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the warmer weather is coming up and with it the main Russian weapon there - tanks - will be at disadvantage mostly confined to easily defendable roads/bridges a
by trhway 5y ago
the warmer weather is coming up and with it the main Russian weapon there - tanks - will be at disadvantage mostly confined to easily defendable roads/bridges and thus being a prey for the main Ukrainian weapon in the coming fight - Turkish drones. I.e. once the ground becomes deeply muddy the Ukraine will have a good opportunity to strike at Donbass (the opportunity they are probably going to use given the recent amassing of their forces there and the strategic advantage they've got with the drones), so the civil population needs to be moved out. To prevent Ukraine from such escalation of the war, Russia has been threatening to hit behind the Ukrainian Donbass forces if they move on Donbass, and the mud will make that threat less effective thus providing the opening for Ukraine.
- layer8 5y agoPresumably, Russia will try to reach Kyiv from Belarus as fast as possible. There are already at least an estimated 30,000 Russian troops in southern Belarus, and it’s only 160 km (100 miles) from the Belarus border to Kyiv.
- trhway 5y agoNo. The strike into Central Ukraine isn't going to happen for many many reasons. The point is to be able to quickly encircle the Donbass forces, similar to August 2014 at Illovaysk, only at several orders of magnitude larger scale. Giving Ukrainian readiness this time and their large army, that encircling if it happens would basically be cutting whole Eastern Ukraine out.
- layer8 5y agoThe US seems to believe that Kyiv is an imminent target: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-told-to-exercise-restraint-to-avoid-provoking-russian-invasion-11645185631 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-troops-told-to-exercise... We’ll see.