Since the eighth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began Thursday morning, Russian forces appear to have gained tactical control of their first city, the southern port city of Kherson, but Ukraine is still holding out in Mariupol, Kharkiv and Chernihiv, despite heavy shelling. Deaths are rising on both sides.
Big explosions were heard in Kyiv at night, but according to Update from the British Ministry of Defense on Thursday morningThe main part of the 40-mile-long Russian military convoy advancing on the capital remains nearly 20 miles from the city center, “amused by stiff Ukrainian resistance, mechanical damage and congestion. The column has made little noticeable progress in three days.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby made a similar prediction Wednesday, saying the “stuck” column had failed, “by our best estimates, significant progress in the last 24-36 hours,” probably because the Russians “are regrouping and reevaluating progress. which they have not achieved and how to make up for lost time “, but probably also due to” logistical and durable challenges “and” resistance from the Ukrainians “.
Trent Telenko, a retired Pentagon staffer and military history blogger, suggests another big reason may be Russia’s tires, as he explained in a long, illustrated Twitter topic based on photos of abandoned Russian wheeled missile systems. Pantsir-S1 and own experience as an auditor of US Army vehicles. “When you leave the tires of military trucks in one place for months,” the side walls become brittle in the sun and break down like Pantsir-SR tires, he wrote. “No one has practiced this vehicle for a year.”
Carl Mutt, an economist, government adviser and self-determined “tire expert”, agrees with Telenko, but adds some details about the tires.
“There is a huge influence on this at the operational level,” Telenko said. “If the Russian army was too corrupt to exercise the Pantsir-S1, it was too corrupt to exercise trucks and bicycles. [armored fighting vehicles] now in Ukraine “, which means the Russians simply cannot risk off-road during the Rasputitsa / mud season.” This is a problem for the convoy to the north, he added. “Crimea is a desert and the southern Ukrainian coastal areas are dry. So we don’t see that there. But elsewhere, the Russians have a huge problem over the next 4 to 6 weeks. “Read the whole Telenko topic on Twitter.
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