US President Donald Trump said that the war in Ukraine could have ended on the first day of the Russian invasion if Russian troops had not left the main highway to Kiev.
In an interview with Axios, Trump indicated that Russian forces made a serious tactical mistake at the beginning of the conflict in February 2022.
"There is a concrete highway straight to Kiev. If they had continued on that road, they would have reached the city in a few hours," the US president said.
According to him, a Russian general ordered the tank columns to leave the road and enter the surrounding fields, despite adverse weather conditions.
Trump claims that the heavy equipment got bogged down in the mud after heavy rainfall, which allowed Ukrainian forces to inflict serious losses with Javelin anti-tank missiles.
"If this general had just continued on the concrete highway, they would have been in Kiev within four hours and Ukraine would not have been able to do anything about it. This war would have been over in a day," Trump also said.
His statement sparked discussions among military experts. Many analysts note that the failure of the Russian offensive against Kiev was due not only to logistical problems and difficult terrain, but also to fierce Ukrainian resistance, the defense of Gostomel airport, the destruction of key bridges, and a number of errors in Russian operational planning.
After more than a month of fighting, Russian troops withdrew from the northern regions of Ukraine in late March 2022, and the battle for Kiev became one of the key moments in the war.
The Russian army initially tried to reach the Ukrainian capital from the territory of Belarus, with the offensive focused on several main directions. However, Moscow's expectations of a quick capture of Kiev were not justified, and the operation ended with the retreat of Russian forces from the area after negotiations in Istanbul.