Wishful thinking has never worked very well, where Russia was involved.
It might be that the slow-rolled advance on Kyiv is meant to draw units away from the southern front Putin actually cares about.
It might be that the slow-rolled advance on Kyiv is meant to draw units away from the southern front Putin actually cares about.
The Russian’s also wouldn’t park themselves like that. They don’t have air dominance and from the numerous Ukrainian air strikes, it doesn’t seem like they have much idea of what’s above them at any given time. (They’re parked close together to stay under the umbrella of anti-aircraft weaponry.) The longer the convoy waits, the more time the Ukrainians have to prep to shell the convoy or hit it from the air.
This goes for other questions about the campaign. As a large conscript force still basically using the Soviet model, weak troops are often thrown into the fire early on to soften opposition. Likewise, reliance on artillery is a byproduct of the air force being stretched thin and not reinvesting in new equipment: air dominance and precision bombing missions are expensive, and Russia's military primarily focuses on maintaining its own sovereignty, thus most of the allocation is towards a defensive air war with support provided by ground-based rockets and shelling.
However, there are severe challenges still to be reckoned with, which support the idea of Russia remaining on the back foot. The reports of abandoned vehicles, disorganized troops and stretched supplies hold some credence; again, as a conscript army it's harder to pursue delegation of responsibility like a professional force. You are getting relatively less out of more troops simply due to lack of coordination. As well, Ukraine has a smaller force but has been spurred to rearm with the assistance of foreign aid and equipment since the 2014 invasion, getting access to some of the best technologies and training of NATO forces. So Ukraine has some significant battlefield advantages, and with the cutoffs to supply chains on Russia's end, from my viewpoint, while a Russian victory could still occur if they rout the forces in major cities, a slow, protracted conflict will definitely end in Russian defeat at significant cost to civilians. The next weeks will be critical.
They tried to take Hostomel and airports SE and SW of Kyiva and failed. They were going for fast strikes.
The failed to get the other airports (tried to land a cargo plane and it was destroyed) - thought they go to Hostomel it was only by landing literally 100 assault helicopters with 1000 soldiers.
That is literally 1/2 of their entire rotary fleet for a single, risky operation.
Since then, they've been mauled over and over around the airport and have actually made negative or neutral progress for 5 days.
So it remains to be seen if the balance of force can move in one direction or the other, I really wish the West would do more to make it more decisive.
In the meantime, the USA can pay $100-200K (i.e. per javelin/stinger/mlaw etc.) to have a large chunk of Russian Amour sent to the dustbin with not much risk, that's not such a bad deal at all.
It's costs nearly a million dollars to train, prepare and support a lowly US soldier. Then multiply that by the fact every fighter has 5 admins somewhere in the chain backing him up i.e. commanders, support, communications, intelligence etc..
Especially given that it is basically 'riskless' i.e. no US soldiers will die.
$4B to wipe out the Russian Army? Deal of the Century.
In the 'long game' of attrition warfare, the West would actually win, that is actually the State Dept. Assessment - that Russia 'wins' in Ukraine but is ground down over 15-20 years and eventually loses.
Meanwhile, the US and West have more advanced, much more wealthy economies, and can send relatively cheap weapons to help grind Russia down.
Frankly, if we could have a 'super weapon' it would be something that allows something resembling 'real' information into Russia so at very least regular Russians can see a bit of reality.
That is statement begging for a source. Do you have one? What is Russia's "known doctrine"?
"The Russian army does not have enough trucks to meet its logistic requirement more than 90 miles beyond supply dumps. To reach a 180-mile range, the Russian army would have to double truck allocation to 400 trucks for each of the material-technical support brigades."
Task and Purpose has been doing some videos on the war in Ukraine, and they use that article to evaluate Russia's progress against those supply limitations[2], and basically it all lines up that Russian progress has been constrained by supply, and that the current pause is likely because of the next actions they will take[3].
[1] https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-...
1) Objectives were a rapid decapitation strike, air supremacy, and major incursions on several fronts, grabbing several cities.
2) His own forces are getting drawn out and mauled. Ukranians are just not losing units at the same rate.
3) Either way, momentum matters and Russians don't have it.
That said, they do have a lot of fodder to throw at Ukraine.
It seems likely that Ukraine can defend themselves if they are very effectively supported by the West on many fronts, but otherwise the Bear will just slowly suffocate them even as it looses a lot of blood itself.
Every anyone with military experience sees that column they have to be salivating. Has there ever been a time in history when there has been several divisions of units just sitting there, out in the open, waiting to be attacked. My gosh.
There is a public source that lists all publicly available sourced vehicles destroyed (i.e. images via Twitter) and it's very lopsided, that said, we are aware the Russian may not be posting vids of of their wins.
Specifically, the Russians need and want propaganda badly, and what they are showing in their own propaganda is minimal.
It's the 'fog of war' surely, and it's possible Ukranian losses are worse than we think ... but not matter what the reality is, Ukranian 'wins' are unprecedented. We know for sure what the 'minimum' looks like and even that is bad for Russia.