Comment by topspin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by topspin | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm starting to have a hard time believing it.

I am not. Those, like me, that are following the conflict in detail, have overcome the disbelief you're struggling with. I knew before the invasion that Russia was about to fill YouTube will hundreds of blown up tanks just based on the number of Javelins I knew were already present in theater, but what has happened has exceeded all expectations.

Two weeks ago Ukraine began attacking Snake Island. They used Bayraktar UAVs to systematically destroy all of the air defense equipment Russia placed on that rock, publishing video of these attacks in almost real time. Response? Send in a top commander in an MI-8 in full view of the UAVs and zero air cover. Destroyed on landing. Send in assault craft with zero air cover. 2 destroyed and the third chased off. Now they're sending in more equipment -- respawning like NPCs in a video game.

Similarly, last week Russia tried a (minor) river crossing with two battalions of men and armor. They stacked it all up waiting for pontoon bridges to be deployed and delivered a perfect target to Ukrainian forces. They did this under the surveillance of NATO satellites and Ukraine's drone surveillance. Result? 50+ armored vehicles and men annihilated by 1970's artillery.

This is every day. Every. Single. Day. Ukraine pulverizes some chunk of the Russian military that is so farcically inept that they are unaware of basic knowledge about the conditions of this conflict and apparently incapable of learning or adapting to it.

You are observing epic dysfunction in action. Proof that corruption and cognitive dissonance are fatal.

And it's going to get much, much worse. The advanced heavy weapons that Ukraine has received are only just now starting to appear in the front lines. M777A2s started limited operation a few days ago. By the end of May they'll have batteries of these firing. PzH 2000 is weeks away yet. Ceaser still later. Gabriel V/Blue Spear anti-ship missiles are on the horizon. They've just now adapted Brimstone missiles to launch from what is effectively an ice cream van. And the Russians are and will do absolutely nothing to anticipate or adapt to any of this.

I'm not expert but I, more or less, follow the war (from my comfortable sofa) and I would like to point some observations.

-We see a lot of Russian bad decisions and result of that decisions but never Ukrainian. That should you make you stop and think.

-If you look only to the maps, and not the news, it's not obvious that the war is going so well for Ukraine, despise they have logistic and intelligence support from NATO.

I could be wrong, but that makes me think that we are the target of a marketing operation.

> I could be wrong, but that makes me think that we are the target of a marketing operation.

a) I think we're realizing that the marketing operation was 70 years of "Russia is scary strong". Reality is Russia is really bad at fighting armies and great at brutalizing civilians.

b) The preponderance of evidence is that Russia has made a long string of really, really bad decisions at all levels. It is so bad that they should consider playing Yakety Sax when they pass in review.

c) The fact is Russia should have taken all of Ukraine by now given the asset and manpower advantage they have. The fact they haven't achieved air dominance, have lost major capital ships to a country that effectively has no navy and are being beat by forces largely using less of the same equipment plus is just mystifying. It wasn't that many years ago that the Russian and Ukrainian army were the same Soviet army.

> I think we're realizing that the marketing operation was 70 years of "Russia is scary strong". Reality is Russia is really bad at fighting armies and great at brutalizing civilians.

Whether it was a marketing campaign or not the USSR military was scary strong until it began its collapse along with the union in the 80s.

It's... unclear. The Cold War was all about power projection and no real fight at scale (thankfully). Projection here implies an image to project as well as actual military power, the proportion between them unproven by definition. Smoke without fire.

The same is surely true for any military of any country, but if you actually study the history of the Cold War in depth and detail, there are reasons to believe that USSR military has been hyped well beyond the real capabilities, even at its peak in 60's. Hyped not just by the Union, but by other countries as well, due to various reasons (internal funding, just to name and example; Swedish military in particular was very persistent in this and kept this strawman to fund its MIC well into 2010s).

> Russia should have taken all of Ukraine by now

The idea that conquering another nation through military means should be quick seems to come out from time to time (not just for this war). I wonder if that has ever happened.

Repeatedly: E.g. the battle of France took six weeks, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq just over a month, never mind things like the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia that was over in 2 days. However, occupation can be a bitch...

Yah there is a huge difference in conquering and occupying a land. Insurgent fighters in occupied lands are very difficult to get rid of - as the US learned the hard way in Iraq and the Russians will in Ukraine.

Thanks. Not sure if I wasn't aware or if I had forgotten, but you provided just the answer I was looking for.

