A huge Russian military convoy does not bode well for the capital: ‘The Kyiv battle will be long and bloody’

While the Russian army has faced unexpectedly stiff resistance from the Ukrainian army in many places in the country in the past five days, the nearly 40-mile-long convoy has advanced to Kyiv. And apparently it didn’t bother her. After days of reports of logistical problems and delays in the Russian advance, the West and Ukraine faced the hard facts on Monday. Hundreds of vehicles will collect 20 km from Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Air Force released images this weekend of an attack by a Turkish Bayraktar drone on part of the convoy, but the Russians were unable to stop it. Unless the column is attacked from the air, artillery, or an ambush in the coming days, the Russian high command and President Putin can begin implementing their plan in Kyiv soon.

“Russia will try to encircle Kyiv and isolate it from the world in the coming weeks,” US Senator Chris Murphy wrote on Twitter on Monday after briefing colleagues on the convoy and the latest information from US intelligence agencies. Then the vanguard of the column was located near the outskirts of Kyiv, about 25 kilometers from the city center. Murphy: “The battle for Kyiv will be long and bloody, and the Ukrainians are quickly preparing for a street-to-street fight.”

Cautious

The Pentagon and spy agencies did not reveal the fact that the Russian convoy is very long – it can be compared with the distance between Brussels and the Dutch border. Since the Russians crossed the border into Belarus on the first day of the invasion, Washington has constantly warned of the strip of trucks approaching Kyiv from the northwest.

Only after US commercial satellite company Maxar released images of the column on Monday did it become clear what exactly is headed to the Ukrainian capital. Initially, Maksar reported on Sunday that the convoy was about 6 kilometers long. On Monday, the company modified that to 27 kilometres. After analyzing the new images, this was again revised to at least 64 kilometres.

The photographs show how long the Russian procession passed through villages and factories. In Invankiv, with the vertigo pictured below (en It can be found in Google Maps via this linkMany houses are burning, but it is not clear whether the Russians were attacked here and then launched a counterattack.

The traffic jam of army vehicles does not seem to be making any attempt to drive in the Ukrainian capital itself at the moment. The Russian government has repeatedly said that the military intervention is not aimed at occupying or occupying territories. Troops should not move into cities without specific objectives. Russia announced this afternoon air strikes on the city and urged civilians to leave. The encirclement of Kyiv could also force the Ukrainian government to make concessions, for example during peace negotiations.

According to Maksar, satellite images also show that combat helicopters and ground forces are on alert in southern Belarus, about 32 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.