Thread by @rajan_menon_

1/14 Recent analyses of the war in Ukraine, even in top magazines such @ForeignAffairs, contain debatable claims. Below are four examples: 🧵

2/ ONE: Among the reasons Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed was the failure to concentrate the bulk of its forces at one point on the southern front rather than dispersing them. But the front is 600 miles long & Russia, with a far bigger army, had massed for attack at various

3/ points along it. Had Ukraine not deployed forces to defend those other points, the Russians would have broken through—and kept going.

4/ TWO: Russian defensive lines are so formidable that Ukraine can never break through. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t, but the so-called Surovikin fortifications do not extend along the entire front and in Kherson, such defenses as do exist, are far less extensive. Hence the

5/ significance of UKR’s Krynky bridgehead on the RUS-held bank of the Dnipro in Kherson.

THREE: Drones have been part of the war since the get-go and there’s been no big change in their role. In fact, recent changes in drone tech. have dramatically changed the cost exchange

6/ ratio, with cheap drones demolishing multi-million dollar tanks as well as IFVs that cost $ 400K and more. Indeed, but for drones, especially the FPV type, the Ukrainian foothold at Krynky, on the Russian-held left bank of the Dnipro, would have been overrun long ago because

7/ it’s held by a small number of marines who have used drones to destroy lots of attacking armor. And this has happened not only in Krynky but also in other places, such as Avdiivka. Russia has made major investments in drones in recent months—something that a drone operator

8/ explained to me during a discussion in Izyum. Then of course there’s the emergence of sea drones, which we’ve seen in action in the Black Sea, including in the last few days.

Indeed, among UKR’s military weaknesses is the lack of sufficient drones, especially FPV variants.

9/ The majority of the drones its troops use are still supplied by volunteers who raise money by seeking donations.

FOUR: Russian countermeasures have robbed Western missiles of much of their effectiveness. Russia has indeed adapted & improved its ECM, but Ukraine continues

10/ to use western missiles, notably HIMARS and Storm Shadow, with devastating effect, as witness last week’s attack on attack on the Russian airbase at Belbek that killed ~11 officers, including likely a general, and damaged three warplanes.

11/ The Russian Black Sea Fleet has partly been moved to eastern Crimea, & even to Novorossiisk, precisely because of Ukraine’s devastating missile attacks.

12/Re ATACMS; among the egs. of Ukraine’s use of it was an attack in October on Berdiansk, destroying several military helicopters, an ammunition storage site, and an air defense system. Russia claims to have intercepted ATACMs twice but I know of no independent verification.

13/Ultimately, Ukraine’s military prospects hinge less on the points I’ve flagged for discussion here and much more on whether US military aid continues and whether Ukraine can mobilize and train ~500k additional soldiers—and whether Europe steps up far more than it has.

14/14 A final, unrelated, point: Western military experts are telling Ukraine to avoid an offensive and to switch to defense. Ukraine’s generals and military experts KNOW this, esp given the uncertainties re US military aid and the latter have written about “active defense.”