It's shocking how much delusion around the world there was about Poland being able to defend itself against Hitler's invasion. Are we similarly deluding ourselves about Ukraine?
This map shows how far the Germans got in two weeks, and it's much more than what the Russians have done so far in Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poland2.jpg
The commonly cited number for how fast a traditional army can march is 20 miles per day, unopposed. The BTR-80 is rated for 50 miles per hour. Obviously APCs have to deal with refueling and maintenance and the like, but surely a modern mechanized army shouldn't moving slower than a comparable unmechanized one from 80 years ago.
The sort-of map view of a war is too flawed. It was more relevant in a time when the majority of a country's economy was located in the countryside - where people physically grew food, produced goods on a small scale etc. - and it lends itself nicely to video games (which, let's face it, are most people's only experience of grand strategy and warfare). It's just not how warfare works, and the victory condition for the Russian army is maybe a month and a half away at current pace, by my estimation.
The information in the map that you linked is meaningful for sure, but it neglects the details that actually determine any side's performance in the war - you cannot extract the war's velocity from it.
This seems to describe Ukraine after Russia destroyed the city center…
It's why I don't understand how it's happened. Wars like this - between modern countries - just should not exist as a matter of common sense (e.g. Mutual destruction theory).
edit: I know there's a higher estimated Russian count but it's not infantry.
But yes, the current situation is actually very different to WW2 with even the few similarities being at most superficial. But every war is compared to WW2 since it's a nice way to push for escalation under the pretext of stopping the next hitler. Yet WW1 is almost always a more appropriate example, but a pretty inconvenient one since it does not fit into war mongering narratives. Because I'm just not sure that saving serbia back in 1914 was really worth the lives of 10 million people in hindsight.
It was 168 days from invasion to "First post-Saddam government" in 2003.
For starters, Russia lost ~10% of its forces so far - but so did Ukraine (side note: if seriously believe the figures that Ukrainian Ministry of Defense publishes for Russian casualties, I have a bridge to sell you). The difference is that Ukraine is already fully engaged - it's not like had a choice! - while Russia has used only a part of its forces for the invasion. Now it's true that the forces that spearheaded the invasion were supposed to be the best trained and equipped ones, and other units that they'd have to bring would have more conscripts and be otherwise less effective. But a conscript is still better than no soldier at all!
Then there's the "missing" Russian Air Force. And it's not just strategic bombing, but also ground support. The notion that they're incapable of any of this is just plain ridiculous, given what we've seen before in Syria. Now, Ukrainians do have much better AA than Syrian rebels, so Russian losses in the air would be high - but if they go all-in, it won't matter.
So, the people who are dying defending Ukraine right now are basically buying time for the West to get over its fears and hesitations and truly help them. But, ironically, the ferocity of the defense led to the popular misconception that Ukraine can basically do it through grit alone. So I hope they do get help before it's too late, but I'm also pessimistic about it.
I wouldn't count on that; a big part of the political calculus in the response is managing risk while assuring NATO’s Eastern flank countries of NATO’s (and particularly, the major North American and Western European powers) commitment to their security needs.
3 of those Eastern Flank countries have called for military intervention by NATO already (Estonia and Lithuania for enforcing a No Fly Zone, Poland for a peacekeeping force on the ground.)
The real problem is that once nuclear threats work, it's unclear why Russia should stop using them. For example, they now have a major security problem with Kaliningrad being an exclave - it's completely surrounded by unfriendly countries, and now even air cannot be reliably used to supply it; only shipping via the Baltic, which is itself a route that's easy to threaten.
So suppose they demand that Lithuania gives them a land corridor from Belarus to Kaliningrad, or else? Lithuania is a NATO member, and would, of course, invoke Article 5 - but would Americans be willing to risk their own skin in a nuclear war for the sake of Lithuania anymore so than they did for the sake of Ukraine, regardless of NATO membership?
OTOH it's also unclear why Russia should respond with nukes to a conventional intervention in Ukraine. Worst case, they lose Ukraine; is that worth a nuclear war in which they lose Russia itself?
Mind you, this is assuming that Putin is rational, which is itself questionable. But if he's truly insane, then only he knows if and when he's going to press that button, and all these attempts to guess what not to do to prevent him from doing so are very likely to be futile in the long run.