Why Russia's Running Short of Trucks In Ukraine Is A Big Problem

Russia did not have a lot of trucks to begin with, was well known for not maintaining them properly and has now lost so many to Ukrainian attack - and mechanical breakdown - that they cannot deliver supplies to their troops.

The trucks are likely irreplaceable in the short term due to international sanctions on crucial parts. With the Russian Air Force afraid to fly for fear of being shot down and rail links disrupted, the shortage of trucks is becoming a strategic impediment to pursuing the invasion. JL 

Serina Sandhu reports in Inews, image Vadim Ghirda, AP :

Russia's military strategy to takeover Ukraine is stalling, with a key weakness likely being a lack of trucks to transport supplies to forces on the ground. “They had too few [trucks] to go in with and they already lost a huge number. Hypersonic missiles don’t matter if you don’t have complex systems in place to supply, to operate and to fight the real detail of war." As the war in Ukraine enters its fourth week, the Ukrainian army and sister services have destroyed 485 Russian trucks. “The Russian army does not have enough trucks to meet its logistic requirement more than 90 miles beyond supply dumps”.

Russia has overlooked the basics of warfare after being blindsided by its hoard of ultra-modern and “fancy” weapons, a conflict logistics expert has said.

The country’s military strategy to takeover Ukraine is stalling, with a key weakness likely being a lack of trucks to transport supplies to forces on the ground.

“So they have certain very fancy pieces of equipment, what they lack is the ability to operate the complex operations needed to utilise those,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews.

 

“There was far too much obsession with weapons and numbers of weapons, and not looking at the fundamentals of military power on which the campaign would be waged, and that’s a general problem,” said the author of How the War was Won.

“Hypersonic missiles and Su-34 bombers – we get very excited by those. But that doesn’t matter if you don’t have complex systems in place to supply, to operate and to fight the real detail of war.

“They had too few [trucks] to go in with and they already lost a huge number.

“They don’t have the ability to get the supplies around. They don’t have the ability to operate a full air support system to suppress anti-air fire and they don’t have enough smart [guided] bombs… to use the bomber effectively.”

It comes after retired US Army lieutenant Alex Vershinin said “the Russian army does not have enough trucks to meet its logistic requirement more than 90 miles beyond supply dumps”.

Prof O’Brien said Russia’s initial war strategy to overwhelm Ukraine’s light resistance, take Kyiv and install a puppet government had “failed utterly”, with the Kremlin struggling to come up with an alternative plan. “If Russia had sense they would try to get out. I don’t see a war-winning strategy for the Russian state at this point.

“The Russian army has been surprisingly inactive for almost a week now. One assumes they’re trying to resupply but we don’t know how that’s going. They seem to be resorting now mostly to distance bombardment.”

With Russia’s economy tanking, in part due to western sanctions, the country is unable to fight a long war, said Prof O’Brien.

“They have to find a way to conquer Ukraine and hold it in a relatively short period of time. I don’t think they’re going to be able to do that physically, but even if they did conquer a lot of Ukraine, they’re not going to extinguish Ukrainian identity.”

It may dampen concerns about Vladimir Putin’s intentions beyond Ukraine. Prof O’Brien said: “If Russia can’t even take Ukraine, I don’t think we need to worry about Moldova. It’s more likely that all this shows is that the Russian military was extremely overrated.”

Evidence appears to show that morale is low among Russian troops, with soldiers failing to take initiative when plans break down, said Prof O’Brien.

“We don’t want to overplay all the pictures, but there does seem to be a lot of abandoned equipment in pretty good shape. Armies that are in good morale… if they do abandon important, very valuable equipment, they’ll destroy it. And in this case, it seems to be the Russians are just leaving because they want to get away.

“If I were a Russian soldier and had to take part in this, then I’d be pretty angry. If my son was fighting in this, or daughter, I’d be even more furious.”

However, Prof O’Brien said issues on the frontline would not immediately translate to domestic opposition to war in Russia, adding: “It takes time for that dissension to work its way through the system.”