Russian Troops Are Struggling To Reach The Front Line
Ukrainian drones are targeting their vans
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
Ukraine’s middle-range zones are striking harder and more frequently, degrading Russia’s front-line logistics at the very moment Russian field armies should be launching their traditional spring offensive.
Russian regiments need buhanka vans to move troops and supplies from rear bases to staging points near the front. Blowing up more of the vans with increasingly far-flying, accurate and autonomous drones, the Ukrainians are starving Russian regiments of supplies and manpower before the regiments even get a chance to engage Ukrainian defenders along the gray zone—and Russia’s spring 2026 offensive is the first one in this war to stall before it started.
For the Russians, “just reaching the front line (which is the prerequisite for an assault) has become very risky,” French mapper and analyst Clément Molin noted.
The drumbeat of buhanka hits seems to be quickening.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
Perhaps Prigozhin just marched on Moscow too soon. This year a similar insurrection might work, although I don’t know if any Russian generals have the charisma and trust of their troops to pull it off. But it might be better than getting starved and killed by drones before you see any soldiers to fight.