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The Russian military continues to commit small groups of reinforcements to localized fighting rather than concentrating them to launch new large-scale operations. Russia continues to commit units drawn from its naval infantry from all fleets, likely because those units are relatively more combat-ready than rank-and-file Russian regiments and brigades. The naval infantry belonging to the Black Sea Fleet is likely the largest single pool of ready reserve forces the Russian military has not yet committed. Much of that naval infantry has likely been embarked on amphibious landing ships off the Odesa coast since early in the war, presumably ready to land near Odesa as soon as Russian forces from Crimea secured a reliable ground line of communication (GLOC) from Crimea to Odesa. The likelihood that Russian forces from Crimea will establish such a GLOC in the near future is becoming remote, however, and the Russian military has apparently begun using elements of the Black Sea Fleet naval infantry to reinforce efforts to take Mariupol.
The culmination of the initial Russian campaign is creating conditions of stalemate throughout most of Ukraine. Russian forces are digging in around the periphery of Kyiv and elsewhere, attempting to consolidate political control over areas they currently occupy, resupplying and attempting to reinforce units in static positions, and generally beginning to set conditions to hold in approximately their current forward positions for an indefinite time. Maxar imagery of Russian forces digging trenches and revetments in Kyiv Oblast over the past several days supports this assessment.[1] Comments by Duma members about forcing Ukraine to surrender by exhaustion in May could reflect a revised Russian approach to ending this conflict on terms favorable to Moscow.
Stalemate will likely be very violent and bloody, especially if it protracts. Stalemate is not armistice or ceasefire. It is a condition in war in which each side conducts offensive operations that do not fundamentally alter the situation. Those operations can be very damaging and cause enormous casualties. The World War I battles of the Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele were all fought in conditions of stalemate and did not break the stalemate. If the war in Ukraine settles into a stalemate condition Russian forces will continue to bomb and bombard Ukrainian cities, devastating them and killing civilians, even as Ukrainian forces impose losses on Russian attackers and conduct counter-attacks of their own. The Russians could hope to break Ukrainians' will to continue fighting under such circumstances by demonstrating Kyiv's inability to expel Russian forces or stop their attacks even if the Russians are demonstrably unable to take Ukraine's cities. Ukraine's defeat of the initial Russian campaign may therefore set conditions for a devastating protraction of the conflict and a dangerous new period testing the resolve of Ukraine and the West. Continued and expanded Western support to Ukraine will be vital to seeing Ukraine through that new period.
Key Takeaways:

• We now assess that the initial Russian campaign to seize Ukraine's capital and major cities and force regime change has failed;
• Russian forces continue efforts to restore momentum to this culminated campaign, but those efforts will likely also fail;
• Russian troops will continue trying to advance to within effective artillery range of the center of Kyiv, but prospects for their success are unclear;
• The war will likely descend into a phase of bloody stalemate that could last for weeks or months;
• Russia will expand efforts to bombard Ukrainian civilians in order to break Ukrainians' will to continue fighting (at which the Russians will likely fail);
• The most dangerous current Russian advance is from Kherson north toward Kryvyi Rih in an effort to isolate Zaporizhiya and Dnipro from the west. Russian forces are unlikely to be able to surround or take Kryvyi Rih in the coming days, and may not be able to do so at all without massing much larger forces for the effort than they now have available on that axis;
• The Russians appear to have abandoned plans to attack Odesa at least in the near term.

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Rossticus said:

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If those guys didn't know well enough to disable ALL geolocation… just… unacceptable. Utter lack of professionalism and focus. Loose lips sink ships.

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It would not have mattered if the geolocation was turned off and it would not have mattered if they were carrying a 2G Nokia 3310. The key piece of data was the phone number itself pinging a tower in the area of Yavoriv. The Russians either have access to the cell tower logs or (more likely) the have devices like the Stingray or Wolfhound in the area to spoof being a cell tower.

The “we can do things just as well as the US” opinion.

Unfortunately for them it’s been a bit less successful.

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 20, 2022

Rossticus said:

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This is just getting bonkers. What's next? Martians? Lizard people? They're not even trying to make crud believable…

⚡️Russia claims Ukraine plans to attack Western diplomats in Lviv.

Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov accused Ukrainian fighters from the Azov battalion of preparing to attack the U.S. and other Western diplomats in Lviv and putting the blame on Russia.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 19, 2022

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"We're going to do this thing, so we're going to accuse someone else of doing it before hand and blaming us."

Basically everything Russia does.

The Russians like calling everybody a nazi and bringing up Azov like they are some kind of SS outfit. They never mention that the reason why Ukrainian nationalists may have an affinity for the people who fought the Soviets is because when the war came to Ukraine, it was on the heels of the Russians murdering several million Ukrainians through planned famine and forced starvation. For similar reasons the Finns were allied with the Germans, it had nothing to do with the esoteric points of national socialist ideology and everything to do with wanting to survive the mass murdering Russians.

Well Putins Russia is the closest thing we've seen to Nazi Germany since May 1945 sooooo

Rossticus said:

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The “we can do things just as well as the US” opinion.

Unfortunately for them it’s been a bit less successful.

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 20, 2022

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Get a load of this guy. "Professional Jealosy"!

First, you totally suck, really suck. Bad.

Second, we don't count butchering women and children as accomplishments.

agent-maroon said:

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Jealous of Ukraine's successes, maybe?

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Yep. And that is why I'm all for bringing them to Texas if they end up losing their country

Belarusian workers cut rail lines into Ukraine to stall movement of Russian war materiel. GUTSY

n_touch said:

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Robk said:

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Alright Lady's & Gentlemen, boys and girls, it is time for another Truck logistics thread🧵 for this latest Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

In it we are going to discuss the concept of "Operational Attrition" as applied to the Russian Army truck fleet in combat.

1/

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 20, 2022

Interesting read.

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I hated the amount of PMCS we did. That thread should be shown to all soldiers. That broke it down great

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It's a fantastic read for those who don't know about this level of logistics and a great reminder for those who do. One thing he absolutely nailed in my experience is how hard troops are on their vehicles in wartime conditions. We drove ours into the dirt and mistreated them in every way possible, in conditions that are already not ideal in the first place. We had a dedicated mechanic attached to our platoon and I have never met a harder worker person in my entire life. He simply had to just to keep us barely functional because we broke just about everything possible.

TLDR; Trucks require a stupid amount of maintenance AND discipline to do it in wartime. Russia has neither, demonstrably, and it is costing them and will continue to cost them.

It's spot on IMO as well.

Mariupol.
The 21st century warfare as it is. pic.twitter.com/YG4UleDiLg

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) March 20, 2022

Video: Russian army airborne troops unit was destroyed pic.twitter.com/roXgjLp7kZ https://t.co/UxnIEBSJab via @Armia_fm #Ukraine

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) March 20, 2022