Thread by @PhillipsPOBrien

This is part of a long thread from US Defense official, it starts the section where the person discusses logistics. It has some of the better intelligence on the state of Russian logistics that I’ve seen. The whole thread is worthwhile

https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/status/1504611083595751427

Here is the whole briefing text. defense.gov/News/Transcrip…

An example of the text where the source discusses logistics: a lot there to chew on.

Will try to collate different examples of where there war is in this thread. At the end of it will try and provide an overall summary. Here is the start of last night’s @TheStudyifWar summary.

Here is a link to the whole report. understandingwar.org/backgrounder/r…

U.K. MOD intelligence update from a few hours ago. One of the more openly damning of Russia’s situation. Invasion is ‘faltering’, Russia not ‘effectively resupplying’ forward troops, Ukrainians attacking supply lines.

Best Open Sourse Intelligence (OSINT) data on Russian and Ukrainian vehicle losses. Each one listed has been photographically verified, so real losses will be higher. Done by @oryxspioenkop oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack…

Here is a summary tweet with some of the losses mentioned.

https://twitter.com/osinttechnical/status/1504596192449241092

A few more details to support the U.K. MOD briefing above from the excellent @JackDetsch . Russians having real problems fighting off roads and can’t get air superiority.

https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1504606687654727683

Here are Russian losses as claimed by the Ukrainian armed forces. Much higher than any other sources so won’t say they are near accurate. One thing, number or Russian fuel trucks destroyed has stayed at 60 for a long time. Russians clearly trying to protect them.

https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1504418442748833796

U.K. MOD report from a few minutes ago, little changing on the ground.

A thread from @HoansSolo about the status of the war. Russians most likely can’t initiate larger scale offensives until after 1 April. Think this has major implications for understanding where the war is now and where it might be heading.

https://twitter.com/HoansSolo/status/1504383155570188290

A list of the military equipment Pres Biden has authorised for Ukraine (will try and make sense of this later, promise).

https://twitter.com/alexkhrebet/status/1504162248654311425

Short thread and link to a story that has info about the Switchblade UAV system that is part of this package.

https://twitter.com/byjepstein/status/1504185196828106757

While the situation in terms of territory held/taken seems mostly unchanged over the last 10 days, the Russians are attempting to maintain operations (sometimes with multiple objectives) in 5 different areas.

These are 1) the two attempts to move on Kyiv, one from the northwest and the other along the road from Sumy. This effort also involves an attempt to take Cherniv to the north. This is a difficult, complex operation.

2) The campaigns of the northeast, most well known Kharkiv and Sumy sieges. Little movement here around the cities. Mostly long range, indiscriminate bombardments.

As part of 2 there is also the attempt to move down the road to link up with Donetsk-Luhansk. One of the few areas where the Russians have made some advances (though we need to put these in perspective).

3) The southeast, another area of multiple operations. Most obviously the constant war-crime assault on Mariupol, Again an attempt to link up with the Crimean based efforts. Major attempt to pound Mariupol into dust.

4) a drive up from Crimea to try and take the important rail line hub and major city of Dnipro. This drive seems stalled.

5) The attempt to take Odessa. This involves a first the attempt to take Mykolaiv, which is also barely moving. This area has also seen speculation of a seaborne assault by Russian forces. I remain very skeptical of this.

Seaborn assaults are very difficult complex operations, the Russians dont have command of the air and the Ukrainians have prepared defenses. If the Russians try it, it would be a major risk (and further stretch logistics). Prob a feint to distract attention and divert defenders

So 5 areas of operations, some with multiple objectives requiring different kinds of supply support and equipment.

A picture of a Russian armoured column on the move. Looks big and powerful, but actually indicates the Russians have not corrected their logistical crisis in a meaningful way.

https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1504754320251801637

Why? Well this is a column of heavy armour on the road, near Belgorod, so in Russia itself. You want your heavy tanks to stay on rail flatcars until the last possible minute.

Every kilometre they are on the road requires a significant amount of fuel, gives a percentage chance of breakdown and has a possibility of traffic jams, etc. That’s why you only want your tanks on the road at the last possible moment.

Yet the Russians clearly are still detraining in Russia itself, Belgorod is about 15 miles from the border. There is no way, 3 weeks into the war that the Russians would still want to be doing this. Means that they don’t have rail access into Ukraine near Kharkiv.

So Russian supply lines are still stretched and they are not capable of setting up depots across the border. The Ukrainian ability to keep the Russians out of the cities and denying them rail access seems to be having a real effect

Ukrainians claiming that they have pushed the Russians back from Mykolayiv. The Russians seem to be trying to do much with too little.

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1504795733567983616