Armchair general thoughts
Russia is clearly rattled about something, to the point where they are trying to scare/fuck with NATO. This clearly ratcheted way up over the last week.
Ukraine is damaging Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure to the point where there is rationing and shortages all over, even in Moscow. As PTINS mentioned, everything from delivery to refinery operations.
Ukraine has been ramping up attacks on Russian stuff in Crimea and the Russians bitched to the German and British ambassadors about those attacks. That post above and others mentioned radars, although hitting the radars could be a part of their campaign against the oil and gas infrastructure and not necessarily about any offensives on the ground - if the Russians can’t see the missiles or drones until they are close to their targets, it increases the chances of missiles and drones getting through. Added bonus of forcing the Russians to move air defense systems and radars away from Ukraine’s borders, also giving the Ukrainians more time in the air before being detected.
Ukraine has their new missile in service, and also some solid drones. Seems like the Kerch Bridge is a question of when, not if.
Trump seems pretty convinced Ukraine has the ability to knock Russia off the board. Now he’s like Joe Rogan and is always impressed by the last person he talked to, but what he said went above and beyond simply having listened to Zelenskyy paint a nice picture and parroting that - seemed like he’s probably seen some data/intel.
Say the Ukrainians continue hitting oil and gas infrastructure hard, like they did last night. There are already fuel shortages in many areas. Keep doing that for another month to where it impacts military operations more than it may be now. Continue blinding Russian forces in Crimea by taking out radars. Now drop the Kerch Bridge, forcing the Russians to rely on a long, but shallow land bridge to get people and supplies and fuel in and out of Crimea and to eat up even more precious fuel. Ukraine has great missiles and the railroads are fixed positions so the rail lines will go down and that land bridge would be covered with Ukrainian drones looking for vehicles. Now there is the water option, but fuel is still a problem, and ships can’t easily move people or supplies in large quantities without becoming juicy targets, and they have to unload at ports or some facilities with cranes, which are fixed positions (targets) and it’s slow to unload ships.
I’m more optimistic than I was just a few months ago. Putting aside the economic impacts (Russia going into deficit spending and not having much oil and gas to export), if they have fuel shortages in Moscow, you know military fuel supplies will end up on the black market. It’s a very interesting time and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a very clear picture over the next week or two.