As the eighth day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine began Thursday morning, Russian forces appeared to have gained tactical control of their first city, the southern port city of Kherson, but Ukraine still holds its ground in Mariupol, Kharkov and Chernihiv, despite heavy shelling† The dead are piling up on both sides.
Large explosions were heard in Kiev last night, but according to the Thursday morning update from the British Ministry of DefenceThe main body of the 40-mile Russian military convoy approaching the capital remains nearly 20 miles from the city center, “after being slowed down by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdowns and congestion. The motorcade has made little discernible progress in over three days.” .”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby issued a similar forecast on Wednesday, saying that the “stalled” column “has not made any significant progress in the past 24-36 hours, by our best estimates,” possibly because the Russians are “regrouping and regrouping themselves.” assess the progress they have not made and how to make up for lost time’, but probably also because of ‘logistical and sustainable challenges’ and ‘resistance from the Ukrainians’.
Trent Telenko, a retired Pentagon staff specialist and military history blogger, suggests that another big reason may be Russia’s tires, as he explained in a lengthy, illustrated Twitter thread based on photos of abandoned Russian Pantsir-S1 wheel gun. missile systems and his own experience as a US military vehicle auditor. “If you leave military truck tires in one place for months,” the sidewalls become brittle in the sun and collapse like the tires on the Pantsir-SR, he wrote. “Nobody has driven that vehicle for a year.”
Karl Muth, an economist, government adviser and self-proclaimed ‘tire expert’, jumped in and agreed with Telenko, but added some details about the tires.
“This has a huge implication at the operational level,” Telenko said. “If the Russian army was too corrupt to exercise a Pantsir-S1, they were too corrupt to exercise the trucks and wheels.” [armored fighting vehicles] now in Ukraine,” meaning “the Russians just can’t risk them off-road during the Rasputitsa/mud season.” That’s a problem for the convoy in the north, he added. “The Crimea is a desert and the South -Ukrainian coastal areas are drier. So we don’t see that there. But elsewhere the Russians will have a huge problem for the next 4 to 6 weeks.” Read Telenko’s entire thread on Twitter.
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