President Trump has repeatedly promised to end the Russia–Ukraine war within 24 hours, though peace talks have made little substantive progress so far. Just as often, he returns to a story about the early days of the full-scale invasion — tweaking a minor detail each time — describing Russian tanks that were advancing on Kyiv but got stuck in the mud.
During a conversation with reporters at the White House on October 20, Trump repeated the story again, this time focusing on one Russian general.
A stupid general for Russia, a very stupid gentleman. They had a thousand tanks riding up a concrete highway. They would have been in Ukraine in four hours, going maximum tank speed, which is 48 miles an hour, to be exact. Nothing to stop them. The war would have been over in one day. And this very stupid general — I have no idea who he is. I doubt he’s still with us. I doubt he’s still living. He decided to hang a right onto the farmland and then take a left and go up to Kyiv, rather than staying on the highway — the concrete highway, perfectly good highway — where they were doing very nicely. It would have been three and a half, four hours, and the whole war would have ended. He ended up getting stuck in the mud.
BBC Russia fact-checked Trump’s claim. According to the outlet, Colonel General Alexander Chayko led Russia’s advance on Kyiv from Belarus in February 2022, and the offensive’s failure had nothing to do with any decision by him to turn off the road.
Ukrainian forces stopped the advance on Kyiv. On February 26, 2022, Ukraine’s military blew up a bridge over the Irpin River on the outskirts of the capital, then destroyed the Kozarovychi dam when Russian forces tried to go around the obstruction. Ukrainian forces also destroyed a column of Russian armored vehicles in Bucha. As the Russian army’s losses mounted, its command brought in reinforcements from Belarus.
After the failed advance, Russian military command removed Chayko as commander and sent him to lead the Russian contingent in Syria. He stayed there until June 2025, a tenure that spanned the coup that forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee to Moscow.
None of this hurt the general’s career, BBC Russia said. He returned to Moscow, became deputy chief of the General Staff, and was later promoted to commander of Russia’s Aerospace Forces.
In August 2026, General Chayko did indeed nearly die: an explosion occurred near the Balzi Rossi restaurant in Moscow, where he was celebrating his 55th birthday and his promotion to the new post. Five people were killed, including Chayko’s son-in-law, and 19 others were injured. Chayko himself was unharmed.
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