‘They Are Stuck Right Now’: Fox News Reporter Relays State of ‘Dilapidated’ Russian Army Outside Kyiv
Fox News State Department Correspondent Benjamin Hall delivered a report from Kyiv on Jesse Watters Primetime Thursday night as Russian forces inch closer to Ukraine’s capital city.
Earlier in the day, CNN aired drone footage of tank convoy being ambushed by Ukrainian forces as the made their way toward Kyiv.
Despite a general consensus that Ukraine would be utterly overwhelmed when President Vladimir Putin commenced a full-scale invasion of the country two weeks ago, that has not panned out. Russian forces have been bogged down in parts of the country and have taken heavy losses.
Hall began his report to Jesse Watters and the audience this way:
On the one hand, the big surprise for everyone – except perhaps the Ukrainians – is just how poor the Russian advance has been. And that’s put down to a number of factors. First of all, people are surprised at just how dilapidated the Russian army has been. Lots of people before this conflict had talked about how they spent the last decade putting billions into their armed forces, training them up. They had the latest kit. That turns out to be false. A lot of their tanks are rusty. They’re breaking down. They don’t have the right treads, the tires are popping.
Secondly the conscripts, the people fighting for them at the front tend to be 18-year-olds who didn’t expect to come into Ukraine. Their morale is low. They’re being hit left and right by these Javelin missiles and none of them are fighting terribly effectively.
Hall also discussed the tactics of the Russian forces. One Ukrainian soldier noted that the Russian tanks were simply driving directly toward the city, making it relatively easy to “pick them off.”
The reporter added that there seems to be a lack of Russian reconnaissance teams scoping the area ahead of the advance.
“So what we’re seeing now is a stalemate,” he continued. “It’s remarkable that 14 days in, the Russians have not been able to take over the southern entry to this city. And still they remain unable to do so. They have moved forward a couple of miles in the last 24 hours, but they are stuck right now.”
Watch above via Fox News.
