Thread by @PhillipsPOBrien

There seem to be two completely different narratives emerging about the Battle of the Donbas, one on the micro level and one from the larger perspective, and its fascinating to see the differences. Thought I would try and summarize.

The more granular one (which by the way has been going on for a week now) is that the Russians have/are about to make a major breakthrough around Popasna as part of a campaign to role up the SDonestk pocket.

https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1527426090259693578?s=20&t=8d338GusQuszC9Kj2Rzo5w

This breakthrough talk has been adopted widely, and we have other sources no portraying Ukrainian positions as either collapsing and on the point of collapse because of overwhelming Russian fire. podcastaddict.com/episode/140302…

Interestingly Ive received a large number of tweets asking why Ive stopped tweeting about the war as the RUssians have done well (Ive actually sent out about 20 tweets in the last two days). Here is one of the more gentle ones. There are far worse.

https://twitter.com/C1234Michael/status/1529821333407666176?s=20&t=8d338GusQuszC9Kj2Rzo5w

Ive also received some very aggressive emails asking me to explain myself and demanding that I acknowledge the reality of the great Russian victory we are seeing unfold in front of our eyes.

All I can do is refer to this tweet thread of wednesday morning (when supposedly I wasnt tweeting about the war), which goes into this exact question. And I will compare it with the anonymous Pentagon briefing yesterday.

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1529334006399086593?s=20&t=8d338GusQuszC9Kj2Rzo5w

The Pentagon official described what was going on in the Donbas in exactly the same terms. Slow, incremental, small, give and take. No breakthrough, no Ukrainian collapse. Indeed from an overall geographic perspective, the area exchanging hands is 'getting smaller'

The specific attacks out of popasna, are in a macro way discussed as a failure of Russia's earlier strategy of wanting to slice off alot of ground, and now having to try and settle for a very small piece. Moreover, even here the word over and over again used is incremental.

In some places there has been no advance at all. Here is the link to the whole transcript if you want to read it. Btw, there are some other interesting bits in the transcript I will tweet about later. defense.gov/News/Transcrip…

Btw, the best word to describe Russian advances in the last week, since the supposed Popasna breakthrough, is incremental. Maybe a little over a mile a day in place, but thats it. @TheStudyofWar maps from May 21 and today.

Have their been Russian advances--definitely. Maybe at its most extreme 10 miles. (2 miles a day at the most extreme), but the Pentagon description makes alot of sense (at least to me).

Also goes with Ukrainian defense communiques, which imply that combat intensity in the last day or so has decreased significantly. Their update this morning said yesterday the Russians lost 1 tank 5 APCs and 5 artillery systems in Donetsk/Luhansk.

https://twitter.com/GeneralStaffUA/status/1530050377353252865?s=20&t=8d338GusQuszC9Kj2Rzo5w

There could be a reading that such relatively light losses are because Ukrainian defenses are about to crumble and their resistance is weakening. Or it could be because combat there remains what it has been, incremental and slow. We will see.

Another map visual, in this case showing the two week change in the SDonetsk pocket. Incremental much better to use than breakthrough.

https://twitter.com/tpyxanews/status/1530103710906449920

A recent attempt to summarize the changes in the battlefield situation--relatively small movements.

https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1530222239207272448?s=20&t=yn4SCZ7Cqi58EPfNcq2nHg