It’s not hard to find bad signs: manpower and ammunition shortages have lead to a situation where, to be frank, 🇺🇦 has been having trouble stopping 🇷🇺 from advancing anywhere . 🇷🇺 is establishing logistics hubs and LOC with impunity throughout occupied 🇺🇦 2/X

Some of the most pessimistic voices have even thrown out terms like 🇺🇦 is “circling the drain”, painting the picture of a lost cause where even Ukrainians themselves don’t want to fight anymore and 🇺🇦 leadership is too incompetent to turn the tide anyway 3/X

The outcome in this analysis is but a forgone conclusion, we’re now just going through the motions. Anything else-the oil strikes, ATACMS, etc is just cope to distract from 🇺🇦 being hammered at the front 4/X

On the one hand, I am not here to cheerlead nor to sugar coat: the situation is definitely bad. Can’t just point to 🇷🇺 only advancing a small distance and ignore everything else. There’s also plenty of blame to go around, not here to only focus on one party to blame 5/X

However, on the other hand I don’t think it’s quite time to count 🇺🇦 out, and it is possible we are seeing the best 🇷🇺 will ever do-from here on out it could be diminishing returns for them. 6/X

However, on the other hand I don’t think it’s quite time to count 🇺🇦 out, and it is possible we are seeing the best 🇷🇺 will ever do-from here on out it could be diminishing returns for them. 6/X

Whether you want to point to failures to send weapons, failures to mobilize, poor tactics, w/e, the bottom line is 🇷🇺 has enjoyed an obscenly disproportionate advantage in manpower and material since the end of 2023 to today, 12/1 artillery fire ratio some places 7/X

A confluence of factors, from 🇺🇦 (finally) mobilizing, to the 🇺🇸 aid package, 🇨🇿 artillery initiative, various bilateral agreements and even domestic production all threaten 🇷🇺 with evening out the aforementioned imbalance in the medium term 8/X

This is not even to mention the new long range strike capabilities, potentially at scale (we’ll come back to this) that the ATACMS and armaments F-16 can launch provide 🇺🇦 now/coming down the pike 9/X

While this aid is arriving and mobilization efforts commence, there is right now still a clear window for 🇷🇺 to exploit. However, it must be said that 🇷🇺 does not have a good track record at advancing under more balanced material conditions, let alone with 🇺🇦 local advantage 10/X

We can therefore imagine a limit to how much 🇷🇺 can gain from the lost half year. But what of the fact that 🇺🇦 cannot hope to match 🇷🇺 shell for shell, person for person? 11/X

This is where the question of western commitment comes into play. The west (with a little help from friends like 🇰🇷) have the capacity to completely obliterate the advantages 🇷🇺 has. That it has not yet done so doesn’t mean it can’t 12/X

A fair amount of 🇺🇦 dooming has focused on the idea that western countries, especially 🇺🇸 under a Trump win, will abandon 🇺🇦. But what if they don’t? 13/X

I will not engage partisan politics in this thread, I have my preferences and they don’t matter here. But as 🇺🇸 republicans will remind you, it’s not like every move made under the first Trump presidency was beneficial to 🇷🇺. It’s not a guarantee that 🇺🇸 would abandon 🇺🇦 14/X

And across the Atlantic, we have Macron recently stating that he would not rule out direct 🇫🇷 regulars being sent to 🇺🇦. There was no elaboration on what that would mean, of course, but if western troops arriving isn’t off the table, a lot can be imagined 15/X

We have to remember that despite the often very frustrating (to many of us) self-deterrence places like Washington and Berlin put on responding to 🇷🇺, the fundamental fact is it is very much not in the west’s interest to let 🇷🇺 run roughshot 16/X

So when push comes to shove, instead of letting Kyiv fall, perhaps suddenly 🇫🇷, 🇫🇮, 🇸🇪, 🇵🇱 troops remember it’s actually better not to wait until the enemy is at the gate to stop them, and instead of giving into nuke blackmail, 🇫🇷 reminds 🇷🇺 of its first strike doctrine 17/X

Even barring this hypothetical on the extreme end, the west could tip the material scale on balance in favor of Ukraine. Enough F-16 with 🇺🇸 providing its long ranged air launched munitions at scale, 🇺🇸, 🇰🇷, 🇨🇿 etc artillery at scale, among other factors could do the trick 18/X

And let’s also not pretend that 🇷🇺 has nothing but brilliant tacticians, endless patriotic manpower lusting to die for conquest (why the mercenaries then?), and inexhaustible money and material. Nor are they likely to unlock new categories of capability. They win with mass 19/X

Which is what has allowed their success over the past half year and why in the short term they are still likely to see gains. But I think it’s quite possible that this will not last but instead diminish. 20/X

This thread might age like wine or like milk, but, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It’s an alternative analysis. The problem of 🇷🇺 aggression is not going away. Hopefully it can be dealt with sooner, in 🇺🇦, rather than later, in Berlin. 21/end

Addendum: I forgot to cover that it was always possible 🇺🇦 could suddenly learn how to target 🇷🇺 logistics properly as OSINTers have (correctly) been screaming about for a while