Kościuszko immediately shook his head. "The Russians' offensive momentum is fierce. We need to deploy defenses along the border as soon as possible."
Saint-Cyr also glanced toward the Dnieper River. "If I'm not mistaken, Kutuzov will need at least a month to prepare on the Left Bank before launching an offensive. Before then, there will be no more than some small-scale harassment."
Kościuszko was about to argue, but then remembered Saint-Cyr's masterful command during the counterattack against the Bagrationi Legion. He immediately asked humbly, "Could you tell me your reasoning?"
"Logistics," Saint-Cyr said. "The Russians themselves emptied every village and town for hundreds of kilometers west of Dorogobuzh, while we helped them 'clear out' vast stretches from the Seversky Principality to Lubny.
"In other words, only a handful of cities such as Kursk and Bryansk can currently supply Kutuzov nearby, and that simply cannot meet the needs of his hundred-odd thousand troops.
"If he wants to launch a large-scale offensive, he must first transport supplies from Moscow, seven hundred kilometers away, or from Novgorod, Pskov, and other places in the north.
"With such a massive volume of transport, it would take a month even in summer, let alone winter."
In fact, he had guessed one thing wrong: Kutuzov's main force was already far short of a hundred thousand men.
In order to pursue Kościuszko, the Russian Army had raced more than four hundred kilometers across the uninhabited wilderness through bitter cold. Their logistical conditions were not much better than those of the Polish Army, while their medical conditions were far worse.
As a result, the number of soldiers who froze or sickened to death even exceeded that of the Polish Army. At present, Kutuzov had fewer than eighty thousand troops still capable of fighting, including the nine thousand men Gudovich