Thread by @TimInHonolulu

1. I saw these reports several hours ago.

"Residents of Kherson send a photo of equipment, which, according to them, left the city today and is moving towards Nikolaev along the road along the Dnieper estuary."

https://twitter.com/SputnikATO/status/1508725171351433225

2. I'm 12 hours behind Ukraine so I wake when the sun is heading down. It's easy to tell the time there. It's the time here, but am and pm are switched. Now it's 5:07 am Wednesday in Ukraine. I just checked the reports and I see little evidence these reports are accurate

3. that a sizeable force is headed towards Mykolaiv, one of my original three main strategic objections I believed the Russian state sought in this conflict. So where did they go? You may have noticed a photo of what looked like Russians in a boat preparing to destroy the bridge

4. connecting Kherson to the side of the Dnieper with Mariupol and more relevant, Crimea on it. There's no reason to blow a bridge unless they are retreating. Maybe this crazy Russian army destroys its supply line but no other military in the world would.

5. The only rational places to retreat would be towards Crimea or staged to be thrown at Mariupol. But I don't see any evidence the reports are accurate that they are heading back in the hornets' nest at Mykolaiv. These soft covered support vehicles will have zero

6. chance to survive an encounter with the crack dismounted infantry approaching Kherson loaded with high-tech anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and starting their day every day with US AWAC, Rivet Joint and Satellite-based intel. So let's watch where this column heads.

7. Knowing that will tell a lot about how April will go.

One reason why the Russians are in such bad shape is because the Ukrainian people in these towns and cities have shown unimaginable courage in the face of pure brutality.

8. It's happening all over and the Russian forces are not psychologically prepared to deal with it. My study of war taught me that preparing the population and force for coping with the war. Often dehumanizing an enemy is a key to victory. This where Putin got if all wrong.

9. He claimed Ukraine doesn't exist, it's simply a place in Russia. Then he goes forward to engage in a genocide not quelling what in his own theory of the case argues is akin to a civil war.

10. The US Union forces' cruelty of total war on the Confederacy still haunts US politics 157 years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Putin is doing a General Sherman on most of Ukraine. He turned Russia into a foreign enemy bent on conquest, genocide and destruction

11. and the Ukrainians may never forgive Russians in whose name these murders are being committed. A permanent state of war may continue to exist for the foreseeable future. And if I were going to pick a country to not start a blood feud with, Ukraine would be high on my list.