Thread by @ZimermanErik

We have often discussed logistics in this war, including specifically Russia's nearly unique Railway Troops (in quoted thread from last year).

The force, which has since grown, celebrated its 172nd anniversary, with the MoD releasing footage for the occasion.

Since our last https://t.co/E2fQJpVTfX

https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/status/1549196240327409664

discussion on the Railway Troops, they have become even more important.

On the logistics side, we have several strategic railways and rail hubs near the front (for both sides). They cannot be safely used by regular rail service. RU railway troops have an advantage in being able

to use this force, without drawing on other forces less suited for the job, to patrol these railways, not only against sabotage but also routinely repairing them due to enemy strikes, and clearing them of remotely delivered mines.

The Railway Troops can organize smaller armed

convoys that can deliver men and supplies to and from positions much closer to the front than a regular state owned civilian train service can or is willing to.

The Railway Troops are also less dependent on pre-existing civilian railway stations and can load and unload at ad hoc

points on the line. To the extent Russia can efficiently use this service, it provides a large advantage over its opponent who lacks these capabilities, and has an interior even more subject to bombardment by its opponent.

The necessity of war has improved Ukraine's infamously

inefficient, corrupt and decaying state owned railroad company Ukrainian Railways by huge factors.
While in peacetime it barely could operate, during the war it evacuated millions of people west, carries western weapons east to the front, and transports significant part of grain

formerly exported through the Black Sea. All of this while continuing passenger service (of course not everywhere), and while receiving heavy Russian blows.
While its continued operation is critical, and its achievements have been impressive, it remains dangerously close to

collapse due to Russian strikes, is reliant on incoming locomotives, railcars and parts provided (& ultimately donated) by the west, and does not have the capabilities nor fighting ethos, that the Russian Railway forces count on.

Even now, we hear of UA SBU arrests of

UA Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) officials due to ongoing corruption.

With this in mind, regarding logistics, the railway defense, repair, maintenance and operation capabilities of the combatants is critical for their war effort.

The battle for the Black Sea and Crimea, which
we have discussed at length elsewhere, in large part hinges on the rail (and to a lesser extend road) connections between Crimea and the mainland. Ukraine has recently stepped up its attempts at destroying these connections in order

to achieve in Crimea what it did in the western

bank of Kherson. A much bigger and more difficult task of course.

Besides the critical logistics aspect, railways now have a clear additional strategic and tactical component in the conflict.

As we discussed earlier, the parties

now understand (or at least Russia does) that the dynamics between the current set of weaponry and capabilities and the terrain have in some ways changed previous assumptions.
(article here: )

Railway lines are now clearly and ironically, excellenterikzimerman.com/p/the-changing…

defensive lines, when approached perpendicularly, and paths of advance when followed.

Using the @DefensePolitics map, here we see the Russian held railway south of Bakhmut serving as a difficult line for the UA forces to cross (as previously was the canal).

And just north of

the city, we can see areas where Russia can (and recently is) using the railways as paths of advance, especially towards Vyimka in the last few days.

Not that this is an easy advance, as the defender hides in the same forest lines, but that it is now often easier than advancing

along open fields without cover. The forest belts, forest lines, and in many cases the ground cover (height) the railway line offers offer some cover and stealth to the assaulting forces as well. Here and elsewhere such is the Kupyansk front, we will see the railway lines being

used in one way, the other or both. They can be very strong defensive lines, and/or paths of attack. Russia here is approaching a strategic line, either to simply gain fire control over it and cut off Kyslivka, to seize it, advance along it, or as a general faint to draw forces

away from its more important aim west of the Oskil river (around Dvorichna) to get behind (north and west) of Kupyansk. It is in that city that the main railway and road lanes connect, strategic for a huge swath of of the Kharkhov front.

The Russian Railway Troops, emblematic of an imperial Tsarist past, have a critical role to play in the guided munition and drone saturated battles on the Eurasian steppe in 2023.