Russia learns “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of fight in the dog.” Its invasion of Ukraine was widely expected to be wrapped up as quickly as Nazi Germany’s 1939 Blitzkreig conquest of Poland.
General David Petraeus (USA-Ret.) Sunday told CNN Anchor Jake Tapper that the war was about both sides willingness to fight. Gen. Petraeus, who also formerly served as CIA Director, called the current conflict “a bloody stalemate”.
“It’s a stalemate on the battlefield, again, with lots of continued damage on both sides, lots of destruction, especially from the Russians,” Petraeus said. “But there’s a battle of attrition, in a sense, between the will in Kyiv and that in Moscow, especially in the Kremlin, as their economy, their financial system and all the rest of that is just collapsing.”
The retired army officer pointed to the city of Mariupol, where the Ukrainians are almost out of supplies and yet continue holding the city because it is forcing the Russians to engage in the kind of fighting that they are not accustomed to.
“This is the first place where the Russians are having to do no-kidding urban fighting, having to go building to building,” Petraeus said. “Every single room has to be cleared in this kind of endeavor and they’re finding out that it is very soldier-intensive, and it just eats away at the reserves and forces that you have.”
The former CIA director explained that reports comparing the Russian army of 200,000 to about 100,000 Ukrainians is not accurate. It’s not so.
Petraeus said that, in addition to the regular army, almost every adult in Ukraine are willing to take up arms or help in some way, even if it’s just jam radio signals or conduct vlogging.
“But the problem here is, again, that they are literally starving,” he said, adding “This is a siege.”
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“And, again, how long they can hold out — and that’s very important, because once they surrender, these forces will be freed to go back up.” Petraeus was explaining how those freed-up troops would be able to advance to other cities, such as Kyiv.
The Russian army that advanced from Belarus to attack the capitol city, Kyiv, have been largely stalled for the last three weeks. The Ukrainians have actually been counterattacking around in Kyiv, Petraeus said, explaining they were very local counterattacks. He noted the Russians are actually digging digging holes for their tanks because they have lost a fair amount of armor to Ukraine attacks.
“They have rockets, missiles, bombs, and everything else that we have seen,” he said about the Russian army. “And they’re rubbling (sic) these little villages that are on the outside of the city.”
He concluded by talking about how Ukraine snipers have helped. Petraeus said lack of initiative from Russian soldiers seems to prmpt flag officers to speed forward to order units to advance. When they appear close to the front, snipers have reportedly killed at least five Russian army generals.
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