Thread by @rajan_menon_

Ukraine Battlefield 🧵

Current Russia strategy is pretty evident: Use the window of opportunity before US & EUR arms arrive in large volumes to stretch Ukrainian forces across a ~600 mile front that extends from the Kharkiv sector in the north to Krynky in Kherson. 1/13

This is clear from the positioning of RUS forces in the sectors facing (for eg) Krynky; Rabotyne; Velyka Novosilka, Vuhledar; Krasnohorivka; areas west and northwest of Avdiivka; Yampolivka; Terny; and Kharkiv. 2/13

That’s a lot for UKR to cope with amidst a deficit in troops and equipment, especially artillery. Then there’s the challenge of using scarce air defense to protect troops at the front while also defending cities. 3/13

Some big questions: Can RUS concentrate enough well-trained troops (kontraktniki as opposed to green mobiks) & advanced equipment to make a big, decisive breakthrough? 4/13

RUS has been pulling decades-old tanks, IFVs, APCs from storage & turning to N Korea (and even Iran) for artillery. How long before this tactic runs aground because old, less advanced equipment is more vulnerable and storage supplies are not inexhaustible? 5/13

Relatedly, for how long can RUS sustain the current high tempo of operations along so many points at once—and amidst significant troop and equipment losses? 6/13

When and how quickly will the arrival of Western equipment (esp artilery, missiles, and air defenses) shift the advantage to UKR? 7/13

Perhaps more importantly, how long will it take for UKR’s ongoing draft to prepare well-trained and fresh brigades to send to the front—and armed with incoming Western equipment? 8/13

Will the numerical advantage always work to RUS advantage? (Not necessarily. It can fail and indeed produce large losses: Consider, for example, the repeated RUS attacks on Krynky—which just about everyone said UKR could never hold—and Vuhledar.) 9/13

We won’t have the answers to these questions for a month or two. Meanwhile, UKR will face intense RUS attacks at various points along the front as well as RUS use of glide bombs, missiles, & drones against cities, esp. Kharkiv—plus attacks on UKR energy infrastructure. 10/13

One thing is clear from what we are seeing: Yes, UKR has problems. Analysts spend lots of time enumerating them. But the common claim that RUS has an all but inexhaustible supply of well-trained troops & abundant high-end arms should be questioned, not accepted as a given. 11/13

It’s premature at best to conclude that what we’re seeing now is a turning point—that the RUS offensive has now become unstoppable. As yet there have been no decisive RUS breakthroughs on the front since Avdiivka fell, back in Feb. 12/13

Bottom line: In a war that has often confounded predictions, there remains much that we don’t know and can’t reliably foresee to able to make confident predictions. 12/13