Trent Telenko @trenttelenko
Lady's and Gentlemen, boys & girls, it is time saddle up for another installment of the "Mud and Truck Maintenance in Ukraine" feed.
And this one will be a doozy, because we are talking about Russian truck refueling in the 64km column north of Kyiv.
I am going to expand on this earlier tweet on the satellite photo montage.
The Rasputitsa, bad tire maintenance, vehicle overcrowding, and lack of fuel have isolated most of this Russian Army column from its rear.
[rtb - rasputitsa is name for mud season]
No matter what kind of fuel conservation techniques they engaged in. The 1st 17km or so of that 64 km Russian Army column is out of fuel.
They planned a 3-day operation which is in its 8th day.
And given the temperatures and radio use, those vehicles have dead batteries.
This is why that Russian 41st CAA general was killed.
He showed up at the head of the column to unscrew the logistical mess, screaming at people and waving his arms in the air in visual range of a Ukrainian Army Sniper.
As for why the Ukrainians haven't rolled up those Russian troops in a 'motti' yet. They were busy.
The Russian Hostomel airbase occupation force had to be annihilated to keep fuel from being airlifted in by helicopter.
The head of this 64km column ain't going anywhere. With or without fuel. The Russians can get neither fuel trucks nor wreckers there.
And this "drop dead effect" is proceeding along the column from south to north. The ONLY way that column will move at all is backwards first
This is assuming it moves at all before the Ukrainians destroy it.
The front and middle of the column showed up with food, fuel & ammo for 3-days, & we are 8-days into the war.
The column is packed so tight that you can only refuel about 100-200 meters of column at a time
via a--holes & elbow by jerry cans. Then carefully back out those refueled trucks in order to get to the next 100 meters with the refueling truck and jerry cans.
It would take a week a month from now, when the ground dries, to unf--k this mess.
The Russian Army will not be able to move trucks off road before then.
Nor in a lot of cases will the Russian Army tanks in that column be able to move off road.
The Russians have formed the world's longest POW camp. And the Ukrainians don't have to feed it.
There simply hasn't been anything like this in warfare since the Anglo-American Anzio beachhead in 1944.
The Russian troops in the 40-50 km of the traffic jam closest to Kyiv will run out of food before the jam can be cleared to them.
They'll have to abandon their vehicles and walk north just to get food.
The reason the Russian column got to be so long was due to Russian Army officers “fulfilling the plan”.
They might be shot by the chain of command for disobeying orders to advance into the traffic jam, but won’t be if they obey orders to fulfill the plan.
I'm not saying Ukraine will win or even that Ukraine can prevent Kyiv from being encircled.
I am saying the Russian Army troops in the first 50 kilometers of that 64 km column will have nothing to do with it.
PS.
The Ukrainians really do want to motti that column.
PPS
And the Ukrainians do have the means to hit the fuel trucks at the North end of the Kyiv column to prevent its unwinding before the mud season is over.