Oh and happy birthday, nearly forgot, the big 50, I expect you did nothing as its unlikely anyone gives a shit about you so from all here who don't care about you either..
Seconded.Oh and happy birthday, nearly forgot, the big 50, I expect you did nothing as its unlikely anyone gives a shit about you so from all here who don't care about you either..
Day 11 and Kyiv still stands! Russia is calling in more mercenaries because their army is flagging.
And while they are making SLOW progress, the Russians are very much in trouble of getting stretched. The more they move east the more resources they have to commit to holding what they’ve taken over.
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Russians are making good progress toward accomplishing their goal of taking the country, even if they have to - and are- go full Aleppo to compensate for their poorly planned and executed operations in some places.
Their convoy thing remains a mess. Yesterday a military pundit type asked a great question, to wit: "Why do we always just see all the trucks in the satellite images but no troops around them." Then there were reports by Ukraine residents living the area of the convoy that Ruskie soldiers were entering their houses to ransack and look for food. So that's a mess and a disaster. But they will just go savage in Kviev in some way to compensate for the clown show in that column. And,yes I get that some weapons and missiles are arriving and that will keep things messy - probably for years to come- but, in general, Russia is on track for Ukraine.
I don’t know. I’ve been really digging into this, this morning and I’m starting to doubt the Russians can go the distance.
There’s pretty good evidence they expected a 14 day “operation” and that they expected more of an operation than a war. Take that stalled column for example, why are they all sitting on the high road in a column for day stretched for miles? If they are delayed, they should be repositioned- these are military vehicles after all and designed for off road purposes to at least some extent.
There has been some evidence the Russian vehicles have not been properly maintained and are prone to blowing tires and malfunctioning in rough terrain.
Look at the wheels on this Pantsir, they’re more than stuck in the mud they’re blown out:
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There’s lots of suspicion about their Air Force too. They are now losing more aircraft in the last 3 days than the first 7. It’s suspected the Russians really only had little more than a couple handfuls of top notch fighter jets and are now using mothballed fighters.
Same with their tanks. A lot of the armored attack units coming in now are Soviet era “tanks” like real tanks, stuff used for training purposes. It’s safe to say the 300 plus “tanks” lost was the best the Russians had.
Also, most estimates are that 95% of assembled forces are “in country” and progress is still very slow.
Add to that the known supply problems with food and fuel.
I don’t know maybe I’m being optimistic and looking for the holes but we’ll see if the Russians can really go the distance.