The explosive detonation for this was bigger than the WW2 Dambusters breaches.
Clearly this is a lot of pre-placed demolition charges being activated.
No missile in Ukrainian service can deliver that much explosive payload, nor in three distinct blasts.
2/5
Issues going forward:
1. ZNPP nuclear cooling once the water abates
2. Crimean canal is fed from this reservoir. The dam destruction means Putin does not plan to keep water flowing to Crimea i.e. he no longer thinks RuAF can hold Crimea.
3/5
Putin is acting like Saddam when he dumped Kuwaiti oil into the Gulf and torching wells - wanton destruction with no useful military effect.
This is not surprising.
The Russian aim here is to lay waste to as much of Ukraine as they can, if it can't be theirs.
4/5
Putin is convinced that Russia will will not have to pay for repairing the damage to Ukraine after the war because Russia is a decayed nuclear superpower.
The "Irrational Regime hypothesis" of "Irrational regimes become more so under pressure" now has a Russian confirmation
5/5
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This 🧵is a Telenko family history of the development of the M-1 Abrams tank with my observations of the horses--t being thrown against the wall implying Ukraine cannot operate the Abrams.
The man below is the late Col. George Telenko, West Point Class of 1962. 1/
Dad was the armor officer the US Army chose to turn the Lima Army Modification Center into the Lima Army Tank Plant in the late 1970's.
As I was going to high school at Lima Shawnee, Dad was turning a repurposed steam train manufacturing facility into a state of the art
2/
...tank manufacturing plant. Today it is known as the "Joint Manufacturing Center - Lima."
When this tank rolled out to the media in 1980.
I was there as a reporter for the Lima Shawnee student newspaper. Nepotism has its privileges'...
Welcome to the era of "NCO Air Forces," drones in the hands of non-commissioned officers supporting light infantry companies and platoons with local airpower sporting precision firepower.
Big centralized western air forces and artillery organizations now have a combat 1/
Drones are a disruptive innovation to big costly platforms as they provide some of the big platforms firepower capabilities very cheaply.
In addition, drones give local 'G-ds eye view' infantry never had before while the big platforms are completely
2/
...irrelevant in stopping the drone threat.
This is a prescription to disinvest in big platforms to provide small infantry formations with organic electronic warfare capabilities to deal with drones.
This process could go on for weeks as AFU pulls Russian reserves into deep fires kill zones.
What we are seeing reported now is straight up late 1944 Red Army & late Cold War US Army covering force tactics. You push a mechanized infantry force into the 1st line of resistance
2/
...to get the other side to open up. You then identify enemy fighting positions and call in artillery hell.
If the front line is lightly held, you move forward and develop the situation until you do hit resistance.
3/
Russia lost 32 artillery tubes on 3 June 2023 by AFU count and @wartranslated latest translation here make me think the Russians are afraid of shooting artillery for fear of Ukrainian counter-battery fires.
This is a pure cost-trade failure on the part of missiles.
A $10K to $99K prop drone with a 10 to 50 kg explosive payload is facing off against a $300K to $3 million missile.
And this leaves aside the issue of air defense missile collateral damage. 2/ t.me/dvish_alive/24…
There is increasing evidence across all social media of Libya 1986/Operation Eldorado Canyon redux air defense missile collateral damage in Russia & Ukraine. (link)