We’ve been hearing for days now about a 40 mile long Russian convoy near Kyiv that appears to be stuck. Everyone is speculating about why it isn’t moving. It occurs to me that this is the season of what the Russians and Ukrainians call the Rasputitsa. Most of the roads in Russia and the Ukraine aren't paved. And the rich black soil of much of this area forms a thick, gooey mud when wet. During the spring thaw the roads become a sea of mud that makes large-scale movement of vehicles extremely difficult. It is very possible that that army column is literally stuck in the mud. But even if that is not the case, from a military point of view Putin picked a poor time to invade the Ukraine.
The Rasputitsa also occurs during late fall when heavy rains turn the roads into a sea of mud. The German army's advance to Moscow in 1941 was essentially halted for several weeks due to the autumn Rasputitsa and didn't resume until cold weather caused the roads to freeze - giving the Russians valuable time to shore up their defenses. The Rasputitsa was definitely a thing in WWII, and influenced the strategic planning of both the Germans and the Russians for the rest of the war.
Putin needed a quick victory in the Ukraine to present the world with a fait accompli over his conquest. A quick victory would also allow him to argue that "obviously" the Ukrainians welcomed the Russians as liberators. But military movements during the Rasputitsa season will be much slower than normal, hampering Putin’s hope for a quick campaign. He must have ignored the professional advice of his generals as to when he should launch his attack, or else the yes-men surrounding him were afraid to tell him. He should either have attacked earlier while the cold weather kept the roads hard or waited until the roads dried out, which would have delayed his invasion until sometime in April or May.
Putin is an ex-KGB agent. Among other things, the KGB does intelligence work for the military, so I assumed that Putin and the KGB had some military training. Apparently not. Perhaps the only thing the KGB teaches its people is how to be a thug.