A few more:

Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia took Poland in 37 days (people forget that the Soviets and Nazis were allied at the beginning of WWII and had an agreement to split Poland). The Nazis alone took Netherlands in four days, and Belgium in 18 days.

a) Well, now that we have realized the truth, I'm sure everybody is going to be on board with reducing the NATO military budgets and dedicating the resources to more productive endeavors.

b) No doubt about that, starting by invading.

c) I'm not sure about the manpower advantage. What are the numbers? And Ukraine is fighting in its own territory with unlimited intelligence and supply support from the richest countries in the world. We shouldn't forget about that.

Ukrain troops have also recieved plenty of training from a lot of western countries since Russia took Krim 7-8 years ago. And not only NATO countries, Sweden has had instructors there until the start of the latest war.

Ukraine wouldn’t have received the support from the West if they didn’t survive the first few weeks. Germany only wanted to send helmets before the war broke.

Quite infamously the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany claims a minister had talked to him like Russia had already won just after the invasion began: https://news.storyua.com/news/2517.html

The whole government (or maybe a specific chancellor from a party with a history of ties to Putin ...) is still dragging its feet and only slowly coming around. It still feels a bit like they want Ukraine to lose already so they can finally stop caring about it.

I'm sure there is lots of propaganda at play, but it doesn't change the basic numbers of Russia having over three times Ukraine's population and nearly ten times their GDP, also a much larger military with a much larger military budget. With all those advantages you shouldn't need excellence to secure victory just basic level competence, yet look what's happening.

> With all those advantages

But without all that intel from US and NATO, including almost real-time satellite data and location of high value targets.

>> “We did not provide Ukraine with specific targeting information for the Moskva,”

"Don't look at LAT XXX LOG YYY, don't send drones there, don't have some missiles ready"

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/us-intelligenc...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/11/...

But Russia has not mobilized. That's why they keep calling this clusterf*ck a 'special operation'. In fact, I don't know the exact numbers, but my impression is that they have less troops than the defenders in Ukraine.

And your comparative is kind of unfair. I mean, the war is kind of stuck, with all the support from NATO. Imagine how it would go without external support.

It really bothers me being "that guy", because I have not special love for Putin and its band of kleptocrats, but come on, let's have a little of critical thinking. Or do you think that the USA support of Ukraine is for "defending freedom"?

We know exactly how the war would go without the external support because that's how the war started. Russia picked the time, date, place and had the initiative, Ukraine wasn't convinced that Russia was going to invade despite US warnings, and yet despite all that the Russian advance bogged down in three days. After one month multiple intelligence sources and an accidental leak from Russia said Russia had experienced around 10,000 fatalities. This was during the period before significant amounts of arms had arrived from other countries. This was done by Ukraine largely using what it had at the outbreak of war. That is a huge number of dead in such a short time. This is not Russia showing competence.

Like you said, Russia hasn't mobilised, but they wouldn't start a war they thought they wouldn't win so the fact they haven't mobilised and invaded anyway shows poor intelligence and lack of judgement. The fact Russia didn't mobilise isn't evidence of Russia secretly been good actually, it's more evidence of incompetence.

And clearly Russia hasn't sent its entire military but since their military is much larger than Ukraine's they can pick the units and equipment most suitable for the mission, where Ukraine just has to use everything, regular military, reservists, paramilitaries, and in many cases volunteers with literally hours of training. So even if the numbers are similar the advantage would still be with Russia.

No matter how you try to paint it Russia had nearly every advantage yet still managed to largely stall in just three days and experience huge losses doing it. It is blindingly clear the Russian military is doing a very incompetent job and it takes some very motivated reasoning to begin to argue otherwise.

It's not just enough to call for critical thinking, you actually have to practice it.

Well, if we know exactly how the war would go without the external support, now with all that external support, should be a walk in the park.

Of course, propaganda is a natural and necessary part of war and what we are reading is mostly pro-Ukrainian propaganda. Stories that are meant to raise morale. You should always take war news with a pinch of salt.

Sure there is always some on both sides; but the Russians were considered a superpower and Ukraine's military was considered much weaker on paper: the Russians are the ones moving backwards and losing all the time. Winners go forwards. Propaganda is mostly useful to the loser trying to convince their population that all is well. Goebbels kept saying Germany was winning even as the Russians and Western allies were already in Germany.

Just a note. Unfortunately the Russian's have reestablished the garrison and anti-aircraft systems on Snake Island (https://twitter.com/ArtisanalAPT/status/1525220038914895872?...)

The cost to do this when the island will likely continue to flip flop in control is callous military incompetence.

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