Machor

Here the photos. In comment under twitter post, some of railroad personnel wrote this can be not a work of SOF, but coincidence of two factors: poor maintainanse of infrastrucure + violation of speed mode by trains, loaded with armored vehicles. This caused damage of bridge constructions

It is not my "only" take but it is the most prominent one that is in my mind.  @Battlefront.com and @Combatintman have described both the differences between Russian BTG and Western BGs, which has to do with the framework under which they operate, along with qualitative internal aspects.  Further, the one major sin that I have not seen mentioned is the lack on ISR sharing between BTGs, normally done in a centralized ASIC (or pick your name) at the Brigade/formation level.  This means that each BTG is likely only seeing their world in a small patch in front of them.
Ok, I think we got it: Russian's suck.
My issue with this is that we have seen multiple assessments on this all over the place (no fault on you personally for posting, my frustration is with the mainstream military analysis) to the point they have become a self-reinforcing echo chamber in the making, all designed to explain why the Russians have failed, and likely will continue to fail.  Why this is dangerous:
- It creates a very convenient narrative that what we are seeing is "all on Russia doing it wrong".  There is truth here, do not misunderstand me on that point; however, it completely misses the fact that the Ukrainian's made the Russians do it more wrong. 
- By limiting the analysis and assessment to how poorly the Russian tactical and operational forces are not doing, we are risking the creation of a schadenfreude bubble that conveniently pins the phenomena we are seeing all on the Russians while risking some potentially incredibly significant implications on what the Ukrainian defenders are doing.  
- Further this sets us up to a post-slide into "well of course the Ukrainians won, we trained and equipped them".  This further sets us up to feel really good about this whole thing and avoid confronting "what really may have happened". 
We have seen this sort of effect repeatedly in the past.  The US Civil War, particularly towards the back end saw the mergence of trench warfare as more modern weaponry made manoeuvre much harder, particularly for cavalry.  European observers went "well, sure but these are backward colonials who are doing it wrong."  Then again during the Boer war with smokeless long range Mausers chopping up British (and Canadian) formations at range - "well those are rabble, who lost in the end".  WW1 Austro-Hungarian complete failures - blame the ethnics in the ranks....the list goes on.  
So What Happened?
  I am not sure and will likely spend a fair amount of time over the next decade trying to figure it out but there are some alarming trends that western militaries cannot avoid:
- Russian had the mass, Ukraine did not.  Not saying the conventional UA sat out the first phase of this war but a 1300km frontage was largely defended by a hybrid force built on a foundation of irregulars...and it just butchered Russian mass.  To the point of operational collapse.  The Russians had knives, Ukraine had pillows, and Ukraine won; this is not small.
- The Ukrainians appear to have done something to friction and might not even realize it.  Through a combination of information superiority - built largely on civilian infrastructure no less, and a shift in weapons effects, they were able to hit the entire length of the Russian forces, all the way back to the SLOC nodes.  All of this using a lot of unmanned, which we have discussed.  More to the point, they appear to have projected friction onto the Russian forces (already brittle for reasons presented) to the point that the Russians collapsed under their own weight. 
- Russian concepts of mass are not that different from our own.  We still rely on roughly the same organizational concepts.  We call them "tactically self-sufficient units", Battlegroups etc.  And yes they are set up differently, but I am not sure that would have made a difference, our tanks need gas too (and gawd help us if the RedBull supply is cut).  But we have pursued Adaptive Dispersed Operations at the tactical level as well (awkward crickets) - "oh but we would do it right" - would we?  Our LOCs are just as long as the Russians, our armour just as vulnerable and out combined arms concepts not too far distant.   "Well the Russians didn't know what to do with their infantry...we do".  Ok, so our Battlegroups do not have that much more infantry than a BTG and those Javelin systems really mean that your BG screen now needs to sweep every bush and henhouse out to 4000m(!) along the BG frontage or you are going to be trading burning vehicles for every km you advance.  Surprise is pretty much dead.  Unmanned is likely going to be everywhere...the list goes on.  This is not another "tanks are dead" issue, it is "is mass as we know it dead?" issue.
- Information.  There will be new fields of study created in military education based on this war on what just happened with respect to information in this war, from tactical-to-political.  If I had to pick one factor that tries to explain a lot of this it is information. The implications are, again significant, to say the least.
And all of this is based on what already happened.  The Russians and UA can redo Kursk down in the SE, and I am sure many in the west will go "well there is the war we know and love" but shocking stuff has already occurred in the first 45 days we cannot un-see.  
I get these are early days but I see an "easy out" bubble forming, and it is dangerous in more ways than most understand. That is what I took away from that thread.
  

