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Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
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May 5 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
Battle of the Donbas is almost stuck is aspic for the Russians. Here are the @ISW maps from last night and April 26 (9 days earlier). If you have a magnifying glass you can see a Russian drive just to the east of Lyman.
And yet, this and the Izyum drive are still supposed to be the main effort of the Russian Army. The Pentagon briefing yesterday started with this description of the attempt to take Lyman. (whole transcript link) defense.gov/News/Transcrip…
This effort is getting the vast majority of Russian airpower as well (with Mariupol). The ridiculous @nytimes story on Putin showing restraint in not attacking Ukrainian logistics misses out that Russian attacks have kept at a steady pace from the air.
However the fact is (for safety as much as anything else) the Russian attacks are overwhelmingly in the east and south to help RUssian forces in the Donbas (and not expose Russian airfcraft to Ukrainian AA for too long). Pentagon transcript on air usage.
So with Russian effort on land and air concentrated on the Donbas, they have barely moved 9 days. This is why the trajectory of Ukraine getting relatively stronger and Russia weaker matters. The chance of the Russians to move forward is decreasing.
And the Russian effort to throw everything into the Donbas has actually left their forces on the ground in Mariupol suprisingly weak. Would be worth watching if its too weak. Pentagon says 2 BTGs, about 2000 Russian soldiers left in Mariupol.
Thats not alot, and Ukrainians are claiming that they knocked back the Russian attempt to storm the steelworks yesterday.
Will be interesting to see if the Russians have enough forces to try a serious assault again.
Sorry: @TheStudyofWar
Btw. Aspic was a deliberate metaphorical choice.
It’s a gelatinous stock that holds different bits in place, jiggles a little and is mostly transparent
Interesting. Ukrainians claim that the Russians were able to attack the Mariupol steel works because of an inside job. If the Ukrainians have drives them back, Russians can’t play that card again.
Ukrainian commander in Chief Zaluzhnyi now saying far from the Russians being just stalled in the Donbas, that the Ukrainians are now counterattacking around Izyum. (We already new about Kharkiv)
To say it so publicly, the Ukrainians must feel really confident. And tbh, the Russian forces have been so tentative and halting in their advance, there is reason for the Ukrainians to be confident
General Zaluzhnyi is the one most credited with the overall military plan for the defense of Ukraine. He is in this video standing next to Defence Minister Reznikov.
I’m no expert on these heat maps, but they certainly seem to indicate some fighting directly outside Izium in areas that the @TheStudyofWar of war map indicated as assessed Russian advances last night.
And it might be worth noting that since the Russians launched the Battle of the Donbas on 18 April, the Ukrainians have probably driven the Russians out of more territory in total (esp around Kharkiv) than the Russians have seized in Ukraine incl the Donbas.
Speaking of the Russians being driven back from Kharkiv, it seems to have dawned on them that letting the Ukrainians advance to the point where they threaten supply lines into Izyum mignt not be the best idea. They’ve counterattacked, and the Ukrainians say failed.
This Pentagon commentary on the Battle of the Donbas has been on a daily loop for the last two weeks.
Actually, looks like the Ukrainians did more than just say they have counterattacked near Izyum, they seem to have said that they believe the Battle of the Donbas has changed phases, from a Russian offensive to an overall Ukrainian counteroffensive. Hmm

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More from @PhillipsPOBrien

Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
May 6
Other than protecting Kharkiv and threatening Russian supplies heading into the Donbas, the really important thing about the Battle of Kharkiv is what it shows about Ukrainian military behaviour in comparison to what the Battle of the Donbas shows about the the Russian military.
What has Ukraine done around Kharkiv in the last few days. It seems to have set itself a clear objective (push the Russians away from the city to protect it and give options for future operations). What did they do?
They identified a weak part of the Russian lines (who were focussing on the Donbas). The collected appropriate forces for the operation. They waited til they were ready, and they methodically took all the right towns to achieve their objective.
Read 10 tweets
Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
May 6
If you want to see what a grinding battle of attrition looks like, take a look at Ukrainian claimed Russian losses of tanks and APCs since the Battle of the Donbas started. Pretty steady when presented as two day totals. Image
We can assume Ukrainian losses, even though we have no detail on them from, are equally relentless. It’s a question of who can take them for longer.
Btw, Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses paint a pretty clear picture that any Russian offensive can’t last that much longer. Even if actual Russian losses are only 2/3 of those claimed, since Apr 18 the Russians would have lost 212 tanks (319 claimed) and 416 APC (625 claimed)
Read 6 tweets
Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
May 6
Been wondering why the stories of US intelligence helping the Ukrainians target Russian generals and warships have been appearing, clearly based on information passed on from US intelligence sources. Here is the one about the US helping to sink the Moskva. nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/…
The best explanation is in this story as well. Basically the leaks are deliberate US attempts to let Putin know that the ‘weight’ of the US and NATO are behind Ukraine. Iot, a deliberate warning to Russia not to escalate. Image
It’s certainly an escalation of a type by the Biden Administration, which indicates, one assumes, that they believe the Russians really are not likely to escalate themselves to tactical nukes. They are certainly giving Putin an argument to escalate were he so inclined.
Read 5 tweets
Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
May 5
When this war is over, and Ukraine is a peaceful, democratic state in the European Union, people are going to look back at the last four months and be shocked at how so many people in Europe and North America denied Ukraine any agency for such a long time.
We’ve heard what Russia wants. What Putin must have. What we need to do now once Ukraine will be conquered. Or more recently that Ukraine must accept a bad peace, that Ukraine must cede this and give up that.
The great lesson of this war so far destroys all these analyses. Ukraine gets to decide Ukraine’s future because it choose to fight for itself and is winning the war. Maybe we should start talking about what Ukraine wants.
Read 6 tweets
Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
May 4
The state of the war in two stories today. Keep your eyes on reinforcements, because that will determine the course of the next few months. Russia is taking old equipment out of storage to send to Ukraine. news.yahoo.com/russia-redeplo…
Ukraine is getting completely new systems, better than anything it had in the war. Ukraine now has 90 percent of the howitzers that were promised by the USA, some of which are already in action.
If we step back and look at the trajectory of military power deployed in Ukraine there is one constant change. Ukraine is getting stronger in vital areas, getting more and in some cases much better equipment. Russia is getting weaker, and deploying weaker, less good equipment
Read 21 tweets
Phillips P. OBrien Profile picture
May 4
Really interesting to see the Ukrainian armed forces make a public statement that they are using management studies in assembling their overall structure. (English translation). My guess is that management studies could be used more widely going forward in strategic studies.
Was part of an interdisciplinary team of management studies and strategic studies scholars at @univofstandrews who did some exploratory work on the subject and published this article in the @jststs tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
One of the arguments was that those relying on a more military outlook can simplify things and make military operations seem a better and simpler choice, when they are not. My guess is that the Russian armed forces are not nearly so reflexive. @DefenceU are really impressive.
Read 4 tweets

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