As every day goes past that the Russian doesn’t happen, we have to ask ourselves:
Are the Russian forces not actually able to generate a manoeuvre force over and above what they need to hold the line in Donbas?
Not clear yet.
Things that could change this include the Russians taking Mariupol completely. This would free up some Russian forces for the wider Donbas. But they will be exhausted so not a huge amount of use.
These ideas of Russian forces encircling the Ukrainians in Donbas seem far fetched. It doesn’t appear that the Russians can generate the manoeuvre force.
Of course generating manoeuvre is the main challenge for both forces when numbers are roughly the same. It is only by ambitious manoeuvre that you create local 3:1 overmatch to enable you to defeat small groups/pockets of enemy.
It seems to me only the Ukrainians can do that.
I’ve argued before: they need bold manoeuvre to places like Kherson, Crimea etc to dislocate the Russians.
And every day the Russians don’t attack in Donbas makes it harder for the Russians, as the Ukrainians are getting more and more equipment from the west. Vehicles in particular are key (obviously!) for manoeuvre.
I’ll update this thread as more becomes clear.
Whether Mariupol falls is key. But I’m not sure it will ever ‘fall’ enough for the Russians to move troops out
And all this by May 9th? Looking unlikely.
Supposedly the Russians have captured the seaport in Mariupol.
Ok fine.
Now clear the 500 cellars in the city full of Ukrainians waiting to counter attack.
Increasingly Mariupol is looking like a Ukrainian sacrifice to keep the Russians fixed.
Ok now we’re talking. The Ukrainians hitting that ship is exactly what they should be doing: bold ambitious targeting of Russians assets and positions to put them off balance snd overload their decision making this blunting activity in Donbas.
Ship abandoned. All crew off the Russians say. But it was on fire for a while so they will have lost crew. Question is how many
What is also interesting is that over the last 24 hours I’ve seen a huge interested in Russian bot activity attacking this account (it’s so laughable what they come up with but there you go)
This tells me that the Russians are planning something fairly soon. Doing info ops before the offensive etc.
Now if I can work that out from Twitter, you can bet your bottom dollar the Ukrainians and their western intelligence colleagues knew that.
Hitting the ship was great. Just pushes them off balance at the right time
I hope the Ukrainians have a long list of strategic targets like that
Predictable the Russians were just mooching around off the coast on a predictable patrol pattern.
There is a lot going on in the news at the moment, but there is a story that is consistently being underreported: Russia.
A 🧵
(potentially with 🖍️)
And in the UK - we have to recognise that Russia, and her actions, are the NUMBER ONE strategic threat that we face.
(You wouldn’t know this from the House of Commons where a lot more time is spent debating the Middle East - which - although it is important, is an order of magnitude less important to the UK in strategic terms than the Russia story)
This is the first of several 🧵 on the strategic challenges facing the world ….
First up … the Middle East.
The most acute challenge is obviously Gaza-Palestine.
Following the appalling attacks of Oct 7th, Israel has completely mismanaged its response, squandering the immense sympathy, goodwill and support that it had.