President Donald Trump claimed Monday that he knew why Russian troops weren’t able to enter Kyiv in the days after they invaded Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s tanks, Trump said, got destroyed by missiles “because the tanks got stuck in the mud.”
“You know, they would’ve been in Kyiv in four hours going down the highway. But a Russian general made a brilliant decision to go through the farmland instead,” he said, sarcastically criticizing the supposed general.
This is fake history, as military analysts and various Ukrainians have pointed out since the president began making similar claims months ago. In reality, Russia tried and failed to make it to Kyiv using roads and highways. Its tanks were thwarted by fierce Ukrainian resistance and logistical problems in addition to muddy conditions.
“Russian forces used roads and highways as much as possible during the initial invasion, and took heavy losses on many of them. Russian tanks did get stuck in the mud during the initial invasion, but this was often after they struggled to advance along roads,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program who has closely followed military tactics during the war. “One of the factors that hindered Russia’s invasion is that there were not many good highways and roads leading from Belarus to Kyiv, which canalized their forces.”
When CNN asked the White House for comment, an official responding on condition of anonymity noted Thursday that Russian tanks did get stuck in mud during and even before the invasion. The official provided links to some articles that mentioned this happening.
