Absolutely fascinating thread retweeted by Eliot Higgins today.
To sum up:
1. Russia and Ukraine both have outdated weapons. The Russians have a numerical advantage, but the Ukrainians have small amounts of more modern weaponry from the west.
2. The Ukrainians floated for weeks a counteroffensive around Kherson. Why?
3. The Ukrainians know that where the Russians failed right from the start was logistics. Their supply chains are rubbish, and they are not fixable.
4. The public floating of a Kherson offensive by Ukraine was almost certainly a bid to suck in more Russian troops and weapons from the rest of Ukraine to defend Kherson.
5. This is because the Ukrainans have a small number of HIMARS and of HARM missiles for neutralising Russian air defences.
6. That tactic obviously worked, because we have seen that with Russian air defences disabled, the Ukrainians have destroyed every bridge into Kherson.
7. The only way that Ukraine could prevail by having a small amount of superior technology was by sucking the Russians into the area where they could deploy it.
8. Russia now has large numbers of troops and weapons stranded on the west side of the Dniepr River, with no bridges by which they can be resupplied.
9. Yet again, like outside Kyiv in March, the Russians are left with their logistic chain broken, and are reduced to ferrying in tiny amounts of supplies and men by boat across the river.
10. This is leaving the Russians exposed - on Saturday at Kherson they reportedly lost 450 men, 15 tanks and 27 APCs.
11. Those losses are not sustainable. At Kyiv and Kharkiv the Russians simply vanished, by a mixture of withdrawal and desertion, but there is no way out of Kherson's west bank.
12. The question now becomes whether this level of attrition continues, in which case the Russian forces in Kherson will collapse and surrender, or whether Putin responds to defeat by using tactical nuclear weapons, which would be an act of personal and national suicide.
No, He will turn off the gas to Europe and try and force it to end in a negotiation, where he keeps Crimea and the Donbas.
Ukraine have started taking terrority back in the Donbas now, so its full panic mode now. He's willing to forgoe money to try and enf it