Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Are Russian frontline troops suffering from a critical shortage of small arms ammunition and weapons? Recent videos and accounts from soldiers and their relatives suggest they are. Let's review the recent evidence.

2/ The video below, showing men from Russia's 72nd Brigade near Bakhmut, contains some remarkable testimony. The men say that they have literally only a handful (or pocketful) of ammunition and "2 rifles remaining for 22 people."

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1679809685891817472

3/ Previous videos have spoken of breakdowns in Russian logistics, where the frontline men have not received food, water or ammunition. This one includes the remarkable statement that men were not allowed to go and get ammunition and were turned back from collecting it.

4/ In another video, relatives say that their men in the Luhansk region are so short of ammo that they have to "go with automatic rifles against tanks ... when ammunition runs out and they don't bring new supplies, you run with it like with a stick."

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1678378006358663168

5/ In southern Ukraine, other relatives say, their men ran out of ammunition and were left with automatic rifles they couldn't fire, "which they can at best use as sticks".

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1679476821035810816

6/ It's not clear how typical these problems are, but they suggest that the Russians are having very severe logistical problems in at least three areas along the front line, hundreds of kilometers apart – in the Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

7/ It suggests two things to me:

🔺 First, that that Ukrainian strategy of hitting logistics routes and ammunition dumps with long-range fires is having severe effects on the Russians' ability to supply the front lines.

8/🔺 Second, that if the men seen or discussed in these videos are typical, Russia's apparent defensive strength is illusionary, and that behind the strongly constructed trenches and dense minefields, the defending Russians are poorly armed and have little ammunition.

9/ It should be remembered that Ukraine's counteroffensive is clearly currently in an attritional, probing phase where they are trying to degrade the Russian logistics and artillery, and identify weak points in the defences.

10/ Once they've achieved that to a satisfactory degree, I think we will be surprised – or maybe shocked – at how rapidly the Ukrainians deal with the demoralised, underfed and underequipped men remaining in the Russian trenches. /end