The size and duration (6 hours plus) of the secondaries at the Rykove (Partyzany) ammo depot (below) argue the PSU storm Shadow Strike hit a RuAF theater level ammo storage depot.
This means things.
Artillery Logistical
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Ukraine destroyed two of the rail bridges feeding the Rykove (Partyzany) ammo depot before this strike.
This means replacing this ammo reserve is logistical disaster of the 1st order.
So, we are talking about a week to 10 days for the Russians in the South to run out
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...of artillery ammo firing at last week's rates.
We can expect Russian artillery fire, per gun or rocket launcher, per day to drop like a rock for RuAF units in south and southwestern Ukraine.
Think something like down by half immediately and to 1/4 in a week as the full
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...scale of the disaster sinks in with Russian logisticians.
RuAF has s--t administrative controls for everything.
In disaster situations, Russian Army lying is epidemic until a guy with stars on his shoulders, and a squad of executioners behind him, shows up.
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This is exactly what happened when the 40 mile/64 km Russian Army column north of Kyiv ran out of fuel in early Mar 2022.
The general commanding the Russian 41st CAA came forward to unf--k the logistical mess and the AFU promptly assassinated him.
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It wasn't until the Russians evacuated back to Belarus that the Russian administrative controls actually got an accurate count of the survivors of the column.
The Russians never had a clue as to who or what actually went into Ukraine because of all the accumulated lies
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...built into pre-war unit reports.
The Russians are actually in a worse situation with the Rykove (Partyzany) ammo depot than the Kyiv column.
All the theater level administrative records of what shell or rocket ammunition lots went to which artillery units are gone.
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They were resident in the those storage buildings whose foundations no longer exist.
The artillery shells and rockets that RuAF units in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have right now are all they are going to have for the next couple of weeks.
It is going to take that long
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...to rebuild the rail lines and refill the supply chain to those units with munitions.
And there will be fewer shells because RuAF has to keep far more dispersed theater depots, requiring more trucks & mobiks inside of Ukraine, because of the Storm Shadow threat.
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What RuAF tightening daily artillery firing rates to 1/4 or less of last week means is losing lots of Southern Ukrainian ground, armored equipment, and even more lives trying to hold the 1st & 2nd defense lines until the RuAF artillery supply lines are reestablished.
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Then it falls apart in about three weeks.
You see, the planned RuAF defense of the 3rd line had counted on that now destroyed artillery ammunition.
It planned for killing and destroying AFU troops and equipment which will now survive lines one and two.
And a lot of the
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RuAF troops that would have survived to fill 3rd line defenses won't, simply because the artillery ammo reserve in the Rykove (Partyzany) depot no longer exists.
All of this is to plan, the plan of Ukraine's General Staff.
Lot of Western reporters are asking ignorant
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...questions about whether Ukraine's counter offensive has failed.
And by ignorant I mean Western reporters don't understand in their gut that the Ukrainians are not time constrained politically like a Western democracy.
Ukraine is in an existential war w/8 years warning.
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AFU are fighting in a way that maximizes Russian losses while minimizing their own with the kit they have right now.
We are seeing a ground forces 'suppression of enemy artillery defenses' operation - called phase 1 by @noclador & others - using drones and precision
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...munitions to savage the entire RuAF artillery C4ISR & logistical supply chain.
This is in keeping with Ukraine's "Death of a Thousand Cuts" attritional strategy.
They not only want to win. They want to disembowel the Russian military for a generation.
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And it is a strategy that is working.
The Russian officer corps has lost over 1/2 of it's at start strength through full colonel, including its mid-grade instructors, plus it has had 300% attrition in junior officers including cadets, technical specialists and R&D cadre.
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My read of the current fighting is Ukraine is attacking with just enough to drive the Russians reserves into the open for AFU artillery & drones to kill it.
The so-called Surovikin line doesn't have the basics of a WW1 or WW2 fortified line. It isn't deep enough with
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...firing steps or shelters to really protect from drone directed 152/155mm shells. Nor is it wide enough to stop a tank.
There is no barbed wire or sound generators.
It isn't equipped with enough crew served weapons, & bunkers for same, for the frontages.
Nor is it
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...manned w/enough infantry to be continually occupied, let alone be mutually supporting.
As far as I can tell, no communication wire has been laid, so Ukraine is controlling Russian radio communication access with jamming at will.
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Russia's 1st defense line seemed to have relied on minelayer MLRS batteries.
In so many words, the Russians relied on a military gimmick, a cheat code, to hold the 1st Surovikin line that Ukrainian radio jamming took from them.
Also, drone flights seem to have
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...replaced infantry patrolling totally for the Russians on the Surovikin lines, compared to 2022.
Ukraine still does some, but only as preparation for an attack looking for obstacles and camouflaged artillery observation posts that radio intercepts say are in the area.
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The lack of both trained RuAF junior officers or any NCO's to kick ass in order to force local improvements (hide trash from drones!) in the fortifications of the Surovikin lines are so glaringly obvious I don't know what to say about media coverage of the Ukrainian offensive
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The so-called Sorvorkin line is - straight up - a Potemkin Village defensive designed to convince Russian propaganda media audiences, clueless Western journalists, politicians, and other susceptible suckers.
Until now, it has worked admirably.
Minus shells? Not so much.
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