Mike Martin MP 🔸 Profile picture
Apr 13, 2022 35 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Battle for Donbas

A thread.
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.
Which shows how impotent the Russians are. They’ve already lost the battle of Kyiv.

This is pure lashing out in anger, Putin style
Info - Physical Ops integration of the highest order.

Step A: release stamp of you soldier flipping the bird at enemy flag ship
Step B: sink enemy flag ship
Step C: win war Image
Credible reports of fresh Ukrainian reinforcements arriving in Donbas
Will keep updating the thread during the day
Now interestingly the bot traffic tells me that the Russians are trying to row back on their 9th May target
Right. The Ukrainians need to hit the Crimea bridge.

That’s the next strategic target.
What’s that? The new #WhyWeFight paperback for less than a tenner?

How?

Go to hurstpublishers.com/book/why-we-fi… and use discount code WARFIGHT25 at the checkout! (Also available on Amazon)

Happy reading people!
And she’s gone
bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Here's why - corruption efficient armed forces do not make

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Mike Martin MP 🔸

Mike Martin MP 🔸 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ThreshedThought

Nov 12
Trump and the UK Strategic Defence Review

A 🪡

(Will there be 🖍️s?)
In the aftermath of Trump’s reelection I tweeted that there were a few things that the UK needed to get onto pronto:
The question is: how well will the UK’s Strategic Defence Review (currently underway, due to report in April) tackle these issues?
Read 20 tweets
Oct 29
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)
Read 24 tweets
Mar 7
Snuck into the budget is something that you won’t hear on the news … UK Defence Spending was cut.
Image
Image
We have a land war in Europe that is about the eastern boundary of Europe.
And the Conservative government - quite the worst government in living memory - for a bit of electioneering, cuts the defence budget.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 31
The US has got a problem in the Middle East

A short thread
At a very basic level, the US has lost momentum. It is responding to events, rather than dictating them.
Read 12 tweets
Jan 24
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.
Read 24 tweets
Jan 4
I wonder whether historians in 2100 will look at 2024 as a geopolitical inflection point…

A thread.
There are a number of different themes/areas/trends now starting to come together.
And combined, they are the largest threat to the post world war 2 era yet seen
Read 20 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(