Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta believes the Russian military’s “weaknesses” have been on display since its invasion of Ukraine nearly two weeks ago.
Panetta, 83, who helmed the Pentagon from 2011 to 2013 under the Obama administration, cited the troops’ apparent lack of training, leadership, and planning at a forum on foreign policy Monday with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“As this thing’s unfolded, I think I have to tell you that for all of the things we did at the Defense Department looking at Russian capabilities, this thing has really made clear the weaknesses of the Russian military,” Panetta said. “Whether it’s poor training, whether it’s poor leadership, whether it’s poor planning, I don’t know all of the ingredients.”
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Panetta, a onetime congressman who served at the head of the CIA prior to running DOD, pointed to the Russians’ inability to capture the capital city, Kyiv, as an indicator of the troops’ “weaknesses.”
“The fact was they were planning within a few days to take the capital to have the government collapse, and that they would be rulers of Ukraine,” he said. “That was the way it was supposed to play out, and that hasn’t played out in large measure to the bravery and courage of Ukraine and what they’ve done. But it tells us a lot about the weaknesses that we’ve seen.”
The Pentagon said Monday that Russia had moved all of the estimated 190,000 troops that had been deployed to the Ukrainian border into Ukraine. Russia has not moved more troops to the border yet, a senior defense official told reporters on Monday.
“The Russians continue to get frustrated and slow down, and they really haven’t made any noteworthy progress in the last few days,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. “They are having morale problems. They are having supply problems. They are having fuel problems. They’re having food problems. They are meeting a very stiff and determined Ukrainian resistance.”
Part of Russia’s forces descending upon Kyiv are in a convoy on a 40-mile stretch of highway 15 miles north of the city, though the Pentagon believes this group is “largely meant to help resupply, and it is still stalled. It is still stuck,” Kirby explained. “We don’t assess over the course of the weekend that it has made any progress.”
The Russian military has launched roughly 625 missiles since the start of the invasion nearly two weeks ago.
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The Pentagon has observed “increases” in long-range missile attacks, including “bombardment, rocket attacks, artillery, as well as missile strikes.” The official added, “We do assess that the strikes are hitting civilian targets, civilian infrastructure, residential areas,” though he declined to say whether they believed the incidents were intentional.
The war has already displaced 1.7 million people, while 406 civilians have been killed and another 801 injured, according to updated statistics from the United Nations released on Monday.
