Update from Kyiv and London. The fog of war – Putin seems to have miscalculated

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I just finished a conversation with my friend Gary in London. Gary met Marina when she was living in our house six years ago. They just celebrated their fourth anniversary.  Gary understands war. He was a forward artillery spotter in the jungles of Laos and Cambodia during Vietnam. He has been following the news constantly, and gets updates from Marina’s mother in southern Ukraine and friends in Russia.

Gary confirmed my observation that the Russians do not have air superiority. That is why there are no fighter aircraft or helicopters in the skies here over Kyiv. Useful as they would be to support Russian armor, they would be too exposed. Ukraine retains a certain amount of air power to defend itself.

The Ukrainian Army has put up much stiffer than expected opposition. Although troops from Crimea entered a number of Southern Ukrainian cities on day one, they have been pushed out of many of the larger ones. Gary names Mariupol, Odessa and Kherson.   He said that they have not been a able to enter Kharkiv.  They are bogged down, way  behind  the timetable they had set for themselves. Gary says that he and I are not the only prognosticators to have seriously underestimated the Ukrainian resistance. Or, conversely, overestimated Russian invincibility.

The bridge at Kherson saw heavy fighting. Russia's blitzkrieg attack secured the bridge on the first day, but the Ukrainians won it back.  Russia returned and held it for a couple of hours, before the Ukrainians again repulsed them. During that couple of hours, however, a significant convoy carrying supplies to the north and west was able to cross. After the recapture the bridge was strewn with Russian corpses. Gary reports that the Russians remain in his mother-in-law's town of Golaya Pristan, on the east side of the river. They are staying in their tanks and not bothering the locals.

It appeared the objective was to capture Kyiv within three days. It has not happened. The Russians have experienced significant losses in firefights approaching Kyiv. The Gostomel military airport just north of the city, captured by helicopter on the first day, has been recaptured, perhaps more than once. Gary says that one recapture left Russians with no place to land, resulting in a "turkey shoot."

Gary reports that Kyiv seems to be the key. The Russians will not expend resources to capture provincial towns until the capital is captured. But that has not yet happened and does not appear imminent. The Russians are probably constrained by supplies, given the unexpected resistance they encountered in the South, and by a lack of air support. They are also constrained by the imperative of not inflicting unnecessary civilian casualties.

This leads to the question of public relations. This whole invasion is a PR disaster for Putin. The Russian citizens are rising up in 60 or 80 cities across the country. They did not want a war against their fellow Slavs, and they did not want their sons coming home in body bags. That is the reason that quick execution was of the essence to Putin. The fact that that is not happening might easily collapse the entire campaign.

NATO, which has proven itself to be, as expected, nothing more than a paper tiger in resisting Russia, is finally starting to express righteous indignation now that the Ukrainians have showed they can defend themselves. Our president Zelensky has been properly caustic about their reluctance to get involved. I hope that this showing convinces Ukrainians that self reliance will serve them much better than promises from the West.

Gary told me a couple days ago that he overheard a conversation in a London pub at the time Zelensky was elected. He didn't understand it at the time, but the gist was that if Zelensky was elected they would have to shut down their laboratories in Ukraine. We learn now that there are eleven Anthony Fauci sponsored, US funded biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine. These are one of Putin's primary targets in the invasion. We can hope that Zelensky tells the feckless Americans to take their germs and go home.

It's 5 o'clock as I finish this. It has been a fairly quiet afternoon, only very occasional explosions coming from the east. Piecing this together with what Gary says, I would assume that the Russians have not made a whole lot of progress moving westward toward Kyiv. Just as I write this there is another boom a little bit closer. You never know.

That's the news from close enough to the front lines to hear what's going on, but thankfully way too far away to see anything.

Graham