Logistics Again
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I cited Russian sources who said August would be a bad month for the Russian Federation. It was people from the Russian general staff talking to Russian media who said they expected August to be problematic.
So I figured it’s time to assess where we are. It’s the middle of August, after all. So, where exactly are we?
First off, Ukraine is operating close to twenty HIMARS and other western artillery. This changed the pace of the war. According to the US Air Force Magazine:
While the air picture has remained static in the Russia-Ukraine war, the introduction of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) has allowed Ukraine to strike surface-to-air missile targets behind enemy lines. Now the U.S. is considering future aviation contributions in Ukraine, defense officials confirmed to Air Force Magazine.
Defense officials briefed Pentagon journalists July 29, painting a picture of a demoralized Russian force and a newly empowered Ukraine, able to hold the line thanks to sophisticated new air defenses. A senior defense official confirmed that the United States has facilitated the transfer of “significant spare parts” to keep Ukraine’s Soviet-era MiGs and Sukhois flying, but the Defense Department will not train Ukrainian pilots on new systems until a platform is decided.
”We know that they’ve been able to strike surface-to-air missile locations and to destroy some SAMs,” a senior military official said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.
”The fact that the Russians continue to not have air superiority certainly says a great deal about Ukrainians’ kind of will,” he added. “Both in their ability to prevent the enemy from shooting at their aircraft, but also to shoot down Russian aircraft.”
The attack on the Saki field in Crimea revealed that even multi-layered anti-air units couldn’t deal with these weapons. But back to logistics. How exactly have we seen this slow-moving collapse?
The first shows up in NASA FIRMS data. We see fewer fires across the line of contact. This is a good hint that Russians are having shell hunger. In other words, they may have the barrels but not the ammo to feed them.
This has been confirmed by the media, not just open source intelligence.