Romanivka was not captured by Russian troops. Throughout the battle for Kyiv, a humanitarian corridor was organized there, which allowed the evacuation of civilians from Irpin Bucha and Gostomel. I myself evacuated along this route on 03/05/22, when the Russians entered Irpin and street fighting began. This route was under heavy artillery fire for about 3 weeks.

Purely FWIW, Viktor Suvorov's memoir "Aquarium" describes the late 1960s Red Army battalion structure as follows:
To an outsider, all companies in a Soviet division or regiment look exactly the same.
1. But no! In each battalion, the first company is indeed the first. Whatever good soldiers may be in the battalion, and all the best kit, the battalion commander collects in the first company. And if there is a shortage of officers, then a fresh replacement is sure to be given to the first company. Because the first company always attacks on the main axis of the battalion. It is the first to attack the enemy head to head. And on that first move depends the outcome of the battle.
2. The second company in any battalion is mediocre. The officers in the second company are without any special distinction, like me, and the soldiers too. But every second company has additional intelligence training. It's kind of like a secondary profession. First of all, it is still a combat company, but if necessary, it can conduct reconnaissance on behalf of its battalion, and perhaps serve the needs of the regiment too, replacing or supplementing the special  reconnaissance unit.
3. In the Soviet Army there are 2,400 motorized rifle battalions. And in each of them the third company, is not only third in number. Third companies get those who did not get into the first or second companies: very young, inexperienced officers, or overaged and hopeless ones. The manpower in the third companies is not always sufficient. Moreover, in the home territory of the Soviet Union, the third companies are without the overwhelming majority of their soldiers. Their  combat equipment is kept in mothballs. If war breaks out, thousands of these companies will be supplemented by reservists and then quickly raised to the level of conventional combat units.
In this system there is a profound logic: adding reservists to an existing division is a thousand times better than forming new divisions entirely from reservists.
....So for all that 'combined arms' happy talk, the essence of the BTG concept may in fact be a very old expedient of cannibalizing all the available talent and kit out of understrength parent regiments in order to stand up a "First Battalion" that is (theoretically) equipped to conduct 21st century warfare. 
But perhaps with the exception of a few Praetorian formations, there isn't enough to fit out 2 such kampfgruppen.  Once the BTG is savaged, that could be pretty much it for the entire regiment's striking power.  Everyone else is a second rater or newb who didn't make the travel team....
Just a theory here, don't know how it tracks with observed events.
P.S.  I found a Russian cover of Знают Все, although it's mediocre: the singer is more Rammstein than Leonard C, and the backup is canned twangy country not balalaikas. There's definitely a gap to fill out there.

Tragic friendly fire, alas. Reportedly our crew in captured T-72B3 spotted Russain BMP with V-marking aside the road and mistook our troops for Russians, trying to recober this IFV. Judging on the video with bodies, at least one killed soldier was in light color camo, similar to Russian VDV uniform 

RE: Russian production capabilities
Orlan-10s will now be hard to manufacture, because... they require a commercial Canon photo camera. 🤣 (OK - They can probably switch to some Chinese camera - and you guys were mocking the bottle lid. 🙂 )
 

Ahah, thanks, you make me blush ) I would be a hero, if did this from Chernihiv or Kharkiv, but Kyiv was relatively safe place, despite heavy sounds of artillety and MLRS and sometime missiles booms in the sky 

MANPAD squad has three different launchers - Stinger, Piorun and Igla-1

Ragnarok began

With 36 years' employment in the field I can reassure you that any such biography in 20 years time will be a work of fiction from someone bigging themselves up.  The US, having recently and with popular assent somewhat untidily extricated itself from one conflict last year is in no rush to become involved in another one directly. 
Enablers such as providing situational awareness, intelligence sharing plus lethal and non-lethal aid are of course being provided.  The old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" will certainly be uppermost in the calculus of the US and its NATO allies which again makes direct intervention or other capers like officially sanctioned 'American Legions' highly unlikely.  History proves that 'deniable ops' simply aren't and that is particularly so in the current information environment.
'Almost perfect situational awareness' resulting in stuff mysteriously blowing up is also in the realm of 'doesn't happen.'  People are quick to tell me that "the int was rubbish" - "we weren't warned" etc, which is frequently an excuse to hide their own failings (not reading the intelligence or ignoring it (Mr Putin refers) being fairly common) or their misperception about the art of the achievable by the intelligence cell, unit or agency.
The factors for Ukrainian success are well-documented, roadbound columns, little or no attempt to enforce tactical spacings, little or no attempt at camouflage and concealment and the use of insecure communications on the part of the Russians.  On the part of the Ukrainians, once the limited axes of advance have been identified a combination of mark one eyeball, UAVs and tactical SIGINT provide sufficient means to develop a tactical picture of sufficient granularity to strike.   That they have been able to do so is because they have developed a command and control architecture which has allowed this information to be shared and acted upon quickly.  Some of it is very unsophisticated as explained on some of the videos we have seen:  UAV team goes out, launches from a wood near one of the identified road, flies the UAV until a target is seen and passes the target grid over VHF direct to a mortar unit.  BDA sent over same means, rinse and repeat as necessary.  Combat or tactical intelligence isn't particularly hard if you have a tactically incompetent and undisciplined opponent moving along easily identified axes of advance.

