Thread by @KyleWOrton

Signs that #Russia is re-escalating the "mobilisation", picking people up off the streets again to send to #Ukraine, presumably because so many of the mobiks have been killed already and now there is this insane effort to break through in Bakhmut.

https://twitter.com/Sota_Vision/status/1601276686573924352

Helpful thread here on the background from #Bakhmut. Really, whatever happens in the next period, whether #Russia can break through #Ukraine's lines or not, there is no meaningful way of assessing this as anything but a catastrophe for the Russians

https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1601830275129872385?t=58H05kzkIHxNJQc_x9ovIg&s=19

I tend to think this is right. #Bakhmut means a lot to #Russia, but, as mentioned in the thread, among other things, #Ukraine is rotating people on the front, which is likely not what would be happening if Kyiv saw this as a central strategic issue.

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1602058534622994433

"A widespread assessment that #Russian forces have until mid-December [in #Bakhmut] before the onset of full winter conditions ... 'If the attack doesn't succeed they’ll just try again in exactly the same way. ... They are just throwing in meat'." theguardian.com/world/2022/dec…

#pt: "Eighty per cent of the population around here [#Bakhmut] are pro-Russian. The ones who weren't have left. Most of those who still remain are waiting for the Ruski mir [the Russian world] to come. It wasn't like when we were fighting in Kherson."

#pt: "Once seen as a stepping stone on the road to the key Donbas cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the efforts around #Bakhmut appear to have become an end in themselves [for #Russia] ... about re-establishing a sense of lost military prestige ... after months of setbacks"

#pt: "Even if [#Russia] could take #Bakhmut, beyond is less easy terrain spread across a vast hinterland of wooded hills and rivers and decaying post-industrial towns. 'We are scratching our heads,' a western official told AFP earlier this week when asked about Russia's focus"

#pt: Yevgeny Prigozhin's explanation: "Our task is not #Bakhmut itself, but the destruction of the #Ukrainian army..., which has an extremely positive effect on other areas, which is why this operation was dubbed the 'Bakhmut meat grinder'."

Not massively convincing.

A useful bit of background when looking at what Russia is up to in Bakhmut

https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1580777742550695936

From 2016, when #Russia's "Wagner" was freshest, in #Syria: "It's right out of the Second World War … men were booted out of their vehicles in a field … And forward, just like meat … they only manage to learn the basics … so as not to die immediately." capx.co/assad-is-in-a-…

#Ukraine's Defence Minister @oleksiireznikov reiterates that there will be no let-up for the winter months.

(This narrative of a need to pause because of the weather seems to be fading now, but it kept on for quite a while.)

https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1602038479386562560

The #US remains confused why #Russia is putting its military through this meat grinder in #Bakhmut.

https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1602461061273116672