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I think this misses the point entirely. It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question. Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns the

by tus666 5y ago

I think this misses the point entirely. It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question. Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns they have not overcome...are then promptly destroyed by irregular Ukrainian forces often with improvised weapons. Seemingly trying to take large cities without first gaining and controlling ground and surrounding areas. Lack of attempts to destroy strategic infrastructure at the beginning - e.g. TV/broadcast, communications, bridges, rail, etc - using cruise missiles or whatever. Unclear objectives - are they really trying to actually take Kiev or just force Ukraine into submission? Effective use of an air-force is pointless without dealing with the above issues and more.

darkarmani 5y ago
I agree with you. >Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns they have not overcome...trying to take large cities without first gaining and controlling ground and surrounding areas. This was our strategy in Iraq -- highly mobile warfare. Marines sprinting ahead in humvees without armor. it created massive confusion and misunderstanding on where our thrust was - i think it tied up enemy resources outside of Baghdad or something. But in the long run, not capturing enemies or pacifying the areas in-between caused a lot of heartburn later; let alone the looting and lawlessness from leaving power vacuums everywhere. (humanitarian fail) Some massive differences were air superiority, night vision, and disruption of enemy coordination. They could call-in airstrikes anytime there was a threat of armor or mortar fire. Generation Kill is a really good series showing this (it seemed like madness until i watched "The Pacific").
UltraViolence 5y ago
It's not a lack of strategy, merely an expression of that a soldier's life isn't worth sh*t in Russia. These young enlisted conscripts are nothing but cannon fodder with their superiors hoping they can get off a shot or two before they're killed. Pilots, being officers, are another matter entirely. I remember this Kamov Ka-40 helicopter had the ability to blow off its blades to enable the pilot to bail out with an ejection seat. There's nothing remotely like it in the U.S. arsenal.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Yeah but those hundreds of paratroopers being shot down in unsupported skies are important too.
saiya-jin 5y ago
I think the reason was, we just waltz into Kyev, get greeted as saviors and liberators, maybe shoot Zelenskyy and his circle in the head by mistake, or just make them disappear, install another friendly ruler (collaborator would be more appropriate, like Kadyrov in Chechnya) and Ukraine will be part of Russia within next few years, or end up as slave without any real autonomy like Belarus. If that's the case, industry mostly in the east would serve much better untouched, same for rest of infrastructure. Why destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can start draining the country immediately. Bear in mind Russia has huge demographic problems just around the corner, and smart people were running away in droves long before this. All this - truly, hardcore naive. In whole eastern Europe currently busy with refugees efforts, and whole nations would rather risk death than be once again enslaved by them, the memories are still rather fresh. That Russia's foreign actions are (rightfully in this and many other cases) hated as much as Hitler wasn't something leadership could grok in any way. They keep peddling these bigger Russia tales while calling in 10,000 muslim killers from Chechnya on what they claim brotherly slavic nation. You can't fail more morally in the eyes of other slavs. I can't be objective in this topic due to coming from this oppressed region, and tyrant evil persona like Putin doesn't deserve it. Yes there are many, less powerful people like him. I would love to see them be disposed of, stripped away from wealth and power for good. Till now it was a pipe dream, same as watching some narco-baron enjoying his wealth while slowly killing everybody. Now there is at least hope that things may change, and maybe even permanently, at least a bit. And hope is a powerful thing.
- vintermann 5y ago
  > Why destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can start draining the country immediately. Also, assuming any of the responsible thought about this beforehand at all (which IS an assumption), they probably expected further economic sanctions of SOME sort from invading. Rebuilding costs money. Rebuilding things like high-tech fighter aircraft costs truly ridiculous amounts of money. There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to be able to do this all on a modest budget.
  - jopsen 5y ago
    > There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to be able to do this all on a modest budget. Indeed NATO certainly expected Ukrainians to just surrender. Which is probably why they didn't get a no-fly-zone, strategic ambiguity, or other things like that from the US and friends.
mNovak 5y ago
Destroying bridges, rail, etc would be a huge mistake (beside maybe those leading west to NATO), as the current logistic challenges underscore. The initial blitz did target radars and airports (strategic infrastructure) to try to get air superiority, after which many more options become available. But that didn't play out. We're seeing now a transition to siege tactics; surround and generally make life miserable.
- Skunkleton 5y ago
  Of course now Russia is itself under economic siege. This doesn't seem like a winning approach for Russia.
rodgerd 5y ago
> It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question. So, bearing mind that I'm just shitposting on the Internet and have no military expertise, I do think that they had a strategy; based on the automated release of articles 4 days after the start of the invasion which declared that Putin had provided the "final solution to the Ukrainian problem", they really expected it to be over in four days. Bear in mind that: 1. Ukraine has different groups with different mother tongues, like Switzerland or Belgium. The east has a lot of people who grow up speaking Russian as their home language. 2. They landed paratroops at key airports across Ukraine on day 1. 3. Ukraine government has claimed they've found significant numbers of special forces disguised as Ukrainians on the first few fays. 4. The large body of conventional forces invading on day one. I would guess - completely "guy on the Internet" mind you - that what the strategy was is that the paratroops would get a beachhead and destroy the air force, that they and the special forces would hunt down and murder or capture all the key Ukrainian millitary and government officials in the first few days. Meanwhile the conventional forces in the east would be "greeted as liberators", to borrow an American phrase, by Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who would provide food and fuel. Reinforcements would be flown into captured airfields. Chechen terror units would be used against serious resisters. By the fourth day, Ukrainian resistance would be a disorganised shambles of cut-off government units, show trials of any captured members of the Ukrainian government could start so they could tell a little story about how the Jewish Ukrainian president was actually a baby-eating Nazi, and Putin could laugh off any attempts to complain as meaningless. The paratroops were captured or killed, the Ukrainian air force kept flying or escaped to friendly countries (and are now returning), the alleged special forces got nowhere near the Ukrainian government, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians have been telling Russian troops to go away. The Chechen terror units appear to have been killed en masse.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  As another shitposter, I agree. I think they started to believe their own lies. Like a feedback loop from Putin to below, and then the same things going up again. Putin gets advised in a world created by his own lies.
  - iancmceachern 5y ago

