Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)

I don’t think so. They’d have to reposition an awful lot of satellites to get constant coverage in LEO. I’m not sure the U.S. even has enough. That’s why they still have high altitude surveillance planes like the Global Hawk, RQ-170, the ScanEagle, and whatever classified recon air assets they have.

Between all of them, they can probably get close to complete coverage. Those rear-area command posts Russia set up sure got found and smashed quickly. And a lot of Generals and other senior officers have died quickly when they made their presence obvious. Credit Ukrainian special forces for spotting as well, along woth Ukrainian snipers for bagging officers.

Ammo dumps and such can wait for satellite imagery. The moving stuff probably requires air assets, and since a lot of behind-the-lines moving stuff has been destroyed, they probably have it.

You can mobilize shock troops, but you can’t quickly rebuild the hardware they need. Russia is clearly running low on everything from trucks to tanks to artillery shells. They are having to beg North Korea for artillery ammo, and the old Soviet dumb warheads they’ll get are no match for Excaliber rounds, or have the range and accuracy of HIMARS.

Russia has always lacked for NCO officers (the Soviets built a doctrine that didn’t include them because they didn’t trust them to not turn their soldiers against their leaders). So high ranking officers run everything. And they have lost a lot of their best officers already, because once they pop their heads up in Ukraine they don’t seem to live long.

Now that will be an interesting test of those country’s commitment to Russia and the other countries now that Russia looks weak. How much of that coalition was held together by fear rather than mutual interest? Belarus has balked at helping Russia in Ukraine.