1/ Overnight news of a devastating Ukrainian HIMARS strike against a Russian ammunition train suggests to me that the Ukrainians have been rather clever in exploiting the limitations of the local rail network.
2/ The attack took place at Brylivka railway station, south-east of Kherson. Coincidentally, it's an area I remember from a visit many years ago. The whole area is a vast, flat, arid and frankly mononous farming region watered by irrigation canals.
3/ Brylivka owes its existence to the railway line, which was built in 1944 under Stalin to provide a second rail route to Crimea (the main line is further east, running from Melitopol to Simferopol). The village was founded the following year, presumably to house railway staff.
4/ But the line at Brylivka has three peculiarities. First and most importantly, the entire line from Kherson to Dzhankoy is only a single track line. Single track lines have a very limited capacity to carry trains. (Thanks to bueker.net for the map.)
5/ There had been a plan to upgrade the line to double tracks with electrification during the 2010s, but this fell through due to Russia's seizure of the Crimea in 2014.
6/ Second, Brylivka is equipped with a large set of passing loops (or passing sidings) which are long enough for large freight trains. Passing loops allow trains to pass in both directions on a single-line track. The Russian ammo train would have been stopped here.
7/ Third, Brylivka is just south of the North Crimean Canal, which waters the entire area (and Crimea). The railway line crosses it on a single-tack bridge – given its strategic importance, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr HIMARS paid it a visit soon.
8/ The line has not been very busy in recent years. Russia's takeover of the Crimea meant that long-distance and freight traffic ceased in 2014. Prior to the 2022 invasion, it reportedly only had 2 passenger trains a day between Kherson and Vadim, the last Ukrainian-held station.
9/ However, given Russia's dependency on railways for its military logistics (as noted by @TrentTelenko and others), the Russians are likely to have been making heavy use of the line to resupply their forces in occupied areas of Kherson oblast.
10/ They have also within the last month reopened the line from Kherson to Dzhankoy for passenger traffic, though I would imagine the timetable will be somewhat disrupted now. ria.ru/20220630/melit…
11/ So I think it's likely that the Ukrainians could predict where the ammo train would be stopping, because the single-track layout of the line likely required a stop at Brylivka's passing loops.
12/ The damage at Brylivka certainly looks severe, though I would imagine the Russians will be able to repair the track within a few days. But there's nothing they can do about the track's layout.
13/ Whatever else happens, the track is likely to remain single, there will continue to be a need for a passing loop at Brylivka, and trains will continue to need to stop there to allow other trains to pass. So this vulnerability isn't going to go away. /end
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1/ Anti-drone technicals seen outside the Kremlin recently are said to be a hastily improvised response to Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb. However, many are said to have been redirected away from strategic targets to protect Russian generals' dachas. ⬇️
2/ Commenting on the recent viral photo of Russian soldiers manning a machine gun mounted on the back of a Toyota truck in central Moscow, the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel comments on the back story according to a source:
3/ "These are the "last" Toyota vehicles sent to Russia, which were modified to resemble Syrian "shahid-mobiles." Machine guns were mounted on the vehicles immediately after Operation Spiderweb, when UAVs flew out of trucks and attacked military airfields.
69 years ago today, Hungary's six-day old revolution appeared to be poised on the verge of success, with a ceasefire and political reform planned. But hardline Communist forces still remained strong. ⬇️
2/ Despite the previous day's agreement on a ceasefire plan, on the morning of 28 October Soviet tanks attack the revolutionary stronghold of Corvin Square in a final attempt to defeat the insurgents. It fails badly, with the revolutionaries destroying the tanks with Molotovs.
3/ Apart from the unsuccessful Soviet attack, violence has dwindled by now to occasional skirmishes as both sides await the announcement of a ceasefire by the Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy.
1/ A Russian soldier fighting in Chasiv Yar says that new recruits sent to the front die almost immediately, with his own unit taking over 90% casualties. The fields are strewn with rotting corpses. To avoid having to pay compensation to relatives, collecting IDs is banned. ⬇️
2/ A soldier of the 88th Reconnaissance and Sabotage Brigade "Espanyola", called Ruslan, with the callsign "Rukha", has described conditions in the fighting for Chasiv Yar over the summer of 2025, in which thousands of Russians were killed and injured.
3/ "They recruit people who don't know anything—millions are spent on [recruiting] them. They arrive—and immediately, they are 200s [dead]...
They're sent to the training ground for two weeks with an rifle. Just hold it, shoot it, teach it, and that's it. That's all they do."
1/ A US-built luxury cruiser boat stolen from Crimea has somehow turned up at St Petersburg's Naval Military Scientific Centre as an official Russian Navy vessel. In reality it's for the commanding admiral's personal use, a fact that the FSB is being urged to investigate. ⬇️
2/ 'Evil Sailor' writes about the "Saga of the Admiral's Boat", a stirring tale of egregious Russian military corruption on the high seas:
3/ "In the spring of 2025, news broke at the Naval Military Scientific Centre that the head of the centre had "found" a trophy boat—a stolen one, that is—somewhere near Crimea and wanted to bring it to the centre.
1/ The disgraced and jailed Russian general Timur Ivanov wants to go back to Ukraine to fight as a stormtrooper, according to his lawyer. The news has angered many Russian warbloggers, who suspect that he intends to bribe a unit to let him serve in safety in the rear. ⬇️
2/ Ivanov's lawyer Denis Baluev says that his client has been working out hard while in pre-trial detention to get himself combat-ready: "That's why he's healthy. A fighter like him certainly wouldn't be out of place in the Special Military Operation!"
3/ "Moreover, he's truly motivated to restore his good name. Not by sitting out somewhere in the rear, but by actually doing combat work."
Baluev says that Ivanov doesn't plan to appeal to Putin for clemency, which the jailed General Ivan Popov attempted without success.