No matter what kind of fuel conservation techniques they engaged in. The 1st 17km or so of that 64 km Russian Army column is out of fuel.
They planned a 3-day operation which is in its 8th day.
And given the temperatures and radio use, those vehicles have dead batteries. 3/
This is why that Russian 41st CAA general was killed.
He showed up at the head of the column to unscrew the logistical mess, screaming at people and waving his arms in the air in visual range of a Ukrainian Army Sniper. 4/
The head of this 64km column ain't going anywhere. With or without fuel. The Russians can get neither fuel trucks nor wreckers there.
And this "drop dead effect" is proceeding along the column from south to north. The ONLY way that column will move at all is backwards first 6/
This is assuming it moves at all before the Ukrainians destroy it.
The front and middle of the column showed up with food, fuel & ammo for 3-days, & we are 8-days into the war.
The column is packed so tight that you can only refuel about 100-200 meters of column at a time
7/
via a--holes & elbow by jerry cans. Then carefully back out those refueled trucks in order to get to the next 100 meters with the refueling truck and jerry cans.
It would take a week a month from now, when the ground dries, to unf--k this mess. 8/
The Russian Army will not be able to move trucks off road before then.
The Russians have formed the world's longest POW camp. And the Ukrainians don't have to feed it.
There simply hasn't been anything like this in warfare since the Anglo-American Anzio beachhead in 1944.
11/
The Russian troops in the 40-50 km of the traffic jam closest to Kyiv will run out of food before the jam can be cleared to them.
They'll have to abandon their vehicles and walk north just to get food.
12/
The reason the Russian column got to be so long was due to Russian Army officers “fulfilling the plan”.
They might be shot by the chain of command for disobeying orders to advance into the traffic jam, but won’t be if they obey orders to fulfill the plan.
13/
I'm not saying Ukraine will win or even that Ukraine can prevent Kyiv from being encircled.
I am saying the Russian Army troops in the first 50 kilometers of that 64 km column will have nothing to do with it.
14/End
PS.
The Ukrainians really do want to motti that column.
And the Ukrainians do have the means to hit the fuel trucks at the North end of the Kyiv column to prevent its unwinding before the mud season is over.
Actually, the Soviet Union in the "Great Patriotic War" did suffer worse casualties and win.
It is that fact which powers the "Russian WW2 exceptionalism" myth that Putin used to zombify Russians over 20 years to make suicidal assaults over and over again.
Historic war mobilization production curves are heavily back loaded.
That is, the production rates of B-17's and B-24's bombers in the 3rd quarter of 1943 versus the 3rd quarter of 1944 showed a much higher production rate in late 1944.
2/
We are mid-way through the 3rd quarter of the 2025 where Ukraine's OWA drone annual production goal was 40,000.
Ukraine should be around 850-950 OWA drones a week in August 2025 and will be close to 1,200 a week in the 4th qtr. of the 2025.
Both polities had monumental hubris, the conviction that all was permitted, and that they were invincible.
The committed Nazis still believed they were winning in March-April 1945.
Japanese 'Yamato-damashii' beliefs took nukes to break.
2/
This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.
Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?
These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...
2/
..."every soldier is a logistical manual laborer when not in combat".
Water is heavy. Pipelines are more efficient that trucks. Yet all we are seeing is Russian water trucks?
Who stole the Russian Army tactical pipelines? Or were they nothing but disinformation?
3/3
While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)
2/
...claiming Russia is "obviously winning."
We are at the same time seeing economic signs of Russian "End Run Production."
The Russian wartime economy is functioning hand to mouth with oil sales revenues because all of the foreign exchange reserves are spent or frozen.
3/