#ukraine A somewhat overdue (for reasons) update:
The Cat's Whisker – Volnovakha, Ukraine
Located 30 miles north of Mariupol and 15 miles south of the current front line on the eastern end of the southern front.
The only east/west railroad line into the Russian held southern front runs through Volnovakha, and is well within range of Ukrainian 155mm artillery.
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This forces the Russians to abandon their rail based logistics system. Unloading at rail yards far south of Volnovakha and then reloading onto trucks for shipment to depots all along the southern front.
Those same depots have already had to move further south to avoid HIMARS. The Russian army, despite confiscating every civilian truck within 500 miles around, still does not have enough trucks to supply the size of the army they have on the southern front.
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They're using barges and naval landing craft to land additional supplies in Crimea, but that's just a drop in the bucket for the needs of Crimea itself. The southern front requires 50 times that amount.
Russian attempts to push the Ukrainians away from artillery range of Volnovakha have failed miserably and cost them the better part of three Naval Infantry brigades.
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The Razors Edge – Western Front.
All of the Russian blood and sacrifice from Donbas up through Svatove was simply so that Wagner could build its defensive line several miles behind the current fighting. It remains to be seen what Russia has left in the cupboard to man that defensive line.
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And it isn't so much the manpower that they lack, they can (in theory) draft several million more men. It's the heavy weapons (artillery, tanks and other vehicles) that they're running out of, and that defensive line is still incomplete.
By digging that line where they have, the Russians have told not just the Ukrainians, but the entire world, just what parts of Donetsk and Luhansk that they plan to hold.
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The Russians are very unlikely to be able to hold that line for any length of time. If for no other reason than all of the supply depots, and all of the remaining occupied parts of southeastern Ukraine will be well within HIMARS range.
It's clear that the Russians will be able to hold on beyond Christmas (drat, a prediction of mine gone wrong). But it's not clear how much long beyond that.
fin
@jurban They did have several entire brigades of dedicated railroad construction and repair troops.
But they've been transferring men from those units and turning them into infantry ever since the Kherson offensive.
It's not clear how intact those units still are, or if they can keep up with the scale of destruction that Ukraine can rain down on the rail line and bridges.