Sky News - 09/04
Russian forces abandon tanks in hasty withdrawal that may indicate 'collapse of will' - official
A western official has been providing some interesting comments on intelligence from the ground in northern Ukraine.
They said Russian forces had abandoned "a lot" of tanks, vehicles, and artillery in a "hasty" withdrawal.
Vladimir Putin's operations had been "disastrous", the official said, and the abandonment of vehicles may be a sign of a "collapse of the will to fight".
"We can confirm that there are no longer units in northern Ukraine," they told a news conference.
"It has been a pretty hasty withdrawal by Russian forces and there's a lot of Russian equipment which has been abandoned in that hasty withdrawal and that's only going to exacerbate the challenge they have in terms of the refurbishment and reconstitution of their forces as they remove them both into Belarus and into Russia.
"Some of it's kind of unclear as to why it's been abandoned because you might have thought there is some of these vehicles are still usable and you think they would have been able to take and I think there's something around the collapse of morale and the collapse of the will to fight."
This is interesting and has been reported on a couple of other sites, but I cannot find the original source. It is interesting because systematic abandoning of equipment where soldiers disappear into the environment on foot, with light arms only, can be a sign of a collapse in morale. In doing this soldiers are removing themselves from the arena, the fight and the army. Good soldiers do not leave heavy equipment which are often their regimental colours. I suspect this may not be happening in the East/South East but this is a sign to watch out for.