[Epoch Times, March 08, 2022](Epoch Times reporter Chen Ting comprehensive report) Pentagon spokesman John Kirby (John Kirby) said on Monday (March 7) that the Russian convoy heading for the Ukrainian capital Kyiv “still stand still”.
The convoy stretched for 40 miles from Prybisk in the north to near the Antonov airport in the south, steadily advancing southwards at the start of the war. But starting last week, progress seemed to come to a complete stop.
Kirby told a regular Pentagon press conference (link): “It’s a very, very long fleet. We’re not even sure if it’s all the vehicles, we can’t even be sure if it’s all the same fleet, Or a collection of several teams.”
“But our safest assessment is that it’s still stagnant,” Kirby told reporters.
The Pentagon believes that the purpose of the convoy to Kyiv is to “resupply”. However, he also admitted that the Pentagon does not have “perfect visibility” of the fleet.
“When you look at the image from the air, you can see a lot of vehicles, but they don’t look like armored vehicles, they look like supply trucks.”
“It’s not to say there aren’t any tanks out there,” he said. “We don’t have perfect visibility for it. But the assessment is that it’s largely there to help with resupply, it’s still stalled, it’s still stuck.”
“We don’t think it made any progress over the weekend,” he said.
When asked by reporters whether he had received evidence of “low morale” among Russian troops, Kirby said that morale remains an issue for many Russian troops.
He said that in addition to some rumors reported in the media, the Pentagon has also “discovered other signs” that the morale of Russian troops, particularly in northern and eastern Ukraine, is low.
“As they continue to be frustrated, they’re now increasingly reliant on what we call long-range firepower,” Kirby said.
Long-range firepower is causing more damage to infrastructure and causing more damage due to its lack of precision. Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, did suffer from a lot of long-range fire.
“We think it’s because they can’t make up for the time they continue to suffer on the ground,” Kirby said.
The Pentagon also said it could not rule out a Wall Street Journal report that Russia was seeking foreign soldiers to assist in the invasion of Ukraine.
“We do believe their claims that the Russians are trying to use Syrian fighters to strengthen their forces in Ukraine,” he said.
Kirby said that Putin is now in Ukraine and has invested a lot of ground troops.
“He has a lot of combat power at his disposal…I can’t guess why he felt the need to seek help from foreign fighters,” he said.
He added that the Pentagon believes the Russian military has morale issues, supply issues, fuel issues and food issues.
“They encountered very tenacious and determined Ukrainian resistance,” Kirby said. “We remain convinced that they were several days later than they originally thought in terms of the fighting.”
Epoch Times reporter Isabel van Brugen also contributed to this report
Responsible editor: Li Ling#