Cheap Chinese Tires May Have Caused Russia's 'Stalled' Military Convoy in Ukraine

While the stalled Russian Convoy in Ukraine may be due to logistics and sustainment challenges along with resistance from the Ukrainians, there also may be another reason: Cheap Chinese tires!

Trent Telenko, a retired Pentagon staff specialist and military history blogger, suggests another reason why the Russian Convoy is stlled may be Russia's tires, as he explained in a long, illustrated Twitter thread based on photos of deserted Russian Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile systems and his own experience as a U.S. Army vehicle auditor.

"When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end," the sidewalls get brittle in the sun and fail like the tires on the Pantsir-SR, he wrote. "No one exercised that vehicle for one year."

Karl Muth, an economist, government adviser, and self-described "tire expert," jumped in, agreeing with Telenko but adding some details about the tires.

Bit of a tire expert here. Those aren't Soviet-era heavy truck radials. Chinese military tires, and I believe specifically the Yellow Sea YS20. This is a tire I first encountered in Somalia and Sudan; it's a bad Chinese copy of the excellent Michelin XZL military tire design. 🇫🇷

— Karl T. Muth 🌐✈️📊 (@KarlMuth) March 3, 2022

Read Telenko's whole thread on Twitter.

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