by tus666 5y ago

darkarmani 5y ago

I agree with you. >Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns they have not overcome...trying to take large cities without first gaining and controlling ground and surrounding areas. This was our strategy in Iraq -- highly mobile warfare. Marines sprinting ahead in humvees without armor. it created massive confusion and misunderstanding on where our thrust was - i think it tied up enemy resources outside of Baghdad or something. But in the long run, not capturing enemies or pacifying the areas in-between caused a lot of heartburn later; let alone the looting and lawlessness from leaving power vacuums everywhere. (humanitarian fail) Some massive differences were air superiority, night vision, and disruption of enemy coordination. They could call-in airstrikes anytime there was a threat of armor or mortar fire. Generation Kill is a really good series showing this (it seemed like madness until i watched "The Pacific").

UltraViolence 5y ago

It's not a lack of strategy, merely an expression of that a soldier's life isn't worth sh*t in Russia. These young enlisted conscripts are nothing but cannon fodder with their superiors hoping they can get off a shot or two before they're killed. Pilots, being officers, are another matter entirely. I remember this Kamov Ka-40 helicopter had the ability to blow off its blades to enable the pilot to bail out with an ejection seat. There's nothing remotely like it in the U.S. arsenal.

oneoff786 5y ago
Yeah but those hundreds of paratroopers being shot down in unsupported skies are important too.

saiya-jin 5y ago

I think the reason was, we just waltz into Kyev, get greeted as saviors and liberators, maybe shoot Zelenskyy and his circle in the head by mistake, or just make them disappear, install another friendly ruler (collaborator would be more appropriate, like Kadyrov in Chechnya) and Ukraine will be part of Russia within next few years, or end up as slave without any real autonomy like Belarus. If that's the case, industry mostly in the east would serve much better untouched, same for rest of infrastructure. Why destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can start draining the country immediately. Bear in mind Russia has huge demographic problems just around the corner, and smart people were running away in droves long before this. All this - truly, hardcore naive. In whole eastern Europe currently busy with refugees efforts, and whole nations would rather risk death than be once again enslaved by them, the memories are still rather fresh. That Russia's foreign actions are (rightfully in this and many other cases) hated as much as Hitler wasn't something leadership could grok in any way. They keep peddling these bigger Russia tales while calling in 10,000 muslim killers from Chechnya on what they claim brotherly slavic nation. You can't fail more morally in the eyes of other slavs. I can't be objective in this topic due to coming from this oppressed region, and tyrant evil persona like Putin doesn't deserve it. Yes there are many, less powerful people like him. I would love to see them be disposed of, stripped away from wealth and power for good. Till now it was a pipe dream, same as watching some narco-baron enjoying his wealth while slowly killing everybody. Now there is at least hope that things may change, and maybe even permanently, at least a bit. And hope is a powerful thing.

vintermann 5y ago
> Why destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can start draining the country immediately. Also, assuming any of the responsible thought about this beforehand at all (which IS an assumption), they probably expected further economic sanctions of SOME sort from invading. Rebuilding costs money. Rebuilding things like high-tech fighter aircraft costs truly ridiculous amounts of money. There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to be able to do this all on a modest budget.
- jopsen 5y ago
  > There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to be able to do this all on a modest budget. Indeed NATO certainly expected Ukrainians to just surrender. Which is probably why they didn't get a no-fly-zone, strategic ambiguity, or other things like that from the US and friends.

mNovak 5y ago

Destroying bridges, rail, etc would be a huge mistake (beside maybe those leading west to NATO), as the current logistic challenges underscore. The initial blitz did target radars and airports (strategic infrastructure) to try to get air superiority, after which many more options become available. But that didn't play out. We're seeing now a transition to siege tactics; surround and generally make life miserable.

Skunkleton 5y ago
Of course now Russia is itself under economic siege. This doesn't seem like a winning approach for Russia.

rodgerd 5y ago

> It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question. So, bearing mind that I'm just shitposting on the Internet and have no military expertise, I do think that they had a strategy; based on the automated release of articles 4 days after the start of the invasion which declared that Putin had provided the "final solution to the Ukrainian problem", they really expected it to be over in four days. Bear in mind that: 1. Ukraine has different groups with different mother tongues, like Switzerland or Belgium. The east has a lot of people who grow up speaking Russian as their home language. 2. They landed paratroops at key airports across Ukraine on day 1. 3. Ukraine government has claimed they've found significant numbers of special forces disguised as Ukrainians on the first few fays. 4. The large body of conventional forces invading on day one. I would guess - completely "guy on the Internet" mind you - that what the strategy was is that the paratroops would get a beachhead and destroy the air force, that they and the special forces would hunt down and murder or capture all the key Ukrainian millitary and government officials in the first few days. Meanwhile the conventional forces in the east would be "greeted as liberators", to borrow an American phrase, by Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who would provide food and fuel. Reinforcements would be flown into captured airfields. Chechen terror units would be used against serious resisters. By the fourth day, Ukrainian resistance would be a disorganised shambles of cut-off government units, show trials of any captured members of the Ukrainian government could start so they could tell a little story about how the Jewish Ukrainian president was actually a baby-eating Nazi, and Putin could laugh off any attempts to complain as meaningless. The paratroops were captured or killed, the Ukrainian air force kept flying or escaped to friendly countries (and are now returning), the alleged special forces got nowhere near the Ukrainian government, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians have been telling Russian troops to go away. The Chechen terror units appear to have been killed en masse.

koonsolo 5y ago
As another shitposter, I agree. I think they started to believe their own lies. Like a feedback loop from Putin to below, and then the same things going up again. Putin gets advised in a world created by his own lies.
- iancmceachern 5y ago