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> Why would Russia want to start with extremely costly urban combat when the ukrainian forces are still a coherent fighting force? Did you not pay attention to

> Why would Russia want to start with extremely costly urban combat when the ukrainian forces are still a coherent fighting force? Did you not pay attention to the first weekend of fighting? Your analysis is correct but the Russians did try to take the 2 largest cities right away. There's massive wrecked convoys outside both Kyiv and Kharkiv. And it was extremely costly. And now the Russians look extremely weak. And now they're slowly making progress doing what you think they should to win. And they will win if the Russian oligarchs and military support them until the end. But that last point is a huge question mark.

mardifoufs 5y ago
They tried to take the gostomel airport, and pushed toward kiev but didn't make actual efforts into pushing beyond the suburbs. The gostomel operation was costly but AFAIK they still hold the airport. The convoys being wrecked are again either unconfirmed or didn't seem to massively alter their progression on that front. Obviously the russians are still taking a lot of losses, but imo it's not nearly close enough to stall them in any significant manner. (I'd have also expected the russians the be doing way way worse, since the ukrainian army has still been pretty throughouly trained by western advisors in the past 7 years. And after the mess that was the 2008 georgian war, I thought the russian army to be far less capable than the relatively professional army we have seen since they invaded.) I have not see any effort to actually push through kiev or Kharkov. If anything the push for Kharkov only happened mid last week, and most of the actually important events have been on the crimean/southern front .
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  >I'd have also expected the russians the be doing way way worse, since the ukrainian army has still been pretty throughouly trained by western advisors in the past 7 years. And after the mess that was the 2008 georgian war, I thought the russian army to be far less capable than the relatively professional army we have seen since they invaded. Are we watching the same war?
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Yes? Just look at the actual situation in the ground beyond the reddit wars (tm). https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/091194 https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/09... That's a huge amount of territory gained, especially when you keep in mind that the russians invaded with roughly the same amount of men that Ukraine is defending it's territory with. This would've been completely impossible back in 2008

mardifoufs 5y ago

They tried to take the gostomel airport, and pushed toward kiev but didn't make actual efforts into pushing beyond the suburbs. The gostomel operation was costly but AFAIK they still hold the airport. The convoys being wrecked are again either unconfirmed or didn't seem to massively alter their progression on that front. Obviously the russians are still taking a lot of losses, but imo it's not nearly close enough to stall them in any significant manner. (I'd have also expected the russians the be doing way way worse, since the ukrainian army has still been pretty throughouly trained by western advisors in the past 7 years. And after the mess that was the 2008 georgian war, I thought the russian army to be far less capable than the relatively professional army we have seen since they invaded.) I have not see any effort to actually push through kiev or Kharkov. If anything the push for Kharkov only happened mid last week, and most of the actually important events have been on the crimean/southern front .

Mikeb85 5y ago
>I'd have also expected the russians the be doing way way worse, since the ukrainian army has still been pretty throughouly trained by western advisors in the past 7 years. And after the mess that was the 2008 georgian war, I thought the russian army to be far less capable than the relatively professional army we have seen since they invaded. Are we watching the same war?
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Yes? Just look at the actual situation in the ground beyond the reddit wars (tm). https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/091194 https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/09... That's a huge amount of territory gained, especially when you keep in mind that the russians invaded with roughly the same amount of men that Ukraine is defending it's territory with. This would've been completely impossible back in 2008