Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 9, 2024 15 tweets 7 min read Read on X
The Russian Army railway logistics are now in worse shape than when Wagner's revolt over ran Rostov on Don's railway marshaling yard.

Per @Schizointel

>>Ukraine now has physical access and control over the
>>Lgov-Belgorod line
>>Lgov-Vorozbha line

Summer 1940 redux🧵
1/
The two key railway marshalling yards for the Russian Army in occupied Ukraine are in Belgorod and Rostov on Don.

And Belgorod railway marshalling yard just got cut off from the north.

Rerouting train traffic like this hasn't happened in Russia since 1941.

2/
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This Reddit map of AFU advances indicates the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), upper right, may soon be isolated from the Russian power grid to points south.

Given the Rostov on Don NPP lost one of two reactors to a maintenance casualty.

3/
reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVi…
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The stability of the Russian power grid is going to be affected with that much baseline nuclear power going off line.

Given 70% of Russian railway engines are electrically powered. This is a huge honking deal...

...a loss of RuAF strategic mobility kind of deal.

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And the situation is it is getting worse as Russian civilians are bugging out en mass as refugees from Kursk Oblast.

RuAF doesn't have many fuel tanker trucks because the Russian Army always projects power from railheads.

5/
This is why there was the 40 mile convoy to Kyiv that ran out of fuel in Feb 2022.

Like Texas evacuating Houston in 2005 with Hurricane Rita, Russian civilians are creating a fuel desert where the RuAF needs to go.

6/
npr.org/sections/thetw…
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Given the number of confirmed AFU brigades involved in the Kursk operation, and the complete lack of a Russian strategic ground forces reserve anywhere.

It is looking far more like @secretsqrl123 idea strategic envelopment of Belgorod than mine of a strategic raid.

7/
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The much reported AFU woes in the Donbas were the result of mostly 2nd line units being put into the front lines behind a "Ghost Army" strategic deception while the elite units were being quietly prepared for the Kursk/Belgorod axis envelopment.

8/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army
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A Ukrainian drone swarm of OWA Drone/propeller cruise missiles have destroyed the VKS munitions stocks at Lipetsk airfield.

This takes the VKS off the table as a strong operational reserve on the Kursk/Belgorod axis.



9/



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Meanwhile, AFU ground forces are making amphibious raid demonstrations at the Kinburn Spit to try and freeze RuAF ground units in Kherson from redeployment.

10/

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RuAF desperation on the Kursk/Belgorod axis is such they are sending the following:

- MT-LB w/a 9K55 Grad-1 multiple rocket launcher
- MT-LB w/a twin 2M-3 25 mm naval gun,
- MT-LB w/a ZU-23-2 gun, & an
- MT-LB w/a MT-12 Rapira 100 mm AT-gun.
11/
mil.in.ua/en/news/mt-lb-…

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This MT-LB "Franken-Grad" just screams of a deep attrition of RuAF trucks available to mount 122mm rocket launchers on them.

An AFU thrust into Belgorod would allow it a pivot to the East to envelop the RuAF incursion into Kharkiv.

12/
The Kursk incursion forces the RuAF to spread their inadequate local reserves and covers the Western flank of an AFU thrust into Belgorod.

Pocketing 100K RuAF troops at Belgorod, with 14 brigades behind RuAF's strategic northern right flank, with no strategic reserve
13/
...looks like N. France in the summer of 1940.

I'm not saying Belgorod will be successfully enveloped by AFU, or that Russia will fall 6 weeks afterwards if it is.

I will say General Guderian is smiling.

14/14 End Image
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More from @TrentTelenko

Jul 31
"Russian exceptionalism"⬇️

The Russians see themselves as immune to the consequences of their own actions.

The previous case studies in this were the Nazis and Imperial Japanese in WW2.

1/
Both polities had monumental hubris, the conviction that all was permitted, and that they were invincible.

The committed Nazis still believed they were winning in March-April 1945.

Japanese 'Yamato-damashii' beliefs took nukes to break.

2/ Image
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This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.

3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 29
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.

Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?

1/
These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...

2/
..."every soldier is a logistical manual laborer when not in combat".

Water is heavy. Pipelines are more efficient that trucks. Yet all we are seeing is Russian water trucks?

Who stole the Russian Army tactical pipelines? Or were they nothing but disinformation?

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jul 29
Russia is showing signs of being at "end run production."

It has run out of serious motor transport & even the smallest scale we are seeing kludged together trailers to make ends meet.

Note also: Water bottles & potatoes are the high priority transport items⬇️

End run🧵
1/
While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)

2/
...claiming Russia is "obviously winning."

We are at the same time seeing economic signs of Russian "End Run Production."

The Russian wartime economy is functioning hand to mouth with oil sales revenues because all of the foreign exchange reserves are spent or frozen.

3/
Read 11 tweets
Jul 27
Given what happened to DoD procurement after the 2nd Clinton Adm. annihilation of military specifications, which killed the configuration mgt, systems engineering & production engineering disciplines in defense contractors.

I shudder to see what DOGE's AI will do.

Mil-spec🧵
1/
I've written about this issue for seven years starting on the Chicagoboyz weblog with a post titled:

"The 737 MAX and the Death of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
March 24th, 2019"

2/
In 2020 I was talking how the decay of systems engineering skills are affecting US Navy nuclear sub safe programs due to the lack of good systems engineering talent in Defense contractors.

3/
Read 14 tweets
Jul 24
So, the Thai Army is now ahead of the US Army in using heavy multi-copter drones?

This underscores the vulnerability of the West to drones due to its bureaucratically bloated and infinitely slow military procurement systems.

1/
The snail like pace of Western military procurement versus the Ukrainian fielding of an all-aspect stealth shaped OWA drone in less than a couple of years is very noticeable.

2/
Read 4 tweets
Jul 22
On the morning of 20 July 2025, a AFGSC airman at Minot AFB took his M18, still inside it's issued holster; and placed it on a desk.

It then went off, struck him in chest, and killed him

AFGSC issued a halt order on 21 July 2025 for use of M17/18 Modular Handgun System.

1/ Image
As an ex-DoD procurement official, that letter is a procurement killing hammer.

This is going to hit SIG Sauer like a moderate sized asteroid in terms of DCMA corrective actions requests or "CAR."

2/ Image
This AFGSC halt use order letter will be grounds for a level three corrective action request (CAR).

A DCMA level III CAR is defined as follows:

"A Level III Corrective Action Request (CAR) issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a serious action taken when there are significant contractual nonconformities.

It is directed to the supplier's top management and is just one step below the possibility of contract suspension or termination.

This type of CAR serves as a management tool to address critical issues that need immediate attention."

3/Image
Read 11 tweets

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