At a rough guess, Russia abandoned a mechanized division worth of fighting vehicles, a reinforcing brigade's worth of artillery, and between a fifth and a third of it's artillery shell reserves in Ukraine behind in the Kharkiv Oblast.
It will take a month(+) to effect repairs & replace Soviet radios with encrypted NATO spec radios in the Kharkiv gear.
The near-cut off nature of Russia's Kherson beachhead means Ukraine will likely capture another divisions worth of military fighting vehicles & artillery.
2/
1-2 full divisions' worth of "trophied" Russian vehicle sets & up to 1 million captured Russian artillery shells covers most of the shortfall in supply from the West required to build AFU numbers up for the "deoccupation" of the South and Crimea.
3/
Let's be clear about the military-political implications of those facts going forward.
Strictly speaking, Ukraine doesn't need the West any more to push Russia completely out of its pre-2014 borders.
All cutting off or slow rolling further Western Military aid will do
4/
... is increase Ukrainian casualties without changing the final outcome
The Washington DC De-escalation faction no longer has any influence on stopping those events inside Ukraine.
So Washington DC needs to be thinking in terms of what the pending Armistice terms will be.
5/
Ukraine will demand the return of it's kidnapped population, especially its children, & Russia will never, ever comply.
All Western economic sanctions will be conditioned on those Armistice terms because of all the Russian atrocities which will surface between now and then.
6/
Those images and the megatons of paper & electronic documents that have/will fall to Ukraine will forever alter Russia's economic relations with the West.
Short form: Russia will no longer be a direct supplier of raw materials to the West, w/all the supply chain implications
7/
...that come with this fundamental restructuring of the global economy.
The German government & German multi-nationals will go apoplectic over this new economic world order the Russo-Ukrainian Armistice will imposed upon them.
8/
Ukraine's economy inside NATO & the EU will give Germany a major heavy industrial competitor inside the EU that has lower wages and the Donbass coal & oil energy reserves - whose development will be funded by seized Russian foreign currency reserves - to draw upon.
9/
Much of Germany's bizarre military aid policies vis-a'-vis Ukraine make sense if you are looking at Germany's narrow economic interests in a post Ukrainian NATO & EU membership Europe.
The longer & more damaged Ukraine is in its war with Russia, the better for Germany
10/
...is economically in the near to mid-term.
Germany without Russian cheap energy facing a rebuilding heavy industry focused Ukraine with Donbass energy reserves is in serious economic straits.
Germany's economic interests mean it is going to be worse than Hungary is
11/
...regarding the enforcement of the terms of any future Russo-Ukrainian Armistice.
The future is going to be even worse of the Washington DC De-escalation faction.
Their dreams of a "Russian counterweight" to China are 'deader than disco.'
12/
Their two futures are managing a China with a hermit kingdom Russia as an ally.
Or two, it will face a post-Russian Federation collapse world of rampant nuclear proliferation across Asia as post-Russian states keep their Russian nukes as a hedge against China & each other.
13/
These two futures could have been prevented if Ukraine had been given a major security aid program of surplus F-16's, Abrams Tanks & Bradley Fighting vehicles after 2015.
The DC De-escalation elites didn't wanna, now we all are going to live in one of those two futures.
14/14
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The US military has a term called "Gundecking" regards falsification of reports and preventive maintenance.
2/
The biggest reason for a professional NCO Corps in the US Military to to fall like the a hammer of G-d on enlisted folks who are gundecking the preventive maintenance.
The difference between Putin in 2022 and Saddam in 1991 is that Saddam had far more of his regime security forces, "The Republican Guard," survive, both as a percentage and in total numbers, than Putin has had of the 60K personnel in Russia's regime security forces.
2/
I put together a "Regime Security Force" unit list back in 2016 as follows:
31st Guards Airborne-Assault Brigade from Ulyanovsk
With the AFU units at Sviatohirsk, Ukrainian ground forces have bounced a possible Siverskyi Donets River defensive line & can rapidly move behind Russian/LPR/DPR forces at Lyman and Lysychansk.
@PhillipsPOBrien Ukraine has certainly captured Russia railway engine & rolling stock from Kupyansk south to Izyum & likely captured most between Vovchansk & Kupyansk.
The huge stocks captured at Izyum can be moved up to the Kupyansk marshalling yard & then south to supply the invasion of LPR.
@PhillipsPOBrien Ukraine is now in a railway logistics driven extended exploitation phase like the latter phases of Bagration.
These railways favor a Ukrainian long left wheel strategic invasion route through Donbass and on to Mariupol.
This route is behind Russian Donbass defenses.
2/
@PhillipsPOBrien Railways are far superior logistical supply lines than trucks on Ukrainian roads, if they go the right way.
The rail network out of Kupyansk does just that, & the Russians left behind all the supplies Ukraine needs for this strategic offensive.