Media suggests that the ‘very stupid general’ Trump refers to is Chayko, commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces
Trump’s Five Quotes on a Russian Military Blunder
President Trump has frequently recounted a tale involving a “very stupid general” and tanks stuck in mud, preventing them from reaching Kyiv. These narratives about the Russian military’s failure during the assault on Kyiv diminish the perception of Ukraine’s resistance against the Russian invasion. According to Trump, this unnamed general, possibly deceased, was responsible for leading troops the wrong way, causing delays attributed to heavy rains that turned the ground into mud.
In May 2025, during attempts to organize trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia in Turkey, Trump remarked in a Fox News interview that Putin appeared “tired of it all and not looking too good, though he wants to look good.” He stated: “Remember, all of this was supposed to end in a week. If he hadn’t been stuck in the mud with his tanks everywhere, they would have been in Kyiv in about five hours. And who provided the Javelins? You remember who provided the Javelins?”
Months later, Trump recalled this story, shortening the timeline for Russian forces to reach Kyiv to four hours. “Thanks to me, those [Russian] tanks were destroyed in the early days of the war because they got stuck in the mud. They could have reached Kyiv in four hours on the highway, but the Russian general made the ‘brilliant’ decision to go through farmland. It rained, and the tanks got stuck in the mud,” he stated during a press conference last year.
On June 19, 2026, in an Axios interview, Trump again referenced the general, expressing uncertainty about his identity but suggesting he might not be alive. “I don’t know if you’ve heard this story, but when it all started, Putin had hundreds of tanks heading down a highway. The highway was good, solid concrete, and they could have reached Kyiv in about three hours at 80 kilometers per hour. Instead, some general, who is probably no longer with us, decided to go through fields and mud. Days before, there was record rain, and those tanks got stuck in the mud,” Trump recounted.
He revisited this topic again in October, discussing the “very stupid general” once more on October 20.
In a briefing, Trump described how tanks moving along a solid highway could have reached Ukraine in four hours, suggesting the war would have ended in one day if not for the general’s poor decision-making.
Weather forecasts published by Ukrainian media indicated no heavy rain was expected in Kyiv on February 22 or 23, the day full-scale war began, contradicting Trump’s rain narrative. Archived weather data shows little to no precipitation in Kyiv around that time.
Furthermore, videos recorded by Ukrainian military personnel at the onset of the war disprove the story of rain and farmland routes.
Rethinking the Mud Allegation
According to VBC News Ukraine, during the early days of the Russian invasion, armored columns advanced rapidly toward Kyiv via the P-02 highway, connecting the capital to Chernobyl near the Belarus border. However, this advance was halted not by rain or a general’s decision but when Ukrainian forces blew up a bridge over the Irpin River on February 26, blocking Russian access.
When the Russian army faced this obstacle and attempted to circumvent it, Ukrainian forces also destroyed the Kozarovitska dam, which protected the Irpin floodplain from flooding, as reported by journalists. The New York Times previously covered how bridges east of Kyiv were destroyed, trapping Russian tanks in a bog.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also disputed Trump’s version, stating on October 16 that Russian forces had indeed reached Kyiv and occupied towns along the way, but were met with resistance, prompting them to bypass certain populated areas. He emphasized that the narrative of tanks getting lost was not accurate.
Why Does Trump Downplay Ukrainian Valor?
Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, suggested that Trump diminishes the bravery of Ukrainians and struggles to acknowledge that Ukrainian defensive forces defeated the Russians at Kyiv.
Identifying the ‘Very Stupid General’
Reports indicate that the “very stupid general” Trump is referring to is likely General Alexander Chayko, current commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Planning for the entire campaign against Ukraine was handled by Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and his deputy, General Sergei Rudskoy, while Chayko commanded the troops assaulting Kyiv from the Belarus border in February 2022.
Chayko is still alive, having narrowly escaped death earlier this year during a bomb explosion at a restaurant in Moscow. Despite the setbacks, his career has not significantly suffered; he was reassigned to command Russian forces in Syria after the Ukrainian retreats and later appointed Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces in June.
The European Union has imposed sanctions against Chayko, and he has been declared a war criminal by Ukraine for executing orders that contributed to the war crimes committed by Russian troops near Kyiv.
