Russia is expected to launch a new Ukraine offensive, but it faces a familiar obstacle: Mud

Ukraine and many Western analysts believe Russia is on the precipice of launching a new, large-scale offensive but it’s likely to encounter a familiar obstacle: mud.

Frozen ground conditions in Ukraine are expected to give way to a thaw in the coming weeks, turning the war-torn nation’s fields and rural roads into a quagmire for troops and tanks.

Ukraine’s muddy season is so infamous that it has a name, “rasputitsa” — referring to the season that comes in late fall and early spring — and it has surprised various armies over the centuries, from Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia in 1812, which was famously slowed by the mud in Ukraine, to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi forces floundering in muddy conditions as they invaded the then-Soviet Union in 1941.