The Kiev Convoy Mystery

5 points by jonasenordin 4 years ago | 9 comments

That convoy outside Kiev just waiting there like a sitting duck seems to be a mystery to everybody, military experts included. But surely there must be answers somewhere?

PaulHoule 4 years ago |

Part of why it is mysterious is that there has been a news blackout.

It's not in the interest of Ukraine for the outside world to be getting unfiltered news about conditions on the ground. Consider this problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_damage_assessment

If somebody gets bombed out of their house and shoots some footage of the neighborhood and uploads it to YouTube or TikTok the Russians can view that and know their weapons are effective and know they can bomb some other neighborhood. Similarly if there is footage showing an area is undamaged that area could become a target.

In the first two days of the war I saw a lot of really fascinating footage from which I drew numerous conjectures which could be correct or not. For instance I saw a Ukrainian vehicle that had a letter on it that wasn't a "Z". I saw a Buk scooting around a neighborhood with soviet era "big block" apartments. I saw a big block apartment that got hit by a missile. (I'd conjecture that the Ukrainians turned the Buk's radar on, the Russians shot one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile which got confused in the urban environment... Yes, a city could be a better place to hide an anti-aircraft radar than an open plain)

There is some propaganda benefit to be had from that kind of footage but it reveals things the Russians shouldn't know (really their bombs and missiles should disappear into the fog of war, the Russians shouldn't know anything about Ukranian Buks) and that is why the newsfeed has turned to reports about "things government officials said"

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-ne...

The world is very curious about that convoy but neither Ukraine or Russia benefits from us knowing.

verdverm 4 years ago | |

There has been lots of clouds, so not satellite imagery for a while. Supposed to clear up later this week iirc.

They are likely setting up forward operating bases and a large scale attack will happen eventually.

PaulHoule 4 years ago | | |

I think you're right, their goal is to set up heavy weapons like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_rocket_launcher

to bombard Kyiv. Doing so is a challenge because the only thing equal to the rate that kind of weapon can launch damaging rockets is the rate at which it has to be resupplied. Thus to make that large scale attack they have to be in control of logistics.

There are now constellations of SAR satellites that should give a pretty good picture of that convoy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic-aperture_radar

Ukraine has asked for access to this data, I sure hope they are getting it. If they are it doesn't matter if there are clouds or not.

h2odragon 4 years ago |

Several days ago: https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/67331.html

I can't see any explanation for it other than "epic operational blunder," either.

verdverm 4 years ago | |

Changing strategy and setting up for the next phase is another explanation. Yes there were initial blunders, they have a lot of equipment too.

Best not to make assumptions in the fog of war.

flembat 4 years ago |

Werewolves is my theory on the convoy.

humblefactory 4 years ago |

"Surely there must be answers somewhere?" is just the sort of thing that somebody who values logical intelligences over other intelligences (i.e. HN readers) and who lives in a non-totalitarian state would say. It's possible that the only person who knows why things are is Putin. It's also possible that these events are purely emergent, and have no real logical explanation, and no real architect. Frustratingly, all things are not explainable.