WASHINGTON — For the Russian military, the difficult part came quickly.On the first day of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his generals and troops followed a textbook strategy for land invasions. They attacked the country’s military installations and air defense systems with missiles launched from the air, sea and land, seeking to take ownership of the skies, and sped forces to Kyiv, the capital, with the goal of decapitating the government of the democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky.But then, things slowed. It is one thing to cross the border of another country with tanks and artillery, protected by warplanes above, Pentagon officials and analysts say. It is another thing entirely to lay siege to cities and an army populated by people willing to put their lives on the line to protect what they view as their sovereign right to self-determination.Within a day of entering Ukraine, Russian forces lost some momentum, senior American and British officials said, as Ukrainian fighters mounted a resistance. No population centers had been taken, a senior Defense Department official told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. Nor had Russia yet managed to achieve air superiority over Ukraine, partly because the Ukrainians are using mobile systems and partly because Russian missiles have hit old air defense sites, which could show a flaw in Russia’s intelligence. The Ukrainian air defense and missile defense systems were degraded, he said, but the country’s air force was still flying planes and denying air access to Russia.In addition, officials said, Russia was conducting most of its initial operations during the day, suggesting that its ability to fight at night — a hallmark of the American military — was less effective.ImageUkraine’s military was battling to push Russian forces back from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times“Ukrainian armed forces continue to offer strong resistance,” said Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull, the British chief of defense intelligence.That said, Pentagon officials warned that Russia had sent in only one-third of the 150,000 to 190,000 troops it had massed at Ukraine’s borders, so Moscow could intensify pressure at any time. Military officials said Russia was still in the initial phases of an operation that could take two to three weeks to seize most of the country.Officials said Russia had begun an amphibious assault from the Sea of Azov, near Mariupol, in the south. Thousands of Russian naval infantry are coming ashore there, with military officials assessing that the plan is to move toward the city. The Russian military, with its decisive edge in cyberwarfare, tanks, heavy weaponry, missiles, fighter planes, warships and sheer numbers, dwarfs that of Ukraine.But wars are not fought on paper alone. While Russia has established attack lines into three cities — Kyiv in the north, Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south — Ukrainian troops are fighting to hold all three. Significantly, the senior U.S. defense official said, Ukrainian command and control remains intact.Russia’s attack lines are bottlenecked, a second official said, as Ukrainian troops fiercely engage against the Russians. The resistance, the official said, is why the Russian troops massed at the border haven not all crossed. But the official warned that more of those troops would flow quickly to the cities — particularly Kyiv — if the forward elements break the Ukrainian troops who have held them up.“It’s not apparent to us that Russian forces over the past 24 hours have been able to execute their plans as they deemed they would,” John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said later Friday. “But it’s a dynamic situation.”As some Russian troops entered a northern district of Kyiv, missile strikes hammered the city and rockets crashed into residential buildings. If Russian intelligence has figured out where Mr. Zelensky and the rest of the Ukrainian leadership are hiding, the Russian military will probably try to take them out with rockets and airstrikes, a senior Biden administration official said in an interview. But if that does not work, Russian forces might resort to urban combat, a more difficult endeavor.“The easy part is attacking with missiles and hitting airfields,” said retired Col. David Lapan, a 30-year veteran of the Marine Corps. “But the narrative that they’ve overrun Ukraine is very premature. We’re just a couple of days into this, and it could go on a long time.”ImageMilitary volunteers received weapons after the Ukrainian government announced that it would arm civilians to resist the Russian invasion.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesSenior Pentagon officials echoed that view. Russian troops are surrounding Kyiv with anBy: Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt
Title: Russia’s Assault in Ukraine Slows After an Aggressive Start
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics/us-russia-military.html
Published Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2022 00:14:03 +0000
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