"Improvements in command, control, joint action and coordination have also been made, as demonstrated in both Crimea and Syria, and during a number of large-scale exercises training for joint combined arms operations. A costly programme of rearmament has modernized available military equipment. Following a hiatus in the delivery and upgrading of military hardware lasting for more than a decade, the armed services' stocks of weaponry have been comprehensively replenished. The impact of technological renewal on the Russian military's ability to project power on a global level was demonstrated in Syria. <i>At the same time, the country's capabilities for expeditionary operations remained limited. It is highly unlikely that it could supply sand sustain the scale of forces required for an operation comparable to the US coalition efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.</i>"
--Bettina Renz, <i>Russia's Military Revival</i>, 2018, page 196, emphasis mine
Perhaps the bear isn't as healthy as had been supposed.<p><a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/03/the-universal-boosting-of-putin/" rel="nofollow">https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/03/the-universa...</a>
Or maybe they just don't really want to occupy Kyiv. They want to annex a crapton of Ukranian territory, extract a demilitarization commitment, declare victory, and flip the bird at NATO.<p>Occupying Kyiv means urban guerilla warfare and a lot of civilan deaths.<p>They don't want to occupy Kyiv, they want to <i>threaten to occupy Kyiv</i>. Which is exactly what this preposterously-slow convoy accomplishes.
I would not trust these analysts too much.<p><i>The bulk of the US force hadn't even entered Iraq yet.<p>There was a huge traffic jam at the border — thousands of vehicles parked in parallel rows, nothing but columns of trucks, humvees, oil tankers, flatbed tucks, armored vehicles and vehicles of every stripe, from horizon to horizon.</i><p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraqis-surrendering-in-hordes/#app" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraqis-surrendering-in-hordes/#...</a>
I was hoping for some new info, but this article appears to be merely a rehash of every scrap of rumor and speculation that's come out over the past several days.
It's Russian strategy to wait for the supply lines to move with the convoy.<p>They need to bridge more distance with not enough resupply trucks. So they wait from a secure distance to resupply the convoy. It's also at important intersections to cut off main roads.
Putin doesn't want to occupy Kyiv, he just wants to draw attention away from the south, where he's almost completed a land bridge with Crimea.
I am a Russian citizen, and I grew up in a military town in Far East. A place where the draft is the harshest, and which is the base of Pacific Fleet. A sad town called Vladivostok.<p>I still retain connections with my high school mates. A lot of them have parent in military, seamen, and frontier men.<p>The news of Putin's fiasco is spreading like wildfire among DOSes, ship crews, and in army barracks.<p>The navy been traditionally the most disciplined service branch of the military because ships almost always have actual officers to command, vs. NCOs in the army.<p>I can't preclude the possibility of a mutiny brewing there right now, as news of ships crews (yes, not even marine infantry, but actual ship crews, 3 star lieutenants) being forced into trains going to Ukraine came.