done at all.

You cannot do "Just-in-time" inventory management without the internet.

2/ Image
The Mullah shutdown of the internet as a security measure means the "Velocity of Money" in the Iranian economy has tubed.

This will bring on more of the economic hyper-inflation-food insecurity issues in Iran that set off the Jan 2026 insurrection.

"Dead Regime Walking."
3/3 Image
Image
Image
Read 4 tweets

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