Satellite images taken on Thursday appear to show that the large Russian military convoy that had been slowly advancing towards the Ukraine capital city of Kyiv has dispersed and redeployed into nearby locations.
The convoy, which stretches for as much as 40 miles, was last seen northwest of Kyiv near Antonov airport.
On March 7, U.S. Press Secretary John Kirby said the convoy remained stalled but noted that the Pentagon doesn’t have “perfect visibility” on the convoy.
Some of the vehicles have moved into forests, Maxar reported, adding that images also show parts of the convoy further north have repositioned near the town of Lubyanka with towed artillery in firing position.
Still, the immediate threat to Kyiv remains unclear.
“It’s a very, very long convoy. We don’t even know if it’s all, we can’t even say that, that it’s all one convoy and not several. But it does remain as our best assessment as it remains stalled,” Kirby said during a press conference last week.
Kirby said the Pentagon believes the convoy was heading to Kyiv to “resupply.”
“When you look at the images from the air, you can see a lot of it but they don’t look like armored vehicles so much as they look like resupply trucks. That’s not to say that there aren’t combat vehicles in there,” he said. “We don’t have perfect visibility on it. But the assessment is that it was largely meant to help resupply and it is still stalled. It’s still stuck.”
U.S. officials previously said the large Russian convoy had been targeted by Ukrainian troops with anti-tank missiles, adding that they likely slowed down its progress and even stopped it in some places.
Kirby said the Russian military likely did not anticipate such problems or the extent of Ukrainian resistance.
Meanwhile, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said that half of the city’s population has fled, and that the city has been “transformed into a fortress” while “every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified.”
In a video message posted to Telegram, Boichenko asked for the global community to “close the sky over Ukraine.”
“Today I am asking the global community for help. Close the sky over Ukraine. Our will has not been broken, we will fight to the end,” Boichenko said. “We have motivated soldiers and officers who defend our homeland. But today we need support.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a stark warning that he would view any country that declares a no-fly zone over Ukraine as a participant in the “armed conflict.”