Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 7, 2024 23 tweets 10 min read Read on X
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have launched a up to 25K, or small NATO Corps sized, incursion into the Kursk Oblast that is moving between 7 & 10 km a day.

AFU Bde have between 4 to 9 battalions per brigade with 6 Bn as average, so ~18 Bn seem involved.
AFU's Strategic raid🧵
1/

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US made and AFU crewed Stryker & Humvees are in Russia as a part of an AFU multi-domain - that is, air and ground - offensive.

A RuAF conscript regiment -- doing animal labor logistics - was thrown at the assault and shattered. Chechens ran.

Russia's reserves are airpower.
2/ @NOELreports photo of a M1132 Stryker ESV with LWMR mine roller in Russia.
What has been particularly interesting has been the further demonstration of the floating 10 km "FPV Motor Transport Kill Bubble" that extend around AFU Drone-ground teams that has picked off a pair of RuAF tank transporter convoys behind the border.

3/
And this "FPV Motor Transport Kill Bubble" is now going for big game.

That is, Ukrainian FPVs are targeting Russian railway engines on the Kursk Oblast rail lines.

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The last two days of NASA FIRMS heat maps shows hot spots of AFU & RuAF artillery fires that seem to confirm Ukrainian claims of major ground gains.

Ukrainian BUK SAM launchers and FPV interceptors have, so far, kept the VKS jets & choppers off the backs AFU ground units.

5/
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This is a video of a Russian attack helicopter over Kursk Oblast being destroyed by a Ukrainian FPV interceptor.

The same could happen to a US Army AH-64 Apache in the near future.

6/
While some are claiming we are seeing the beginnings of a Ukrainian strategic envelopment.

There was a lack of Russian social media comment on this AFU force before this attack that would reflect a major strategic logistical build up.

7/
And the distances involved - 150 km - from Kursk to Vovchansk are operational-strategic in scope.

This makes me think we are looking at a Ukrainian strategic level raid aimed at placing Russia in a nested series of logistical dilemma's in order to give AFU the initiative.

8/ Image
Where that 1st logistical dilemma that is making itself felt is the Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD), jammer & FPV based AFU air superiority over Kursk below 3,000 feet/914 meters.

We saw this at #Krynky in 2023 and we are seeing it again now in Kursk.
9/
It's the reach of the Ukrainian Baba Yaga with a more than 25 km radius of action while dropping heavy munitions, or FPV's while acting as a radio relay, that is going to be a horror show for the RuAF.

Three TM-62 mines dropped from one will cut a railway line.

And Russia can't risk scarce railway repair crews inside the Baba Yaga bubble for fear those crews will be targeted.

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In WW2 the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force would sweep areas before British Commonwealth armored columns penetrating Nazi lines.

Typhoons were armed with 8 each RP-3 rockets and P-47's with 500lb bombs.

AFU is replaying these tactics using drones.
11/
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Wherever Ukrainian ground forces are present, you have to draw a 25 km bubble ahead of them to account for their drone interdiction of major transport infrastructure and 10 km for killing Russian motor transport.

Given Kursk's rail network...opps😈⬇️
12/
Russia's real logistical dilemma is they are on exterior versus interior lines of communications with an inferior sized ground force.

The Russians were too confident in the paralytic fear of the Biden NSC. The fools.

The NSC is now paralyzed between fear of Moscow & fear of political crucifixion on multiple fronts.

13/
(H/T @WarintheFuture)Image
The analytical loons on X buying into the "Russia Strong™️" narrative about RuAF having infantry superiority ignored the fact that RuAF counted on the Biden Administration keeping Ukraine out of Russia.

Reflexive Control infowar doctrine was used as a RuAF strategic economy of force measure to get local numerical superiority for offensives.

So RuAF didn't honor the threat of AFU's larger ground forces across from the Kursk Oblast.

14/Image
This only worked as long as Ukraine played by US rules. It looks like the Biden Admin refusal to allow ATACMS strikes on Russian airfields while VKS withdrew was the last straw.

The lack of Russian reserves means Kherson Oblast is the only source of formed military units, unless RuAF gives up the Vovchansk offensive.

GMLRS made this a problem in the summer of 2022. (Map⬇️)

ATACMS ranges on all rail lines in occupied Ukraine. It will take more than a week to get RuAF units from Kherson to Kursk by rail.

15/
(H/T @FreudGreyskull)Image
Russia has to gather a lot of scarce motor transport to move ground units out of Kherson.

Then put them, and especially their heavy equipment, on rail outside of GMLRS range and take the risk of ATACMS and partisan attacks in Southern Ukraine to get them to Kursk.

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The complete destruction of the Russian railway ferry fleet was, in retrospect, a strategic level AFU shaping operation for the current Kursk offensive

It is certain that Ukraine is waiting for a munitions train to approach the Kerch Straits bridge.

17/
Being a WW2 Pacific historian specializing in electronic warfare, signals & logistics.

It makes you acutely aware that troops in transit are utterly useless for doing anything until they arrive, shake out and move from the port to battle.

Russia is doing that with trains.
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It isn't just moving the 100K troops RuAF needs to stabilized, & then start reducing the Kursk salient.

The ATACMS threat dispursed VKS jets needs munitions & fuel moved to support operations simultaneously, w/o forklifts & pallets.

