Ukraine war: Russia's attack a "disaster" - Putin with "outbursts of anger"

Created: 03/02/2022 05:24

By: Lukas Rogalla, Daniel Dillmann

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is not going as planned.

This causes Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin to be dissatisfied with his own military leadership.

• The Ukraine war* has been raging for almost a week.

  Heavy fighting is being reported, especially from the cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv.

• The advance of the troops from Russia* to Ukraine* is probably slower than planned by Vladimir Putin*.

  According to reports from the USA*, this should have led to an outburst of anger with the Russian President.

• The resistance of the Ukrainian army, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyj*, causes a change of strategy in the Kremlin.

<<< Update Ticker >>>

+++ 2:15 a.m .:

The local authority in Moscow’s Gagarinsky district calls on Putin to withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine.

The BBC quoted the attack as a “disaster” and leading to “the impoverishment of the country”.

Update from Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022, 1:18 am:

The invasion of Russia is proceeding more slowly than planned.

This is reported by Valerii Zaluzhny, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Russian troops had lost their tactical initiative and would have to mobilize reserves to continue the attack.

The news portal The Kyiv Independent also reports that Russian soldiers in Crimea are refusing to take part in the invasion.

The Ukrainian Defense Strategy Center quotes an anonymous source.

Accordingly, a brigade is in a “demoralized state”.

Ukraine war: Russia's attack falters – Pentagon names alleged problems

+++ 18:54:

When attacking Ukraine, Russian troops are now having problems providing their own soldiers with food, according to sources in the US Department of Defense.

A Pentagon representative said Tuesday in Washington: "There are (...) indications that they are having problems with supplying their troops - that they are not only running out of gas, but also of food." Offensive recently made no major progress.

The logistical problems are a factor, but also the resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, which is greater than the Russian side probably expected.

There are indications that "morale is falling in some of these units because they did not anticipate the resistance that will be met with them," the US Department of Defense official said.

It could also be that the Russian troops took a kind of break of their own accord in order to regroup and regroup and to reconsider their own strategy.

He stressed that Russian troops would certainly adapt and try to meet the challenges.

The attack only started a few days ago.

In addition, Russia has large military resources.

A blown-off tank tower lies on the outskirts of Kharkiv.

Russian troops have launched the expected attack on Ukraine.

© dpa

The Pentagon official said that according to US estimates, more than 80 percent of the troops that Russia had previously massed at the border are now inside Ukraine.

It is unclear why Russia is having such logistical problems with the military attack and whether this is due to errors in the planning or execution of the attack.

When asked several times about the information and sources on which the information about problems on the Russian side was based, the Pentagon representative expressly did not comment.

He could not make any public statements about this.

Ukraine war: Putin environment increasingly tense

+++ 5:20 p.m .:

The sluggish invasion of Ukraine creates a bad atmosphere in the Kremlin.

President Vladimir Putin is "frustrated," reports the US news channel NBC, citing several US intelligence sources.

Putin reacted with "unusual outbursts of anger".

Already at the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, the relationship between Vladimir Putin and his circle of leaders seemed tense.

A video recently made the rounds in which the Russian President very bluntly rebuked his own intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin.

He had suggested negotiating again with “the so-called Western partners”.

A destroyed tank of the Ukrainian army.

The war between Ukraine and Russia continues to rage on.

© Ivan Rodionov/imago

Ukraine: Putin's war comes to a halt - authorities accuse Russia of war crimes

+++ 4:43 p.m .:

 According to US intelligence services, Vladimir Putin is increasingly “frustrated” by the stalled invasion and is therefore reacting with “unusual outbursts of anger”.

This is reported by the broadcaster 

, citing several sources.

Former CIA director John Brennan has said the Russian president is no longer "the same cold-blooded, no-nonsense dictator he was in 2008."

+++ 15:21:

There is also fighting in Sumy.

According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Russia has launched rocket fire at the city in north-eastern Ukraine.

The governor there, Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, wrote in the news service Telegram that Russian soldiers had deliberately opened fire on civilians.

Tanks are also involved in the fighting.

This is reported by the Internet portal Kyiv Independent.

The governor asked residents of the city not to leave the house.

Update, 1:00 p.m .:

In the Ukraine war, Russia appears to have succeeded in gaining control of Kharkiv.

Videos on social media, verified by CNN, show Russian troops on the streets of the country's second largest city.

Ukraine War: Russia's troops engaged in street fighting

But the videos show that Russia is still encountering resistance from Ukrainian army units and partisans in Kharkiv.

A picture shows a Russian formation advancing on a nearby airfield but stopped by an ambush.

Another video shows the armored vehicles retreating frantically, along with the soldiers.

Numerous photographs are being circulated by the Ukrainian army showing destroyed Russian tanks, killed soldiers and damaged enemy equipment.

Ukraine war: Russia suffers losses – Putin changes his strategy

First message:

Kiev – The battle for the capital of Ukraine rages on.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sends more troops to the war.

A kilometer-long convoy of the Russian army arrived in front of Kyiv in the early hours of Tuesday.

Battles are reported from the metropolis.

During the night, the population was asked to move to air raid shelters due to alleged artillery fire from Russia.

But the advance of the Russian army in the Ukraine war is apparently proving to be more difficult than Vladimir Putin and his generals assumed.

This is reported by both the news channel CNN from the USA and the Internet portal Vice.

Both cite experts from the NATO defense alliance.

Both the "incompetence" and the harshness of the Ukrainian army's resistance surprised experts around the world, an anonymous NATO official told Vice.

Destroyed military vehicles of Russia in Kyiv.

The war against Ukraine is not going as planned by Vladimir Putin.

© Sergey Bobok/afp

Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin's army suffers serious losses

According to an expert in an interview with CNN, this mixed situation is leading to a rethinking of the Russian military leadership in the Ukraine war.

Vladimir Putin initially thought he could overrun Ukraine with a kind of blitzkrieg.

At the same time, the Russian President assumed that he could rely on a closed home front.

But the sanctions against Russia* would have raised serious doubts about the invasion of the neighboring country in the military leadership.

"They can't collect their bodies, they're running out of fuel, and they're losing a lot of military hardware in the fighting," CNN said.

Russia still seems unable to secure airspace over Ukraine.

This in turn exacerbates the supply problems of the Russian army.

There is also another problem: “The ratio of troops to the population is about three to four Russian soldiers for every 1,000 inhabitants.

That's an astronomically low number if they really want to hold the area after conquering it.” Russian troops would then be at very great risk of partisan and similar attacks.

Ukraine war: Putin's advance falters – will artillery now destroy Ukrainian cities?

The Russian army is already suffering heavy losses in the Ukraine war.

According to unconfirmed figures, more than 5,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives in the fighting.

Military experts told the Washington Post that this was partly due to the army's unexpectedly large number of logistical problems.

The Ukraine campaign is Russia's largest military operation since the 1994 war in Chechnya - much larger than the operation in the civil war in Syria*, for example.

On the other hand, Russia is apparently encountering an army capable of fighting in Ukraine, which is successfully resisting despite being numerically inferior.

Above all, the use of weapons-capable drones, which Ukraine has obtained mainly from Turkey, according to the news portal Bloomberg, is causing major problems for the Russian army.

Due to the logistical difficulties, Vladimir Putin is now said to be pursuing a new strategy in the Ukraine war.

International correspondents report artillery fire from the cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv.

The British MoD links this directly to the stalled invasion.

There is also talk of the international use of cluster munitions and cluster bombs in the Ukraine war.

The number of civilian casualties is likely to rise significantly as a result of the use of such means.

(dil)