Thread by @ZimermanErik

Note on a predicted #Ukrainian strategy change. Early on the war, when the public was not accustomed to it, the media got great mileage out of every building that was fired on, assuming all are war crimes. As I discussed in more detail then, people are civilians (or not),

and not buildings. If a defender chooses to defend a city (& an attacker to try to capture it), there will be a fight in the city. Cities are not filled with "designated urban combat buildings", just buildings, and that is where the fighting will take place. Given this reporting

eager to call all events "war crimes" and their intention always "genocide", #Ukraine, whose strategy is always shaped & driven by Western perception, did everything it could to stop civilian evacuations from front line cities. They rationalized that it was the patriotic duty of

the residents to stay in their homes and suffer (or die) if they must. This was especially so since they doubted that very patriotism of the Russophile residents of the east. Densely populated centers complicated military operations for the #Russian forces, as they tried to avoid

civilian casualties, and if any occurred, it would further help UA PR efforts. They also likely felt that evacuating territory was in a sense surrendering it to the Russians & since they wished to be back very soon, keeping the population there seemed better. Fundamentally they

saw evacuation as a type of surrender, and potentially contagious. A government in such circumstances, as discussed months back, can chose from various paths. It can firstly try to stop an enemy before it arrives at a city. Fight in the open and not defend amid urban centers.

If it failed to do this (or did not attempt it as was the case for UA very often, especially early on in the war), then it can chose to give up the city to spare it (ie as France infamously did, regarding Paris), or defend it. If it choses to defend it, there will be a fight in

the city, and thus urban combat. It takes two to tango, and the attacker alone does not bare the weight of this decision. The defender is simply the power that currently holds the city and the attacker a power that wishes to change that. Neither are necessarily right or wrong.

The defender then must decide about the civilian population. It can decide to give them free leave to do as they wish (for example, families may chose to send wives and children away while fathers stay), some leaving and some staying. It can forcefully evacuate them,

or it can forcefully not allow evacuation. Ukraine in many cases chose the latter, and we saw instances of direct use of human shields (which I discussed in detail in the past). Now that the public has grown accustomed to war in urban centers, I believe UA is changing tactics.

#Russia continues to advance, and to date cannot be stopped by the UA forces nor whatever resources the West has committed to help them do that. The results are strategically and economically significant. Great swaths of Ukraine and its resources are lost to UA and gained by RU.

This is not restricted to land alone, but rather to people. The one advantage UA has over RU in this conflict is a fully mobilized large population. Be it Mariupol, Severodentsk, Kherson or Lysychansk, every city that falls to RU reduces the mobilization pool for the Kiev gov't.

And compounding this effect is that while Russia has not to date mobilized its population for war, the #DNR and #LNR can and are in fact mobilizing. In the eastern and southern lands of Ukraine, where strong pro-Russian sentiment exists, they find significant manpower.

As this becomes clear to Ukraine, and the fruits of sensationalist reporting about "genocide" diminish, #Kiev is realizing that it must not only save its troops from being encircled in cauldrons, but also its citizenry, whatever their wishes may be. And so I estimate that we will

see examples of forced evacuations in UA cities & towns as the Russians continue to advance in the Donbas. UA will prefer to cede territory to RU advance with a high price, and withered fruits as possible. RU if they can help it, will take only ghost towns. The alternative would

see Russia's manpower problem be alleviate with every kilometer gained, and Ukraine's manpower advantage diminish. In the heavily pro Russian areas of the east and south, this will often mean physically forced evacuation and in fact I expect to see further forced mobilizations of

those same eastern populations. Rather than sacrifice pro Ukrainian western citizens, Kiev will increasingly wish to "sacrifice" as cannon fodder the very same pro-Russian eastern population that live in the land they wish to retain. First mobilize them to make the RU advance

costly, then quickly withdraw them along with as many civilians as possible so that RU does not gain any Russian or pro-Russian population. To counter this strategy that I believe UA will increasingly use, Russia must double its efforts to encircle territory, more speedily,

rather than assault it head on. This if done fast enough, can actually reduce the Ukrainian manpower (the surrounded soldiers), increase Russian population, and spare the cities from destruction.