Thread by @TrentTelenko

If you have not read this ISW 🧵thread today you need to.

I've a comments to add for my own🧵.

ISW Short form:

The Russian military has hit the trained manpower wall until well into June 2022.👇

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1512913229093113858

A major "proxy" supporting this ISW thread surfaced today.

Three Russian Army lieutenants were killed acting as the driver, gunner and commander of a BMP infantry combat vehicle.

See👇
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https://twitter.com/MacWBishop/status/1512802664219701256

Lieutenants normally act as commanders of three vehicle platoons of Tanks, BMP's or BTR's.

That is, one commander for 3 vehicles and 8-to-19 men.

So, three lieutenants would command all the Mechanized Platoons of a Motor Rifle Company.
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Putting three lieutenants as the crew of a single BMP is a lot more than a desperation move.

It is a hard core signal that Russia has so run out of both trained and reliable manpower that it it putting the command staff of a Motor Rifle Company into a single armored
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...fighting vehicle. Consider the implications of that as you read the ISW thread.

My view is the Russians lack the trained manpower to pocket Ukrainians in the Donbas.

At best the Russians can push the Donbas line back 20-25 km, the logistical limits to their reduced truck
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...park from their existing rail heads.

The problem for the Russians is the arrival of the Switchblade 600 in the low hundreds, given the low Russian force density in the areas they have over run, means they will have to use railheads in Russia for
republicworld.com/world-news/rus…
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...Donbas.

Media reports have it that the Russians are currently disembarking troops, vehicles & ammo 55km behind the Russian border.

The Switchblade 600 has a maximum one way flight range of 50 miles/80km carrying a Javelin warhead.

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If the Russians cannot stop a pair of Ukrainian Hind Helicopter gunships from rocketing Belograd, Russia fuel tanks.

They won't be able to stop a Switchblade 600 loitering munition (AKA a propeller driven mini-cruise missile) from killing Russian train engines in places
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...most likely to cause a Russian "logistical heart attack" in terms of delivering the thousands of tons of artillery ammunition needed for the defense of the territory it currently has, let alone take more.

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That the Ukrainians have not started immediately pushing back to take advantage of this development, to try pushing out of Kherson and relieve Mariupol also tells us something.

Ukrainian logistics have been pushed past their own breaking point.

The damage Russia has
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...inflicted on the Ukrainian Military & infrastructure means they do not have some combination of the logistics, usable equipment or trained manpower for large scale mobile mechanized operations to free Mariupol out of Kherson.
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Ukraine's military has pulled the Russian Army's major offensive fangs.

What we are seeing in Donbas are Russian spoiling attacks from it's 'least attrited' BTG meant to inflict material attrition on the Ukrainian Army to extend the Ukrainian logistical pause needed for

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...major mobile operations.

The longer that pause, the more existing Russian troops can dig in to hold on to captured territory and the closer those June 2022 reinforcements will be for a major counter stroke against exhausted Ukrainian mobile forces.

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IOW, the Russians are playing for time to get a longer attritional phase to delay/reduce the scope of future Ukrainian mobile operations with Switchblade 600 support.

We shall soon see if this will be successful.

14/end