A view shows destroyed Russian Army multiple rocket launchers with the letter "Z" painted on their sides in Kharkiv, February 25. REUTERS/Maksim Levin
Reuters: Russia facing more resistance than it expected in Ukraine- U.S. official
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia is facing more resistance than Moscow anticipated in its invasion of Ukraine, including in its advance on the capital, Kyiv, and appears to have lost some of its momentum, a senior U.S. defense official said on Friday.
Russian missiles pounded Kyiv on Friday, families cowered in shelters and authorities told residents to prepare Molotov cocktails to defend Ukraine's capital from an assault that the mayor said had already begun with saboteurs in the city.
But the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested a mixed picture for the Russian effort to press an offensive that Washington and Kyiv say is aimed at decapitating the government and installing a puppet regime.
"We do assess that there is greater resistance by the Ukrainians than the Russians expected," the senior defense official said, adding Ukraine's command and control of its military "remains intact".
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WNU Editor: What caught my eye in the above Reuters report was this ....
.... Still, Russia has not yet mobilized the majority of its forces arrayed around Ukraine, the official said, assessing that just about one-third have now been "committed" to its offensive.
Also this ....
.... Russia had yet to establish control of the airspace above Ukraine or used the extent of its electronic warfare capabilities.
I am also surprised that the Russian military has made the decision to not knock out the electrical and communications grid. I was able to contact some of my relatives in Ukraine. Or more to the point. They contacted me in the past two hours. They still have power, internet, and phone services (they are in Kharkiv, Odessa, and in a small city 75km south of Kiev).
I could be wrong, but it appears that the Russian military has been unleashed, but with a lot of limitations on the number of military forces to use, and what targets to destroy.
4 comments:
"They still have power, internet, and phone services"
Russia can always cut access in the next few months or arrest and disappear troublesome reporters or eyewitnesses.
The less they destroy the smaller the cost to recover.
It's also possible Putin did not expect any effective resistance. In previous weeks on both Brian Whitemore's Power Vertical Podcast and Mark Galleoti's In Moscow's Shadows, they mentioned that Putin isn't as much engaged in details in the past few years, and his relative isolation may be hiding reality of the extent of Ukrainian nationalism from him. Putin might very well have thought Ukraine wouldn't really resist. There's some reports that indicated captured Russian POV's were not expecting any actual combat. And dropping paratroopers early at Antonov Airport likewise suggests that. You don't send airborne troops behind enemy lines if there's a risk they'll be wiped out.
Certainly in some places Putin hasn't faced much resistance. As WNU Editor has stated before, not everyone in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are loyal, or at least not incentivized to fight hard. But I think there's far more loyalty to Kyiv than he and Putin may have expected.
Now that doesn't mean this is true. It's only two days of combat. This isn't a stalemate that has held for weeks. So perhaps Putin is very happy with the progress being made. Or that he simply escalates once he realizes more troops are needed.
While Russia is still likely to win in the sense the final peace will be favorable to him, I suspect the costs will be higher than what he expected. And he has inflamed Ukrainian nationalism and likely destroyed any sense of Ukrainian brotherhood with Russia for a long time.
This is going to be a very brutal next week, and we'll have a better idea of how the rest of the war plays out then. Thoughts and prayers go out to the Ukrainian people.
Chris
This is nothing more than probing attacks in the early few days to see what the Ukrainian military plans as well to see what NATO is going to do.
The Russians are probably more surprised by how well they are actually doing considering they have withheld most of their troops and not used their heavy bombers. As it is the Russian forces inside Ukraine are severely outnumbered.
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