(Ukraine) So at the start of April Moscow decided to pull
all its troops out of the north of the country and redeploy them in the East
(Donbas region) in which support the poor headway Russia was making against the
Ukrainian defenders, now this is where it becomes interesting Moscow redeployed
around 100 Battle Groups (I think the correct figure is 103) Each Battle Group
is a self-contained unit (hence the name) containing 10 Main Battle Tanks
(usually the latest iteration of the T72/80/90) 20 BMP3s, 10 BTR80s, backed up
by engineer, artillery , Anti-tank, MRLS and air defence.
On paper such a show of force concentrated in a small area
supported by Russia air support, long range Cruise missile support and divisional
artillery should have made little work of primarily an infantry based Ukraine opposition,
especially in the huge salient which consists of flat farm land and yet Moscow
is making hard work of advancing for example the city of Popasna was captured
on the 8th of May and yet Moscow has only advanced 10 miles since
them. Its open countryside, don’t get me
wrong Russian forces are advancing but 6 weeks to advance 10 miles. which can be seen in the following maps which show very little movement:
