How deep does the rot in the Russian army go?
economist.com
economist.com
https://twitter.com/DecodingTrolls/status/151315347814676480...
I've been trying to follow the battlefield progress of the war, and there are very few articles out there by analysts who are expert on military operations and the specifics of Russian and Ukrainian goals/capabilities. The current article has a few good quotes but also offers some cringeworthy judgments.
Every day, there are stories about how worthless the Russian military are, how hopeless their war is, how they're losing and Putin's in trouble, desperate, and idiotic.
And maybe that's all true, I dunno. It's actually pretty hard to tell how the war is actually going for any side, given all the propaganda.
But, Russia seems to be doing a lot of damage and holding at least some territory despite basically the entire world (except for Russia's apparent allies in this new Non-Western Axis, mostly China and Iran) providing historic amounts of military might. Sure, no troops (yet), but lots and lots of firepower.
I mean, maybe Putin is a dummy and maybe the Russian military is rotting from the inside, but they've been at this for two months and so far nobody's been able to make them stop. Even though every single day I read a story about how Russia is just about to lose.
Propaganda is powerful, but it's not healthy to believe your own side's propaganda any more than it is to believe the enemy's.
Consider the change in the amount and type of arms sent in support to Ukraine over the course of the war. I think that reflects a change in the true assessments of the possible outcome of the war.
If someone helped Iraq to the same degree, I'm sure US army would have had more trouble in conquering Iraq.
And probably this will be the case for the next US war: Russia, China, Iran might help the enemies of the US.
From my understanding, it's been only light weapons so far. Enough to make the Russian advance hard, but not enough to kick them out. It's about to change, though, as the allies have finally agreed to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons (and are now even talking of a lend-lease program).
Still. Russia has been faring so much worse than any observer would've guessed that some people started to rely on a mix of wild speculations and conspiracy theories to bridge the yawning chasm this has left in their world view. It is clear that many observers overestimated the Russian capabilities by a few magnitudes (or others might argue: they underestimated the Ukrainians).
Ehh...not everyone. In 2020 there was a little-commented-on war[1], at least in the mainstream press, that saw the first widespread use of drone technology in a peer conflict. Lots of folks who pay attention to this stuff suspected that, at some point, we'd see something similar in a larger war with how new technology affected tactical outcomes. Plus, Russian doctrine appears to have stayed largely static since the days of Soviet Union (massed tank columns, massed artillery, infantry moves in later to pick off what's left). That particular doctrine seems (imo) to be uniquely weak against a modern battlefield that's packed with sensors. Everyone knows, generally speaking, where everything is now so things are telegraphed ahead of time pretty easily. So I guess what I'm saying is this isn't really that surprising.
That's not a contradiction, in case you were trying to make that claim. A terrorist group still doesn't have to be militarily efficient.
then, having invaded a minor military power in a surprise attack , they had been rolled back almost to their starting point while losing 10% of their TOTAL combat troops and large percentage of their effective armor , their black fleet flagship and 8 generals, and all that before their adversary even had the time to call up reserves
so having achieved nothing,and committed heinous war crimes in the process,they are back to trying to keep DNR/LNR
i would say thats quite a significant rot thats like if US was beaten by Iraqi army during Desert Storm
They suffered big losses in the war with the Axis, but they still won.
They beat French Empire. They beat the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Empire.
they rolled up the Ottomans when they were already the Sick Man of Europe they rolled up Habsburgs after the empire was bled in Izonzo and elsewhere they rolled up Bukhara and Samarkand when those were rotten, same as Caucasus
They had many very close calls and their demographics + distances saved them
But they no longer have favorable demographics and distances are much much shorter nowdays
Isn't it 11 generals now? After the command center strike that apparently killed two instantly and injured a third one sufficiently for him to later die in a hospital.
Russia is sustaining high losses, but they can afford many more losses than Ukraine can, without necessarily losing as a result: they can keep sending in more men, more tanks, more planes, more helicopters, and more missiles. Western countries are sending in small arms, but those need to be delivered precisely to where the Russians are by troops who know how to use them effectively.
Most of us would hate for Ukraine to lose, and Russia seems to be doing poorly, but it has frequently been a mistake to expect Russia to fail in the end just because they start out badly.
It's hard to tell what Russia's goals really are because on one hand they say "we just want the Russians in Donetsk and Luhansk to be free", and on the other hand Putin is also openly saying Ukraine isn't really an independent country. Besides, Kyiv isn't in Donetsk or Luhansk is it? Maybe Putin's map is wrong.
Even if they managed to complete their military goals this week by defeating the Ukrainian armed forces and toppling the Ukrainian government they will either have to retreat and leave Ukraine independent with extremely hostile views towards Russia (and will probably try to join NATO/EU), or they will have to occupy an extremely hostile population who feel their country is invaded by a hostile malevolent power.
It seems to me that Russia already lost, no matter what happens militarily; they dug themselves into a pit that will be very hard to climb out of. The biggest question is how much (more) Ukraine will lose in all of this.
They stated what their goals are: stop Ucraine from joining NATO and obtaining the independence for Donbass region.
The easy thing for Russia is to conquer Donbass - where the population is very pro-russian and won't feel as being invaded by a malevolent country. They will probably try to conquer all Black Sea coast to cut Ukraine's access to the sea. And they will try to maintain a frozen conflict in Ukraine, so it won't join NATO. We even might see other invasions in Ukraine after the current one ends.
