Ukraine’s armed forces general staff has reported that the Russian troops started to accumulate resources to storm Kyiv.
On the twelfth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces appeared 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 and deaths are mounting on both sides.
Big explosions were heard in Kyiv overnight, but according to the British Defense Ministry, the main body of the 40-mile-long Russian military convoy advancing on the capital remains nearly 20 miles from the city center.
Having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown, and congestion. The column has made little discernible progress in over three days.
John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, gave a similar prognosis, saying that the stalled column hasn’t, “from our best estimates, made any appreciable progress in the last 24-36 hours,” possibly because the Russians are “regrouping themselves and reassessing the progress that they have not made and how to make up the lost time”.
But he added that probably it is also due to logistics and sustainment challenges and resistance from the Ukrainians. Trent Telenko, a retired Pentagon staff specialist and military history blogger, suggests another big reason.
He explained in a long illustrated Twitter thread based on photos of deserted Russian Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile systems and his own experience as a U.S. Army vehicle auditor.
Telenko said: “When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end, the sidewalls get brittle in the sun and fail like the tires on the Pantsir-SR. No one exercised that vehicle for one year.”
A military General staff said that Russian forces already scattered across the city of Irpin on the western outskirts of Kyiv as well as the eastern district of Brovary and Boryspil.
A nonpartisan public policy research organization issued its own report last Sunday. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) states that Russian forces are more focused on four areas. With the city of Kyiv as the main priority, then Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Kherson.
Over the last 24 hours, Russian forces have regrouped and started their preparations for their new offensive tactic’s operations in the said city. The Ukrainian General staff believes that in Kharkiv, Russian forces stationed to the west of the city will launch an offensive southeast toward the Dnipro River.
In New York Times report, Russian President Vladimir Putin also said that Ukraine could lose its statehood if it continues to resist Russia’s invasion.
They believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no demonstrated act nor any willingness to deescalate with Ukraine or the International Community.
ISW said that the Kremlin is likely laying the domestic information groundwork for a declaration of Martial Law in Russia adding that “Mass mobilization and conscription are necessary to achieve his objectives.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the war in Ukraine was “going according to plan,” despite assessments from other countries that the Kremlin’s invasion has not gone according to plan.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces continue to prepare for landings on the coast of the Black Sea.