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The Next 10 Days Will Decide This War
Russia’s effort to conquer Ukraine may culminate within the next 10 days.
cepa.org
Russian generals are running out of time, ammunition, and manpower. That’s not based on any inside intelligence — it’s clear from open source information and my own experience. I could be way off, but I am confident of this assessment.
The Russians are experiencing ammunition shortages. Their transition to attrition warfare is driving up consumption rates beyond what they had planned and what they can sustain.
The Pentagon has said that 50% of Russian combat power was committed in Ukraine. At the height of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were about 29% committed. And it was difficult to sustain that....Russia does not have the manpower or firepower to encircle the Ukrainian capital, let alone capture it.
Reports of low morale, dissension between commanders, mutiny on at least one vessel, desertion, and so on, all within the first two weeks are indicators of major manpower problems. And in pure numbers, the Ukrainian armed forces still outnumber or closely match Russian forces actually on the ground in Ukraine.
He also refutes the idea that Russia has some secret reserves it has yet to draw on.
I personally find this convincing. If Russia could field the manpower to roll over Ukraine, they would have. If they had to ability to establish air superiority, they would have. If they were capable of taking Kyiv or Mariupol, they would have. Now that Russia has shown their hand it seems probable that Ukraine will emerge victorious. Every day this conflict drags on seems to reinforce this with more evidence. Indeed, today Ukrainian forces are staging multiple counter offensives.There is no suggestion that the Russians have big units lurking in the woods somewhere (and the Pentagon has said it sees no signs of significant reinforcements.) So it’s apparent that the notional 900,000 strength of the Russian military is a hollow number. Their public call for 16,000 troops from Syria and elsewhere indicates this....The next 10 days are decisive. It is a race and I’m not seeing enough urgency. We need to push the gas pedal to the floor now, immediately.
There has been a “radical change” between Ukrainian and Russian forces after Kyiv launched counter-offensives in “several theaters of operations,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak....The British Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, has said Ukraine is “skillfully exploiting” the “lack of manoeuvrability” of Russian forces and inflicting heavy casualties.
The TLDR is essentially that Russian forces are close to the breaking point, and that if we increase the pressure now that could be all it takes for their offensive to collapse.
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