Russia concentrates military power for Kyiv assault

[Donkees]

March 12, 2022 2:13 pm by Illia Ponomarenko

Excerpt:

“The Kyiv axis is among their top priorities,” says Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an online investigation group checking Russia’s military activity.

“As we believe, Russians may acknowledge the fact that at some point they will have to seek talks and offer a deal. So they need the strongest leverage they can get for the talks, which is the siege of Kyiv and a humanitarian disaster in the city.”

According to the group’s estimates, Russia may be trying to concentrate a total of nearly 21-22 battalion tactical groups against Kyiv, including nearly 15 coming from the northwest.

The Russian force from the east could have been much stronger, the CIT said, but the Ukrainian resistance in the northern regions, particularly Chernihiv, has diverted a significant portion of the enemy force from the capital city.



“Although they have made numerous mistakes in terms of military strategy and leadership, I think they understand that with their force available, assaulting Kyiv makes no sense, Leviev says.

It is much more likely that Russians will try and establish a blockade amid relentless shelling and airstrikes. Such tactics of forcing cities into surrendering via total terror have so far barely worked against Mariupol, Sumy, and especially Kharkiv, which carry on with their fierce resistance despite massive destruction and loss of life.

Kyiv, being a very large and well-fortified city, is an incomparably more difficult target for a Russian blockade, let alone an all-out assault, as experts believe.

“Assaulting Kyiv in this situation would be a stupid thing to do,” says Zagorodnyuk.

“But we have already seen them doing stupid things — so we should not rule this out.”

https://kyivindependent.com/national/russia-concentrates-military-power-for-kyiv-assault/

[Botany]

1. And may they slaughter those Russians bastards that continue to fight by the truck load.

Especially the senior officers. Ukraine needs an airfield right over the border from Poland
from which its pilots can fly, their planes can be refueled, and they can attack Russian troops,
planes, trucks, ships, and artillery. And the world needs to send at least 1 million volunteers
(trained soldiers) into Ukraine from the west and have them grind the Russians into dirt and
liberate the cities. And that includes Crimea too.

The city of Lviv, Ukriane is only 50 miles from the Polish border and has a nice new airport.

[Lovie777]

2. Russia is firing missiles from Russia and Belarus ....

into Ukraine. They need to be taken out. How? I don't know, but the Ukrainians are very resourceful.

Russian soldiers are very tired and extremely thirsty and hungry.

[modrepub]

3. Lines On A Map

Seem to be seeing a lot of those lately. With colored areas to represent "control".

This has been literally going on for weeks. The chance that Russia will be able to right its ship and roll forward is beginning to ring hollow, at least to me.

The longer this conflict goes on the more difficult it will be for Russia to keep its army supplied and bring up replacements. Sure the total Russian army vastly outnumbers Ukraine. But Russia can not press its whole army into Ukraine; the vast majority of it has to stay in the country to secure the homeland.

It's like the late Roman Empire, it had half a million soldiers but barbarian armies in the 10s of thousands were able to penetrate and raid the empire almost at will. An emperor could only field a small fraction of the total Roman field army because those troops had to secure other territories; stripping them would only encourage more raids on the areas where troops were removed.

If Ukraine can resupply, train more soldiers and deploy their weapons more effectively than their counterparts, then there's a chance the Russian seigers will become the besieged, surrounded and harassed from all sides. Ukraine has an opportunity to throw some counter punches. If they can start a roll up of their Russian counterparts I wouldn't be surprised if the Russian army routs.

Russian "experts" still don't seem to realize that the Russian army has been really degraded over the years. Other than cyber attacks, they appear to be a shadow of its former (WW II) glory. On that note, if you're going to harken back to the WW II Soviet Army under Stalin, you'd better recognize that army was largely sustained by American resources (and Russian casualties).

A longer conflict, unfortunately, means more suffering, death and destruction. But that may be the only real thing the Russian Army can do right now.