Some about the scale of usage of commercial drones. This is statictic of one volunteer fund Back-and-Alive: 
Translation: "copters" are flying away very well. From 1500, which we have bought at the beginning of March, only about 200 left [in stock]. Yesterday we have bought AUTELs [AUTEL EVO II - most popular now model in force structures] on 75 millions UAH [this is 1500-1800 drones] and Baltic "Atlases" are expecting soon. 

As for Bundeswehr in the 90s (I don´t think it is much different now) it were 9 months until you were fit for driver, loader or gunner duty. 3 months basic millitary training followed by 6 months special crew training. After that another 3 months for tactical training at platoon / company level, so you can assume that after 9 months a freshly conscripted unit was capable to do basic tasks with their tanks and after 12 months was considered fully combat ready. You certainly can speed up some elements, but I´d say from conscript to crew you need at least 6-8 months if your tank crew and unit should have a certain chance of survival on the battlefield.

@Machor, I remember that @The_Capt mentioned a while back about the War of 1812 as a historical echo/call back to this war.
It got me curious, as I'm a 1812 "fan" myself and I didn't quite buy his inference.
However, if one looks at the Russo-Japanese War, there start to be a lot of parallels, not least due to the death knell it rang for the autocratic Romanov regime...

from that drone footage of the single UA tank, this is the location

Actually, there were...they just didn't have the ability to record footage like that.

Some people were asking where were the Ukranian armored units. Well, some incredible battle footage of a single ukranian tank engaging a whole column of russian BTR80A/82A and some tanks has recently surfaced:
Impressive stuff. Seems like situational awareness and proper spacing is an alien concept to russian commanders.

First time spotted Russian 2S4 240 mm heavy SP-mortar. Mariupol
2S4 is army-level asset. A battalion of 2S4 - 12 pieces is a part of Army's artillery bigade. Also 8 pieces in composition of 45th high-power artillery brigade, subordinated to Western military district 

This is 501st marines battalion. They surrendered, because wasted all ammunition.
Despite 503rd was dislocated in Mariupol, but in the day of invasion it held positions near Crimean isthmus, so denying of 503rd battalion that this is not their troops on the video is also true. 

Here is a recent example of Ukranian armored units recorded in combat. 
Althought the tweet is from today, the video was first released on the 27 of March, mind you

Here's the video of the surrender - said to be Ukrainian marines. Everyone's understandably concerned about the treatment of Ukrainian civilians, but we should be keeping a very close watch on the fate of these soldiers as well:
 

UKR MiG-29 not far from Cherkasy - Kaniv reservoir is seen
 

Viking-style riverine raid of UKR forces on Russian convoy 
Grey boat with number UA1049MA is a boat UMS-500 class of our UMS manufacturer. These boats are used by riverine police and Border State Guard. Probably all other boats on video are private. 
On the photos Russian convoy after the raid 
Also other victim of the raid - captured BTR-D 

And the raid group after successful action

Yup, and the Russian Army culture where sergeants are selected (as in nearly all non-Western armies btw) for their ability to bully the ranks and act as toadies/bagmen for the officer capos.
The Phd tweetstorm Steve posted a few above seems to nail it.
When you have both an unrestricted mandate and obligation to obey orders without question, BUT you are also treated like the scum of the earth day to day by everyone above and around you, it leads directly to what we're seeing here.
No warmed over Austro-Hungarian phrenology spittle about Mongoloid forest primitives is required.
There are no evil races, only evil cultures. Or more accurately, cultures broken either by privation or to serve the designs of evil men. (Or the pure convenience of careless or self-deluded ones, which amounts to much the same thing).

Someone earlier had said the forest was replanted. This appears to be the case:
"The forest hit hardest by the nuclear blasts was a pine plantation that stood directly in the path of the most deadly debris. Pines are extremely sensitive to radiation, and the trees turned rust-orange before they died; workers nicknamed the plantation the “Red Forest.” As part of the effort to contain the radioactive material, they bulldozed it, buried the trees in more than 5 million square yards of topsoil, and covered the area with more than a foot of sand. Then they replanted it with pines. As the new trees grew, radiation in the soil suppressed an enzyme that contributes to the classic single-stem conifer shape, resulting in an expanse of odd-looking, bushy dwarf pines."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/chernobyl-fires/615067/