Bombs on a train aren't on a flight line.
19/Image
The Russian Railway monopoly is suffering a perfect storm of Western railway cassette bearing wear out, maintenance work force burnout, and administrative chaos between oligarchs owning rolling stock.

Now it is being over stressed by priority...

20/
t.me/vchkogpu/49636
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...military trains heading in every direction in Western Russia and occupied Ukraine at the same time.

It's almost like Ukraine is making a Russian economy suffering from rail transportation double pneumonia to do a 400 meter sprint in winter.😈

21/
I think the real objective of the AFU strategic raid into Kursk Oblast is to cause a systemic collapse of Russian railway system as a set up for a series of AFU offensives.

Like the one I predicted for September 2024.

22/22 End
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More from @TrentTelenko

Aug 21
At a production rate of 100 FP-1 drones a day. Fire Point will make 13,200 FP-1 one way attack (OWA) drone by 1 Jan 2026.

By itself.

Every other Ukrainian OWA drone maker is in addition to that 13,200 number.

1/2
If the FP-1 really is 60% of Ukrainian OWA drone production. (Rather than just recent launches)

0.6 (x) = 13,200
x = 13,200/0.6
x = 22,000

Ukraine is on track to make 22,000 OWA drones in the last 132 days of 2025. 👀


2/
22,000 Ukrainian OWA drones in 132 days certainly is a strategic bombing threat of the first order.

Even if Russia downs 80% of them.

That is 4,400 Ukrainian OWA drone hits in Russia in the next 132 days or 33 and 1/3 precision guided drone hits on Russia per day to 2026.
3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 21
More information has come out on the FP-5 Flamingo which gives insights io both the systems and production engineering involved for low cost production.

I'm going to use the WW2 F6F Hellcat & M4 Sherman as examples of Ukrainian FP-5 design choices.

Engineering🧵
1/
The FP-5 GLCM production photos released today shows what looks like a combination of carbon fiber composite, molded thermoplastics, and sheet metal.

Cruciform tail controls are all moving.

Wings are attached before launch like a 1960s USAF MGM-1 Matador.
2/ Image
The FP-5 Transporter Erector Launch (TEL) trailer looks like a new custom build.

Iryna Terekh, head of production at Fire Point, stated to the AP that "Fire Point is producing roughly one Flamingo per day, and by October they hope to build capacity to make seven per day."

3/ Image
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Read 16 tweets
Aug 19
I've gotten a lot of comments on this thread here and via DM. I'm going to share one from a Cold War gray beard on the engine that powers the FP-5.

"FP-5 is around 4 x Tomahawk in mass.

FP-5 Engine🧵
...With a similar configuration, drag will not be dominated by lift induced wing drag but will form drag which is typical for 500 knots air speed jets and missiles with low aspect ratio wings.

2/
...So a rule of thumb estimate is that you will need around 4 x the thrust of a Tomahawk F107-WR-402 700 lbf (3.1 kN) engine for an FP-5 Flamingo GLCM.

3/
Read 7 tweets
Aug 19
Slowly, with a lot of notice, Trump is morphing into Pres. Biden

This territorial concession malarkey is exactly what the Biden Administration was playing games with in Nov 2021 via an op-ed by Samuel Charap of RAND in the Nov 19, 2021 Politico.

1/
That Op-Ed advocated, in effect, that the US abandon Ukraine to Russia in exchange for other concessions by Russia, greenlighting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It was understood in Nov. 2021 era DC that Charap...


2/rand.org/pubs/commentar…
...was Jake Sullivan's totem animal for surfacing ideas of "de-escalation" with Russia.

Former Estonian President Ilves and Prof Stephan Blank utterly shredded the Charap/Sullivan thought balloon.

Seeing Trump revive that Charap/Sullivan thought ballon now is sickening🤮

3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 18
The issue for Russia with the FP-5 is that its range makes Russian national air defense practically impossible.

Ukraine can reach facilities on the other side of the Urals and north to Murmansk with the FP-5.

Once Ukrainian drones overwhelm a border SAM battery sector.

1/ Image
FP-5's sent through the drone peak saturation area can 'squirt through into a great empty' low at high subsonic speeds.

Only an AWACS with late production SU-30 with look down/shoot down PESA radars can deal with them.

H/T @DrnBmbr
2/ Image
Furthermore, FP-5's are going to have electronic counter measures (ECM) and counter-countermeasures (ECCM) installed as standard.

The FP-5 will have at least a 24 element CRPA element layout to beat GPS jamming...

3/
Read 5 tweets
Aug 12
Pres Zelenskyy of Ukraine just made an interesting statement:

"Let me give an example from yesterday, roughly like this: the Russians suffer about a thousand losses per day — that’s 500 killed and 500 wounded.

1/
I’m not even counting the 10 prisoners and so on. More precisely, 968 losses for Russia: 531 killed, 428 wounded, and 9 captured.

We had 340 losses in one day: 18 killed, 243 wounded, and 79 missing in action," he said."

2/
500 Russian KIA versus 18 Ukrainian KIA is a 29.5 to one ratio in favor of Ukraine.

Total Russian casualties of 1,000 versus 340 Ukrainian is a 2.9 to one ratio in favor of Ukraine.

3/
Read 5 tweets

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