{"id":1396176,"date":"2022-03-23T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1396176"},"modified":"2022-03-23T12:01:31","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T16:01:31","slug":"pentagon-russia-has-failed-to-achieve-any-of-its-major-objectives-a-month-into-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pentagon-russia-has-failed-to-achieve-any-of-its-major-objectives-a-month-into-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon: Russia Has Failed to Achieve Any of Its Major Objectives a Month Into War"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpentagon-russia-has-failed-to-achieve-any-of-its-major-objectives-a-month-into-war%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1396176&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<div class=\"RichTextArticleBody\">\n<div class=\"RichTextArticleBody-body\">\n<p>The <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/russia\">Russian<\/a> military&#8217;s first month of <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/war-in-ukraine\">war<\/a> in <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/ukraine\">Ukraine<\/a> is coming to a close, and it couldn&#8217;t have gone much worse from the Kremlin&#8217;s perspective. <\/p>\n<p>Russia anticipated easily getting to and overtaking the capital, Kyiv. Yet after four weeks, Russian forces have conquered few key cities and are facing significant and multiple self-inflicted problems while resorting to a military philosophy of terrorizing civilians into submission. Their struggles are in large part due to the strength of the Ukrainian resistance forces, who have in some places <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/ukraine-says-it-retook-suburb-near-kyiv-previously-taken-over-by-russian-troops\">begun retaking areas<\/a> Russians had once conquered.<\/p>\n<div class=\"Enhancement\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;The Russians have not achieved any of the strategic objectives that they set out to and they certainly haven&#8217;t achieved the objectives that they have, easily or without, without loss,&#8221; <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/pentagon\">Pentagon<\/a> spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday. Russian forces \u201conly have two population centers that they have actually taken\u201d through the first four weeks of the war, he stated during a television appearance earlier that day, which amounts to a <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/us-underwhelmed-with-russian-forces-performance-in-ukraine-so-far-austin\">significant shortcoming<\/a> from past expectations.<\/p>\n<p><b><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/ukrainian-ambassador-to-us-accuses-russia-of-genocide-during-invasion\">UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR TO US ACCUSES RUSSIA OF &#8216;GENOCIDE&#8217; DURING INVASION<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Russia&#8217;s failures have left the Pentagon unsure of what their &#8220;<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/pentagon-unsure-of-what-russias-endgame-is-now\">endgame is now<\/a>,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon has claimed to have seen indications that Russian forces have faced logistical and sustainment problems, and Kirby reaffirmed it Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe continue to see indications that the Russians did not properly plan for logistics and sustainment. We know that they continue to have fuel issues across their force and that they&#8217;re still struggling with food,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So they&#8217;re still having trouble feeding some of their troops. They either didn&#8217;t properly plan for logistics or sustainment, or they didn&#8217;t properly execute their plan, but they are still having problems.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A senior U.S. defense official told reporters last week that the department was seeing \u201canecdotal indications\u201d that Russian forces\u2019 morale is &#8220;<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/russian-morale-flagging-and-troops-disillusioned-in-ukraine-pentagon-says\">flagging<\/a>.&#8221; It is \u201ca function of poor leadership,\u201d as well as a \u201clack of information that the troops are getting about their mission and objectives,&#8221; the official said, adding, \u201cI think disillusionment from being resisted as fiercely as they have been\u201d has also contributed to the situation.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to those problems, other soldiers have been &#8220;taken out of the fight because of frostbite,&#8221; the official told reporters Tuesday. \u201cThey lack the appropriate cold-weather gear for the environment that they\u2019re in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The problems of poor equipment and a lack of supplies demonstrate Russia&#8217;s faulty planning ahead of the invasion. <\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian leaders have also claimed to have killed a number of top Russian commanders, though that hasn&#8217;t been independently verified. Mykhailo Podoliak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/Volodymyr-Zelensky\">Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a>, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Podolyak_M\/status\/1505522093189910532\">said<\/a> Sunday that six Russian generals and dozens of colonels and other officers had been killed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Among their total force in Ukraine (roughly 170,000), Ukrainian officials have said more than 15,000 have been killed in action, whereas a pro-Kremlin tabloid, owned by a Russian oligarch, published and then deleted a report citing Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry saying that it was <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/oligarch-owned-tabloid-deletes-article-reporting-10k-russian-soldiers-dead-in-ukraine\">approaching 10,000<\/a> deaths days ago.