Why Putin’s Slow Advance In Ukraine May Be Fatal To Him

A brief but necessary history lesson

When Adolf Hitler attacked Poland on September 1st, 1930, he did it with the calendar in mind. He wanted his armored units to advance over large open spaces. So the assault date was designed to give Hitler’s armor a month to get where they were going before the fall rains turned the open ground too soft to support armor. It worked.

Likewise, when Hitler invaded the low countries in May of 1940, he did it after the spring rains, when the open ground would be more firm. Hitler invaded Russia even earlier, in April, to give the Wehrmacht an entire summer of good weather. But thanks to stout Russian resistance, a large part of the German army was trapped on the steppes of Russia for a brutal winter in open ground.

Putin knows how to use a calendar too, and he used it to plan his invasion of Ukraine. But he made two terrible mistakes. First, he didn’t send in enough troops to obtain a shock and awe advance that would roll back the Ukrainian troops quickly, and cause widespread fear in the general population. And second, he let a political calculation affect his operational planning.

Following what he felt was a highly successful meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin was loathe to step on Jinping’s toes for his shining moment in the international spotlight. So he delayed his assault as long as he could, almost 15 days. And potentially screwed the pooch.

Because if history holds true, sometime in the next 3-7 days it’s going to start getting warm in Ukraine, the spring thaw. Which will make all of those large open spaces that Putin needs to send his tanks over too soft to support the weight. Just look at the video you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, even before the invasion. In most of those videos there was snow on the ground, and quite often it was snowing like hell.

And it’s about to start melting, and quickly. For those of you who live where there is significant snowfall, or grew up there like I did, you know what I’m talking about. When the thaw hits, the snow may be gone in a day or two, but if you step out into the middle of your yard, water squishes up around your shoes, and your foot sinks about an inch into the soft spongy earth. And that’s a 200 lb human. Waddaya think a tank weighing more than a ton is going to do?

Putin is about to have a nightmare scenario for his armored divisions. He can still send them over open ground, but their progress will be slippery and slow, and if the US and NATO keep the Ukrainians well supplied with Stinger missiles, they’ll be able to pick those tanks off like ducks in a bathtub. And if decided to use the roads instead in mile long tank convoys, all it takes is a few well places Stingers, taking out the first 2-3 tanks, and the last 2-3, and the whole damn convoy is trapped in the middle of the road.

Simple fact, Putin needed those extra two weeks for his advance, especially since he was so cheap as to how many troops he surged forward. And I find it unlikely that he can wind up and surge more troops forward without them getting stuck in the thaw. If I’m right, here’s what you’ll see next. The bulk of the Russian invasion forces will be slowly grinding towards two major cities, and casualty heavy block-to-block fighting, especially since the civilians are armed with Molotov cocktails. The middle of the country will be a series of independent, kinetic battles by smaller forces, and the Ukrainians will use their home field advantage to fuck with the Russians communications and supply lines.

And Putin will have his own personal Afghanistan or Vietnam, take your pick. Vlad the Imp made a serious  miscalculation. Politics is nothing but chatter and bullshit, and you can stretch that out for as long as you want. But you can’t change or fight the weather. Putin is about to get a heavy lesson in that.