this dead-end nature of the russian military strategy in mariupol. we talked already but when you have 1,000 civilians hiding in a basement and ukrainian forces refusing to capitulate to the russians, how sustainable is that as a standoff? won t have to assume it is not sustainable in the longer run but part of what happened now is the civilian population watched the atrocities at the battalion level. there s an incentive to fight to the death or run. can t get out. they will stay in there and fight knowing the alternative will leave to executions. the big challenge right now isn t in mariupol. it is can the u.s. and our 15 participating allies, the coalition of the willing, get across the border the modern
indiscipline at the battalion level. murder with impunity, leaving dead civilians in the street, rape, abuse of civilians. it s simply astonishing. these are the people they were supposedly going to reintegrate into mother russia. they ve been abandoning operational tanks and bmps. they ve left their own dead behind callously. this is an indication of their leadership structure. so they re pulling a third of their military out of ukraine now and trying to restructure them to come back in from the east and the south as clint knows. i think they ll have a real problem rehabilitating these units. they re fundamentally partially a broken military installation. general, i believe you said on our show early on that the best day of the war, best fighting is the first day of the war. then obviously things change
but we are seeing in america poll, it is an example of what will soon happen in kyiv. it s turning off the food, bombarding the population. that phase of the war is going to be brutal. but the russians may well be having more al problems, besides competence. they don t look very good at the battalion level, either. the ukrainians are fighting back. a rough go, indeed. images on the right side of your screen. jeremy, how concerned are you, now that russia has control of this nuclear plant? it s the biggest in europe. they can just shut it down, and put the entire region in the dark. yes, actually linda s for the russian federation stephanie. first, i can turn the lights out, as you mentioned when and they kept the debilitate large regions of ukraine. and you saw was a really rain
artillery, thousands of troops according to the analysis we re seeing from the pentagon. cert anly the thing that jumps out at you now, i ve commanded large formations of armor and vehicles. this is the most bizarre and confident looking invasion in the history of war fare. this looks like a parking lot. it s simply astonishing. it indicates bad planning at the operational level. and even when we re watching at the battalion level, they look tactically intaump can t. day frooiv of the invasion and they ve made no serious intervention in kyiv, the capitol. ukrainians are still fighting capably. too bad they currently don t have any significant air power, ground attack drone capability left. but i wouldn t think that putin has paused this convoy. i think they re just balled up
well, you know, i ve been studying the russians since i was 17, and i was an armored commander in the gulf war. i am astonished at the incompetence and the lack of planning of the general staff in putting a huge field force, a couple hundred thousand troops into ukraine. they don t appear to have thought through the implication. not just the economic sanctions, the world rallying around to condemn them, the astonishing diplomatic failure. but on the battlefield, at the battalion level, the ukrainians are fighting effectively with no mobile forces, and have stalled the russian invasion force. they ve blown some bridges, used some mines. but basically it s small ukrainian units and they re doing very well holding up this invading forces.