> The 19th-Century Technology Driving Russia's Latest Gains in Ukraine:
> Railroads

So if it's not General Moroz, then it must be something else of the sort.

Let's invent a suitable rationalization.

> Russians load cargo manually into railway vehicles

???

> The U.S.S.R. used train
> tracks with a wider gauge than Western Europe, in part to thwart invasion.

BS

The Russia's railway track gauge was defined in the mid-19th century.

> Despite being the world's largest country by land area, Russia has only
> 963,000 miles of highway, according to 2020 figures from Russia's state
> statistics agency. That leaves some smaller cities without access to large
> delivery trucks. The U.S., with less than 60% the area of Russia, has 4.2
> million miles of highway, according to government data.

About 2/3 of the Russia's land area is a permafrost zone. And a large part
of the Russia's habitable area belongs to continental "sharp" climate zone.
When temperature reaches up to +35C in summer and down to -45C in winter,
it's not good for the road surface, it requires enchanted technologies for
road construction and increases costs of construction and maintenance.

Such features make railway transportation more important in the case of
Russia versus other countries, including the US. And, for example, Canada
has about 1.7 times more railways per capita vs. the US. It's so because
maintenance of vehicle roads in the north is more costly (while climate in
the Canada's habitable area is still much less sharp versus Russia).

I don't know for sure - am not competent to judge - how many manpower is
required to maintain the whole infrastructure of railway transportation vs.
trucks transportation, but I suspect the result may be not that clear.

The American obsession with "large delivery trucks" is somewhat similar
to their obsession with racism, the both are their domestically specific,
and the Americans importunately lust to extrapolate /spread /impose their
domestic unwholesome fetishes and fixations onto the rest of the world,
where all this stuff may be not so relevant and not so interesting.

> Russia's lack of civilian trucks is mirrored in its military, which has long

Instead of babbling much labored nonsenses about Russia, Americans need
to pay more attention to their own crumbling bridges and other dilapidated
infrastructure. Also, the bet on the "large delivery trucks" greatly
contributes to the accelerating inflation in the US. Higher fuel price and
shortage of truck drivers (very unhealthy job) worsens everything.