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

Jan 22
Stephen Blank has always had a clear US policy view of Russia:

"Moreover, Putin and his circle consistently advance two intertwined claims:

1. Ukraine is inherently Russian;

2. this war steps from NATO’s alleged attempt to turn

1/
euromaidanpress.com/2025/01/22/tru…
...its supposed vassal state Ukraine into a member against Russia’s will.

Though some self-proclaimed experts still peddle this nonsense, this war’s true purpose is unmistakable:

2/
...the restoration of the Russian empire, without which Putin’s power – and that of his likely successors – cannot persist."

I'll add the following:

The arrival & mass production of Chairman Xi's Corvus Mulberry barges (pictured below behind a Chinese car ferry⬇️)...

3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Jan 20
400 Houthi aerial drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were fired at/near USN ships since Oct 2023

120 SM-2 & 80 SM-6 missiles, 160 five-inch main guns rounds, plus a combined 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow and SM-3 missiles engaged them.

Drone War Cost Trades 🧵
1/ Image
Tyler Rogoway has reported the following missile costs:

SM-2 Block IIIC - $2,530,000 per missile.
SM-6 - $4,270,000 per missile.
Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) RIM-162 Block II - $1,490,000 per missile.
SM-3 -$12,510,000 for the Block IB, and $28,700,000 for the Block IIA
2/ Image
So:

120 SM-2 * $2.53 million = $303.6 million
80 SM-6 * $4.27 million = $341.6 million
12 ESSM (guess) = $17.88 million
6 SM-3 IB (guess) * $12.51 million = $75 million
2 SM-3 IIA (guess) * $28.7 million = $57.4 million

3/ Image
Image
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Read 16 tweets
Jan 17
The fire and forget millimeter wave (MMW) radar guidance AGM-114L "Hellfire Longbow" being referred in the War Zone post as "a new anti-drone armament" for the LCS actually ceased production in 2005 and reaches end of life in 2025.

1/
One of the reasons the AGM-114L was dropped from the US Army M-Shorad is the US Army didn't want to pay money to recertify the AGM-114L inventory...

2/
...with the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) equipped with dual-mode Semi-Active Laser (SAL) and millimeter wave (MMW) radar seeker just entering production.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Jan 16
It is a bad week to be Russia.

Qatar, one of the biggest LNG exporter, just announced it's new six MTPA (million tonnes per annum) nitrogen fertilizer plant.

The chemical process involved is natural gas->ammonia -> urea for a
1/
dohanews.co/qatar-set-to-b…
...vertically integrated facility.

This new Qatar facility means Middle Eastern fertilizer industrial plants have now displaced Russia on the world fertilizer market.

2/
This makes Russia falling out of the world Ag-sector fertilizer supply chain a non-event going forward.

The Qatari sheiks made a good move here to capture value up the supply chain from energy.

Plus, Urea and Ammonia store far better than liquified natural gas.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jan 15
I disagree with the thoughts in this post for multiple reasons.⬇️

1st, Ukraine made a systematic effort in Oct 2024 to take out multiple Russian alcohol distilleries.

So distilleries are on the AFU strategic bombing list.

1/
2nd, there are a lot of things that alcohol is a chemical feedstock for that Russia desperately needs to make.

I've talked about synthetic rubber for tires in another thread.


2/
A short list of Russian industrial alcohol uses include:

o It's used as an industrial solvent.
o It's used as a precursor for numerous plastics.
o It's used as a precursor for some explosives.

3/
Read 5 tweets
Jan 15
Ukraine struck another Russian alcohol plant?

I'm beginning to think the Russians have been using alcohol to make butadiene based synthetic rubber.

My WW2 US mobilization resources say grain produced alcohol was the primary chemical feedstock for the synthetic rubber

1/
...in US tires until August 1944.

The process was invented by a Russian, Via wikipedia:

"The Russian chemist Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev was the first to polymerize butadiene in 1910....

2/
...In 1926 he invented a process for manufacturing butadiene from ethanol, and in 1928, developed a method for producing polybutadiene using sodium as a catalyst.

The government of the Soviet Union strove to use polybutadiene as an alternative to natural rubber ...

3/
Read 6 tweets

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