According to Pentagon assessments, Russia has now committed 95% of the 180,000 troops it amassed around Ukraine to the invasion. Unconfirmed rumors claim that Russia is calling up reservists, while The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia was recruiting Syrian fighters for the campaign. While Russia continues to base a big part of its invasion air, artillery, and logistical chain in Belarus, its troops haven’t engaged the battle as once promised. Rumors are that the country’s military is rebelling against being sent across the border, but who the heck knows.
Now, 180,000 seems like a shit-ton of soldiers, but remember, not all of them actually fire stuff. The vast majority of soldiers—80% to 90%—support the soldiers firing stuff, like truckers and other supply soldiers, medics, headquarters staff, mechanics, cooks, etc. So already, that 180,000 number includes maybe 20,000 to 40,000 actual combat arms personnel. For the sake of this analysis, let’s presume the mix is higher—that Russia front-loaded its invasion force with more armor and infantry. Let’s say they actually have 100,000 actual combat arms personnel. That’s a lot! Or is it?
Here we see how Russia has split its attack into four main axes: targeting Kyiv from the north, a northeast axis aimed at Sumy and Kharkiv, the western axis pushing out from the separatist Donbas region, and the southern axis pushing out from Russian-occupied Crimea. So already, you’re splitting your army into four different groups.
But that’s not all! The Kyiv axis is split into two, with one element that pushed through Chernobyl and another that’s now stalled just east of it in Chernihiv. The northeast axis is split into two prongs, which are directed at Kharkiv and Sumi separately. The Donbas axis is … pushing out all over. The southern axis is split between elements pushing east toward Mariupol in Ukraine’s southeastern-most corner, and west toward Odesa through Kherson, and now stuck at Mykolaiv.
Add them up: I count prongs in Kyiv, Crimea, and northeastern axes, plus at least three more out of Donbas in the west. So roughly nine. That leaves Russia with around 10,000 to 20,000 troops per axis. Still a major force! But suddenly not as daunting as the nearly 200,000 that surrounded Ukraine pre-invasion.
But troop numbers aren’t even Russia’s biggest problem! On last week’s The Brief, VoteVets’ Jon Soltz spoke about his experience as a logistics officer during the American invasion of Iraq. The U.S. had one major axis from the south, and a diversionary one in the north via airborne drop. That’s it! And even then, with just one major line of attack, the U.S. and its allies had a tough time keeping units supplied. We’ve seen Russia’s utter inability to resupply its troops, but now they’re supposed to do it on NINE lines of attack?
No wonder their ground troops have essentially been at a standstill since Friday.
Monday, Mar 7, 2022 · 3:38:15 PM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill
Blinken is assuring our NATO allies:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday assured Lithuania and Latvia of NATO protection and American support as he made quick visits to two of the three Baltic states that are increasingly on edge as Russia presses ahead with its invasion of Ukraine.
Along with Estonia, which Blinken will visit on Tuesday, the former Soviet republics are NATO members, and the Biden administration is aiming to calm any fears they have about their security in the event Russia chooses to expand its military operations.
Monday, Mar 7, 2022 · 5:41:17 PM +00:00 · kos
This is interesting and appear to be new—RC-135 are intelligence-gathering planes, able to track Russian radar signatures and listen in on communications. Much of the battlefield chatter on the Russia side is unencrypted, using commercial radios, making it very easy for allied intelligence agencies to track what is happening on the battlefield. That southern plane is also looping around the edge of the Black Sea, around Odesa, tracking any potential amphibious assault on Ukraine’s last standing port city, while also keeping an eye on the 1,500 Russian soldiers currently deployed in Transnistria—the Russian-backed separatist region in Moldova. (And a place Russia planned on invading after Ukraine.)
