Thread by @ThreshedThought

Time for a little round up of the Ukraine situation.

A thread (with some poorly drawn maps).

I also wanna briefly comment on the level of Russian twitter bot activity (attacks on my website etc.) It’s been off the scale over the last week or so—they really have been getting excited about this little offensive that the Russians have been getting up to in Luhansk.

As ever, the difficulty in analysing war is extracting the strategic meaning out of a confused tactical picture.

For leaders the challenge is know when to act, based on very limited information.

Over the last 14days we’ve seen:

- A slowing of the Ru offensive around Izyum
- A advance around Pospana towards Severodonestk
- A culmination (even slight reversal) of Ukr advance N of Kharkiv
- Not a lot of activity near Kherson in the S
- Some Ukr partisans behind Ru lines

Something like this:

What does this all mean?

Well previously developing the Izyum axis was a key objective for the Russians. After pulling out of Kyiv they amassed a large amount of firepower there.

Sensible really as Izyum offers a great site for a logistic hub that the Russians could use to exploit further S and W.

But the Ukrainians successfully defended; they also managed to push the Russians back from Kharkiv (although this Ukrainian counteroffensive has now stalled).

It has also clear that the Rus have concentrated their forces on a axis moving W through Pospana (captured by Ru) towards Severodonestsk. The latter is the 2nd largest, and only remaining major, pop centre in the Luhansk Oblast.

If Ru capture it, they will basically have Luhansk

So in the ever decreasing announcements of Ru strategic objectives (denazification -> linking East up to Transnistra -> taking Luhansk and Donetsk) we are now at the stage where they might take half of their latest strat obj.

Listening to the media, you would think that this small narrow advance was the end of Ukraine.

But what is actually happening there?

No doubt, the Russians have finally relearn that age-old military principle: concentration of force.

They have stripped assets out of other fronts, freed some up from Mariupol, and concentrated on one axis.

This has meant that they have made some gains.

The Q of course with any offensive is whether you have the ability to exploit any gains—otherwise you are just setting up a target for your opponents.

And regular followers of my tweets will not be surprised to hear me say that the exploit an offensive you need agile logistics

And it does appear—it is becoming clearer over the last two days—that the Ru may be at that point where they cannot go much further.

They hv got to the outskirts of the city of Severodonetsk—they have got to a hotel on the outskirts—and they cannot at the moment adv much further

There is a lot still to play for, but it does seem that Ru artillery—they are a very artillery heavy force—has enabled some punch through of the Ukr lines, but it appears that Ru mobility and log cannot enable them to exploit it.

We shall see but this may be a local culmination.

So what happens if this is a culmination? And that the Ukrainians manage to hold them here?

Don’t forget that the Ru have stripped out their other fronts to reinforce this ONE axis—& that they aren’t exactly making glittering progress here.

If they culminate, expect the Ukr to counterattack again, like they did N of Kharkiv once the Ru culminated in Izyum a few was ago

There is a pattern here:

- The Ru conc. some force, esp artillery, at the cost of unbalancing their forces (weakening them in some areas)
- The Ukr trade space for attrition of the Ru forces (lots of Ru vehicle losses at the mo)
- Ukr then goes on counterattack in other areas

And so we are starting to see over the last 24 hours some Ukr counterattacks in the Kherson region.

And so previously I’ve said that we will see Ru culmination and Ukr c-attacks.

It has happened a little slower than I expected (largely because the Ru finally remembered the principle of concentration of force), but the same probs still emerge for the Ru - poor log and mobility

Let’s see how things pan out over the next week. If the Ukr can hold Severodonestsk, against this amassed firepower, whilst still keeping some forces in reserve, then it really doesn’t look good for Ru.

On the other hand, if the Ru do take the town, it allows Putin to say that they’ve taken one of the two oblasts that they are trying to ‘liberate’.

Hardly a great showing for 30k casualties, international condemnation and sanctions, and Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

ENDS