2/ The Russian ground forces had one airborne division and a mechanized infantry brigade near the Estonian and Latvian borders and the equivalent of a division in the exclave of Kaliningrad...
3/ ...which is physically separated from Russia and a poor launching pad on its own for an attack on Poland and Lithuania, which it borders.
4/ The next closest Russian forces to Poland were about 360 miles to the east on the far side of Belarus. No Russian troops threatened Slovakia, Hungary, or Romania.
5/ The Russians had been building an air defense network relying on their advanced S-300 and S-400 long-range anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to hinder NATO’s ability to defend the Baltic States.
6/ They had been expanding that network over much of the Black Sea using their bases in occupied Crimea. However, their network suffered from a large gap across southern Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania because they could not base their systems in Ukraine.
7/ Even Russia's air defense coverage over Poland relied heavily on systems in Kaliningrad, the most vulnerable and exposed part of Russian territory. Trapping these systems in a small exclave reduces that advantage and facilitates NATO efforts to disrupt and defeat them.
2/6: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov threateningly urged Ukraine to negotiate with Russia sooner rather than later in framing consistent with the ISW assessment that Russia intends to achieve its maximalist objectives in Ukraine through military means.
3/6: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba published an op-ed entitled “There is a Path to Victory in Ukraine” on December 15, wherein he argues that Ukrainian military objectives remain feasible despite increasingly pessimistic discussions in the West.
2/ Russia’s possession of Crimea makes Russia the dominant power in the Black Sea and allows Russian aircraft to threaten the southeastern NATO flank as well as to deploy long-range air defenses on the peninsula.
3/ The positions in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast that Russia currently controls provide bases even further west of Crimea. NATO will have to meet these challenges whenever the war ends if those areas remain in Russian hands.
2/ Note: The following estimate of the forces Russia might deploy in Ukraine and Belarus if Moscow intended to be prepared for a short-notice serious attack on NATO is very conservative.
3/ Russian forces could push all the way to the western Ukrainian border in such a scenario and establish new military bases on the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
Situation 2: Current Disposition of Russian & NATO Forces as of December 12, 2023
1/ Ukraine’s defeat of the initial Russian invasion in 2022 has kept the eastern borders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania free of the threat of major Russian ground attack. 🧵(1/4)
2/ Ukraine’s liberation of western Kherson Oblast has kept the nearest effective Russian troops about 220 miles and a large river away from the Romanian border. Most of Russia’s troops are more than 350 miles from Romania and further still from Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.
3/ The war is fully occupying nearly half a million Russian troops—just about all of Russia’s available ground combat power.
NEW: The US has a much higher stake in Russia's war on Ukraine than most people think.
As Americans consider the costs of continuing to help Ukraine fight the Russians in the coming years, they deserve a careful consideration of the costs of allowing Russia to win. 🧵(1/19)
2/ A Russian conquest of all of Ukraine is by no means impossible if the United States cuts off all military assistance and Europe follows suit. Such an outcome would bring a battered but triumphant Russian army right up to NATO’s border from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean.
3/ If Russia wins, a victorious Russian army at the end of this war will be combat experienced and considerably larger than the pre-2022 Russian land forces.
The return of the Kremlin’s notion of a “partitioned Ukraine” is likely an organized effort to mislead the international community into rejecting key components of Ukraine’s sovereignty: its territorial integrity as defined in 1991 and its right to self-determination. 🧵(1/11)
2/ Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev misrepresented US Pres. Biden’s response to a media question about whether the US policy is to win the war or help Ukraine to defend itself during a joint press conference with UKR Pres. Zelensky on Dec. 12.
3/ Medvedev routinely and deliberately makes outlandish statements, but the timing of these statements and focus on the idea that Ukraine could exist only as a rump state within the territory of Lviv Oblast...