Russian tanks arrived on Thursday, March 10, at the northeastern gates of Kyiv, continuing the encirclement maneuver. At present, the Russian army continues its siege of major cities and bombardment, similar to that carried out on Wednesday, on a facility housing a children’s hospital and a maternity hospital in Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov (southeast) has been besieged by Russian troops for ten days.
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Nevertheless, images of columns of armored vehicles, Russian trucks, practically standing still, are always surprising, because no one imagined the 2nd World Army blocked, and sometimes even defeated. These images highlight serious supply issues.
The General Staff of the French armies confirms that the 150,000 Russian soldiers concentrated around Ukraine before the war have now all crossed the border, but Ukrainian resistance is disrupting Russian military plans. Management, heavy, huge, for a motorized army, forced to move so many people, it seems not necessary.
“As far as I understand the Soviet doctrine and the Russian doctrine, which are quite close,” notes Colonel Pascal Yanni, spokesman for the Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces, “we [les Russes] part with a margin that should allow the entire first part of the war to be carried out. To go very fast and very far, you need a lot of fuel right behind you. It is believed that the Russians wanted to make a quick maneuver, therefore with fairly easy logistics, and that they underestimated the initial equipment of their units. Russian logistics has traditionally relied on rail transportation.”
“There aren’t many rail lines in the area, so you have to switch logistics to trucks, and if you don’t have trucks, logistics won’t come.”
Colonel Pascal Yanni, Press Secretary to the Chief of the Defense Staff
on Franceinfo
Another observation is that Ukrainian warplanes are fighting back because they were scattered over small airfields before the invasion and are therefore less obvious targets. The Russians do not yet have the necessary command of the sky.