The “raspútitsa”, Putin’s meteorological enemy in Ukraine

The weather may play a decisive role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the expected arrival of the “raspútitsa”, a seasonal phenomenon that turns the mainland into a muddy area unfavorable to the advance of military vehicles.

This Russian word meaning “time of bad roads” is a well-known reality in the Ukraine, in Russia and in Belarus, where rising temperatures and melting snow in spring and heavy rains in autumn translate twice a year in several weeks of mud.

Even before the start of the raspútitsa, images of Russian tanks and military vehicles muddy in Ukraine are already circulating on social networks.

“There have already been many situations where Russian tanks and other vehicles passed through fields and got stuck. The soldiers were forced to abandon them and continue on foot,” says Ukrainian military analyst Mikola Beleskov. “This problem exists and it’s going to get worse,” he adds.

This phenomenon occurs in the famous “black lands” of Ukraine, a type of soil known as “chernozem”, to which this country and the neighboring Russian regions between the Don and Volga rivers owe their agricultural wealth.

Napoleon’s troops had already suffered that ordeal that delayed their withdrawal from Russia at the end of 1812 and left them exposed to the rigors of winter.

Putin with time against

More than a century later, on the eastern front of World War II, “major mechanized operations were almost completely paralyzed during heavy autumn rains or spring thaws because of the notorious raspútitsa, the mud from the Russian plains. , and they resumed in winter when the ground had hardened,” historian Laurent Henninger explained in the French magazine Défense Nationale in 2015.

“It was with the arrival of the winter of 1941 that Hitler was able to launch his great offensive, unsuccessful, destined to take Moscow,” he noted in an article on the impact of the climatic factor on wars.

In the opposite direction, the raspútitsa stopped the Soviet counteroffensive in 1943.

“Historical Reminders: The thaw causes a mud season (raspútitsa) that lasts three to four weeks, rising from the south (Crimea) north to Belarus in a few days. In 1942 it began on March 21. In 1943, on March 18. In 1944, on March 17,” military historian Cédric Mas said on Twitter.

“The weather is not in favor of Putin,” he estimated on Sunday, stressing that, in addition to the sanctions and diplomatic isolation of Russia, “the weather is going to deteriorate soon with the raspútitsa.”

“Early spring is a bad time to conquer Ukraine,” wrote national security strategy professor Spencer Meredith in an article published a few days after the start of the invasion for the Modern War Institute of the prestigious US military academy West Point. .

“Nailed to the ground”

“Normally, by mid-February, roads are covered in sheets of packed ice and snow, which melt to leave a ‘minefield’ of potholes,” he noted.

This year, according to the latest forecasts, the phenomenon should begin to manifest itself from mid-March.

For Russian troops, “the situation is going to get worse as the weather warms up and the rains start,” says Mikola Beleskov. “They will be found nailed to the ground,” he continues.

The raspútitsa, which “muddies the soil”, “channels the operations through the asphalt of the roads and streets”, indicated last week the military historian Michel Goya in the magazine Le Grand Continent.

This forces the invading forces to advance in convoys on the road axes, which are more exposed to logistical problems and attacks.

The climatic factor is one of Ukraine’s main advantages over Russian military superiority, agrees Jason Lyall, a specialist in political violence in civil and conventional wars at Dartmouth University in the United States.

The Javelin anti-tank missile launchers, the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, the information campaign on the TikTok social network and the raspútitsa are “the four knights of the Ukrainian army”, Lyall summarized on Twitter.