But at what price? And getting it is one thing; keeping it quite another. Remember both Napoleon and Hitler "got" large parts of Russia, but it also proved to be a huge factor in their eventual downfall.
> They stated what their goals are: stop Ucraine from joining NATO and obtaining the independence for Donbass region.
Yes, that's what Putin said. He also attacked regions far from the Donbas region and said that Ukraine is not a real country, the implication being of course that it's really just a part of Russia. So colour me skeptical.
2: Russia already holds Crimea.
3: Russia has announced intention to take over the whole Black Sea coast west to Moldova.
4: A clear majority even in easternmost Donbas want Russia out.
They've stated a whole lot of things changing focus among them over time, not just those two (denazification of Ukraine, demilitarization of Ukraine, a state union between Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, restoration of historical Russia and reversals of territory alienated from Russia by Soviet leaders and the dissolution of the Soviet Union which was itself an embodiment, though misled, of Russia, etc., all have come from either government or state media sources.)
It's all there - from reunification of the smaller republics, to a campaign in Ukraine, to a breakout into the rest of Europe. And lately Dugin has been suggesting that Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin countries should be armed against the US.
Ukraine was supposed to be a relatively small step in the masterplan. The "de-Nazification" pretext is ridiculous nonsense, and so is "reunification". The real goal was - and still is - annexation of the resource-rich south.
Unfortunately, like most imperial politics, this plan is distilled wish fulfilment and pure fantasy. Russia doesn't have the people, the talent, or the resources to win an extended war.
The Ukrainians know this, which is why their strategy is attrition. Sooner or later - possibly sooner - the economic and political cost will become unbearable.
The problem is that imperialism is a form of collective narcissism, and it's incredibly difficult for leaders and followers to admit impotence and failure.
So IMO there's a fair chance that Putin will reach for the nuclear option when the army is clearly failing. He seems very ill anyway, he doesn't care about his country or any of its people, and it's unlikely he has many fucks left to give.
I hope there are some serious behind-the-scenes attempts being made to remove him, because I suspect that's the only way this is going to end without an impossibly horrific death toll.
These are not mutually exclusive terms.
Russia's "victories" are extremely small and came at a great cost. They cannot win the war by having these type of battles with these losses. It is just not sustainable. Whatever metric you use.
Their plan was to topple the government and expectation was that most Ukrainian army will surrender due to fear of mighty Russian army. Once that failed they have entered into a conflict they cannot win conventionally and that will cause them massive damage for little to no gains. Whole operation in the north of the country is exactly the model how this war is going for Russia.
And the worst thing for Russia is that they are still not "all out". They are not mobilizing hundreds of thousands of conscripts from previous years so it's likely that soon they will be outnumbered on the battlefield. Once Ukraine brings up their reservists and new volunteer units to the battlefield it is to be expected that the tide turns against Russia.
Ukraine right now is trading time and small villages for attrition against Russian forces. It is working very well. Similar game plan was used to great success around Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv.
Ukraine has primarily been getting short-range defensive weapons and some drones. You need armor and artillery to mount effective offensives. It's clear so far that while Ukraine can put up a stiff resistance, they aren't as capable of doing the required combined arms assaults that they need to push Russia out.
Everything I've read so far makes me believe that they mostly or only have ex-Soviet artillery. I don't doubt that they had help training though.
Not true. The Ukrainians made their Kiyv front stop.
For example, the reason why Mariupol is such a wreck is because that is what a city looks like, after weeks of urban warfare. That's what Falujah looked like. That's what Mosul looked like. It's not that the Russians are evil bogeymen - it's simply that if you're trying to take a city, you either have to wreak havoc on that city, or you have to take unsustainable casualties.
When you see images of people with their hands tied dead in a basement somewhere, that's what counterinsurgency looks like. When you see kids missing arms, that's what aerial bombardment looks like. When you see hospitals get bombed, civilian cars getting riddled with bullets, this is all what war looks like.
The propaganda aspect is simply that when those cars were Iraqi cars, those people with their hands tied were Afghanis, or those kids were from Syria, we never saw those pictures. So now, every talking head goes on about how brutal the Russians are being, as if it was in the nature of the Russian military, rather than simply in the nature of war itself.
This isn't propaganda, you can see it in OSINT thats beencollected.
Someone sure seems to have stopped them occupying Kyiv. Someone appears to have stopped them rolling west across Ukraine as far as the Dnieper.
every single day I read a story about how Russia is just about to lose.
They already did, surely? Russia comes out of this in a worse condition and situation than they went in. Sounds like a loss.
This is highly relative of where you live. In some places, Russia is winning (on the TV) and is on the cusp of taking over Kiev any minute now.
> And maybe that's all true, I dunno. It's actually pretty hard to tell how the war is actually going for any side, given all the propaganda.
I think it's fair to say, given that Putin retreated from Ukraine's North, that the war is not going in his favor.
> But, Russia seems to be doing a lot of damage and holding at least some territory despite basically the entire world (except for Russia's apparent allies in this new Non-Western Axis, mostly China and Iran) providing historic amounts of military might. Sure, no troops (yet), but lots and lots of firepower.
Russia is the world's, supposed, second military. Also, only a handful of countries are helping Ukraine. Most countries are watching on the sidelines.