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Much of that equipment is now gone, according to radar satellite imagery acquired on February 6. Cloud cover had prevented photographic imagery of the site for several days previously. The images show the tracks of departing vehicles.
Stephen Wood, senior director at satellite imagery company Maxar, told CNN: “It looks to me like a considerable amount of the vehicles [tanks, self-propelled artillery and other support vehicles] have departed from the northeastern vehicle park; additional armored vehicles departed from the more central vehicle park.”
Konrad Muzyka, an expert in tracking military movements with Rochan Consulting, says what has happened at Yelnya is one of several “important changes in Russian force compositions and their locations.”
He told CNN: “We are entering the new stage of the build-up where we are seeing pre-positioned units being manned with additional personnel and that equipment is being moved probably to staging areas.”
Social media videos shot in the last few days show some of that equipment on trains and roads much further south in the Bryansk region, which is close to Ukraine. The armor and vehicles are identifiably from the same units that had pre-positioned at Yelnya.
“There are now multiple indicators suggesting troops have begun deploying to forward camps to join up with their prepositioned equipment,” writes Thomas Bullock, an analyst at Janes. “Video posted on social media indicates some troops from Siberia, whose equipment has already been moved to sites in Smolensk and Bryansk, are in the process of deploying.”
A US intelligence document dated December 3, 2021 included satellite imagery showing that the site at Yelnya was empty in June — but by November was home to five Battalion…
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Source : cnn
