Thread by @Osinttechnical

Guess what time it is?

"...missile strike on the Kramatorsk train station. Obviously, we are not buying the denial by the Russians that they weren't responsible. I would note that they originally claimed a successful strike, and then only retracted it when there were reports of civilian casualties."

"So it's our full expectation that this was a Russian strike. We believe they used a short-range ballistic missile, an SS-21 [OTR-21], and we'll leave it to local authorities to speak to the casualties and the damage."

""Well, why that train station and what was the reason?"... it is a train station and it is located... right on the edge of the line of contact between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Donbas area. It's a major rail hub, so I think I would just leave it at that"

"As residents are beginning to return to Kyiv and some of the surrounding suburbs, we continue to see Ukrainians clearing the area of mines and booby-traps, but they -- all the Russian forces are gone, as we said before."

"We think that that [the Belgorod and Valuyki] area is going to serve as one of these resupply/refit areas for these [Russian] troops, and we have seen indications that some units are moving in that direction as we speak."

"As for where we're seeing the fighting -- continues in southern and eastern Ukraine, including near Kharkiv, still being fought over. Izyum, we've talked about Izyum now for many, many days; along that joint force operation area,"

"Mariupol is still seeing heavy fighting, and we continue to see fighting around Mykolaiv, even though we don't hold the Russians actually in Mykolaiv."

"In the air, Russia's sortie count, it came in over the last 24 hours at between 240 and 250, so roughly in line with what we've seen in recent days. The overall, overwhelming weight and focus of their strikes over the last 24 were on Mariupol and in that JFO"

"On the refit, Bob, we don't know for sure how long this is going to take because some units are much more devastated than others. We've seen indications of some units that are literally, for all intents and purposes, eradicated...

...There's just nothing left of the BTG except a handful of troops, and maybe a small number of vehicles"

"We've seen others that are down 30 percent manpower, or even higher. And so it's going to depend on -- and I don't want to speak for the Russians here, but it's going to depend on the health of these units and what the Russians want to do to get them combat-ready again."

"We believe that they have not solved all of their logistics and sustainment problems... They existed outside Ukraine, and still do exist. And so our sense is that they will likely not be able to reinforce the eastern part of the country with any great speed."

"On the second question about S-300s, I would just tell you that we continue to have conversations with allies and partners who have these kinds of long-range air defense systems, and I don't want to get ahead of that process."

"We have seen that the northeast grouping of troops the grouping that originally was applied against Kharkiv, coming out of Belgorod, that grouping now, we have seen them plus up by just under 10 BTGs. So we have seen that grouping increase in size, in or around the Donbas area."

"We still believe that one of their objectives is to fix Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbas and then engage them in combat to occupy the Donbas completely."

"I mean, they [the Ukrainians] have gone on the offense in places down south and in the north, and quite frankly, they're fighting very, very hard in the east, as they have been for eight years...

...So they absolutely continue to show every desire to take back from the Russians occupied territory inside their own country, and I think we can expect to see that they'll continue to do that."

"So we're seeing the Russians, again, try to occupy more ground in the south and the east. It's difficult -- what we don't know is that the sum total of Russian objectives now or whether this is to get leverage at the negotiating table or...

...whether it's to establish a more firm footing from which to launch attacks back further to the west in the country."

"the [Russian] 18th Motorized Rifle Division, [is] being transferred to the eastern borders of Ukraine. It's a new division that was formed only in 2021, consists of three mechanized infantry regiments as well as an armored regiment."

"On the landmines, you know, we certainly saw indications of the Russians using landmines. And as I said, the Ukrainians are still clearing out landmines and booby traps to the north of Kyiv. They're being very judicious about that."

"You heard the chairman talk about the Ukrainians use of landmines yesterday, so we know that they're in their arsenal and their inventory. And I don't have a good sense of where they've put them and to what effect."

"We do assess that the Wagner group is about at 1,000 people, and they are focused in the Donbas. We know that they're there particularly in and around Donetsk."

"of the assessed available combat power that they [Russia] had available to them before the invasion, that they had arrayed against Ukraine for this purpose, of the total assessed combat power that they had, we estimate that they are between 80 and 85 percent of what they had."

[On the Patriot deployment to Slovakia] "This is a temporary deployment of a Patriot battery as we continue to work with Slovakia on what long-term solutions make the most sense for Slovakia and we're just not there yet."

"I couldn't tell you that there's Russian-ready replacement troops sitting in Belgorod and Valuyki waiting for them. We don't think that's the case. But again, we're seeing anecdotal evidence that some of these BTGs are doing what they can to try to replace manpower on their own"

"And they're exploring the option of combining BTGs with one another and they hope to get refit / reinforced by new conscripts -- there's a whole new conscription schedule coming here in May."

"We also have indications that the Russians have already begun this mobilization of reservists, and there's some indications that what they're hoping to do is to recruit upwards of 60,000 troops for this -- during this mobilization phase."

[On the railway station attack] "if one of your goals is to cut off the supply of additional Ukrainian forces, or hold Ukrainian forces in place then transportation hubs like railway stations, you could see where there might be a logic there to why you would hit it."

"It's a temporary deployment. And we're not slapping an end date on it right now.

As we continue to work with Slovakia about more long-range -- sorry, longer term more permanent solutions. And that's why the secretary worded it the way he did in his statement."

"I think we need to remember that the Ukrainians get a vote here, and that they've been very successful on the ground in pushing the Russians out -- pushing them back and defeating them in many places. And they will, my every expectation, will fight hard over the Donbas."

"I haven't seen anything about the Brits sending Harpoons... I've seen nothing that say that they're preparing to send Harpoons. And as you well know better than me, Sam, the Ukrainians don't -- they can't outfit their small coastal craft for Harpoons."

"There's not a day that goes by where shipments aren't being moved on the ground into Ukraine from the United States as well as many other nations."

"One of the reasons why the president signed out another $100 million in Javelins just the other night was because we know how important the Javelins are going to be in this knife fight that's about to occur -- actually has been occurring in the Donbas."

"And same goes with short-range air defense. Because, again, right at the top of my briefing I told you about the air activity really being focused on Mariupol and the joint force operation area, basically the Donbas...

...That's where the preponderance of Russian strike activity is occurring. And air defense is going to be critical."

"And the other thing and I said this the other day but it bears repeating. Small arms and ammunition, particularly ammunition for small arms is vital. And the message that they keep sending is to keep that coming."

"I know it doesn't get the headlines that fighter jets and tanks and Javelins and Switchblades get. But millions of rounds of small arms ammunition continues to flow in... there is a lifeblood quality to that small arms ammunition that they are getting everyday."

"And even in the last 24-hours huge shipments of that kind of ammunition got into Ukraine."

[On the fighting in eastern Ukraine] "Because this is -- this will be a knife fight. This could be very bloody and very ugly."

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