<\/p>\n<p>Russian leaders in Ukraine have been forced to communicate on <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/russian-generals-paying-price-for-using-unsecured-phones-radios-in-ukraine-war\">unsecured phones and radios<\/a>. Ukrainians were able to intercept a general\u2019s call in one case, geolocate him, and launch an attack that killed him and his staff, according to the <i><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/16\/us\/politics\/russia-troop-deaths.html\">New York Times<\/a><\/i>. Additionally, it&#8217;s unclear to U.S. officials who, if anyone, is leading the entire operation in Ukraine, according to <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/03\/21\/politics\/us-russia-top-military-commander-ukraine-war\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>, who also reported that units from different Russian military battalions in different parts of the country seem to be competing for resources instead of sharing and coordinating them.<\/p>\n<p>In Russia, some leaders are acknowledging the setbacks, while others claim the situation in Ukraine is going according to plan.<\/p>\n<p>Viktor Zolotov, the chief of Russia&#8217;s national guard and a member of Putin&#8217;s security council, said, \u201cNot everything is going as fast as we would like,\u201d at a church service led by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill about a week and a half ago, whereas Dmitry Peskov, the chief spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a CNN interview Tuesday that, when asked if they had met any of its strategic objectives, \u201cNot yet,\u201d though he added, \u201cIt is going on strictly in accordance with the plans and with purposes that were established beforehand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Putin\u2019s climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, also stepped down from his role and left the country over his opposition to the invasion, <i><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gotAktPNcO\">Bloomberg News<\/a><\/i> reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>With little to show for it, Russia has been able to bombard various Ukrainian cities, turning them into empty shells of themselves with mass graves, bombed-out buildings, and collapsed structures. Russia has resorted to attacking civilian targets in the more recent parts of the war.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have seen clear evidence that over the \u2014 certainly, over the last week or so, the Russians have deliberately and intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure, hospitals, places of shelter, and we also have indications of behavior on the ground by Russian forces that would likewise constitute war crimes. I&#8217;m not going to get into a list of it,&#8221; the official added Tuesday, a day after Kirby said U.S. officials had seen &#8220;<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/pentagon-clear-evidence-that-russian-forces-are-committing-war-crimes\">clear evidence<\/a>&#8221; that Russian forces had committed war crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, accused the Russian military of committing \u201c<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/genocide\">genocide<\/a>&#8221; during a panel conversation hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace on Tuesday, arguing its tactics show \u201cno military objective.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The residents of the port city of Mariupol, which is strategically located between Crimea, which the Russians invaded back in 2014, and the Donbas territory, where fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainians has occurred for years, have faced some of the most barbaric acts of war.<\/p>\n<p>Russian forces shelled a Mariupol maternity hospital, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-60675599\">killing five<\/a> people and <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/see-it-russian-airstrike-hits-children-and-maternity-hospital-in-mariupol\">injuring 17<\/a>, and they <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/its-a-miracle-civilians-hiding-inside-mariupol-theater-bomb-shelter-survive-russian-airstrike\">bombed a theater<\/a> there that had been serving as a shelter, even though Ukrainians had spelled out the word &#8220;children&#8221; in Russian in the front and back of the facility. Russian troops also <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/officials-russia-bombed-mariupol-school-housing-400\">bombed a school<\/a> housing hundreds of people.<\/p>\n<p><b><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Peskov did not rule out Russia&#8217;s use of a nuclear weapon should it face &#8220;an existential threat for our country,&#8221; while the White House has also warned about the possibility of a chemical attack.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian military doctrine, known to the West as \u201cescalate to de-escalate,\u201d is based on the belief that Russia could use a small nuclear device to devastate an enemy without triggering a retaliatory strike because opposing nuclear forces would be concerned about escalating the situation to a full-blown nuclear war. <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/nato\">NATO<\/a> has <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/allies-see-risk-that-putin-thinks-he-can-win-a-nuclear-war-against-nato\">warned about the possibility<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a real threat,\u201d President <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/joe-biden\">Joe Biden<\/a> said of a possible chemical attack on Wednesday morning. Days earlier, he called Putin a &#8220;<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/biden-says-he-thinks-putin-is-a-war-criminal\">war criminal<\/a>.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/united-nations\">United Nations<\/a> <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/en\/press-releases\/2022\/03\/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-22-march-2022\">said<\/a> that more than 950 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 1,500 injured, though it warns that the total figures are most likely \u201cconsiderably higher\u201d due to the difficulty of calculating casualties in a war zone.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Russian military&#8217;s first month of war in Ukraine is coming to a close, and it couldn&#8217;t have gone much worse from the Kremlin&#8217;s perspective. Russia anticipated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":489,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1396176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1396176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1396176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1396176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1396176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}