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Russia’s Ill-Fated Invasion of Ukraine: Lessons in Modern Warfare
- tus666 4y agoMake sure you have the smartest smart missiles and smart drones and the best anti-drone defence systems.
- ripvanwinkle 4y ago>Russia has failed to achieve most of its objectives in Ukraine because.... . The opening comment makes its seem like this is now all in the past. I think its a bit early to comment on how much Russia achieves here - this is very much WIP with a lot dependent on the solidarity in the West and the reaction of the populations to the cost of the war and the war effort as it drags on. It's fair to say though that Russia bungled the start and miscalculated the cost benefit of this war.
- mercy_dude 4y agoYeah that opening line was a giveaway. I thought Ukraine’s own defence minister says Russia now controls 20% of Ukraine as little as a few days ago. What changed?
- oneoff786 4y agoIt used to be a much higher percentage. They’ve abandoned the entire northern front.
- civilized 4y agoYes. Ukraine is already struggling to halt the slow grinding Russian progress in the east. I don't see the conflict ending until Ukraine either retakes the lost territory (in months? years?) or loses Western support and becomes simply unable to carry on logistically.
- oneoff786 4y ago> Ukraine is already struggling to halt the slow grinding Russian progress in the east. This war was supposed to last 3 days. It is now day 101. Russia was supposed to take kyiv. It was entirely pushed back. It then tried to take Kharkiv, and was entirely pushed back. It’s now trying to settle for severodonestk in the east and it’s not clear that they will take it despite a very large manpower advantage in that area. Meanwhile their control of southern areas like Kherson is beginning to falter. Already struggling to halt progress in the east seems like a wildly misleading claim. Significant advances have been completely repelled.
- civilized 4y agoI have been reading ISW's daily updates since the war started. The shift from enthusiasm for Ukraine's victories to frustration in the east has been palpable. Ukraine is fighting at its limit and Russia still inches forward. Opportunistic counteroffensives near Kherson have not yet broken out. I want Ukraine to win quickly and decisively and every dollar we spend sending them stuff is well-spent. But I think it's going to be a slog. OTOH Ukraine will not back down and I think the Western backing is probably pretty deliberate, serious, and long-term. We want this to be Russia's second Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is about what I'm expecting. Grimly, I am somewhat satisfied that Europeans are being reminded of the fury they must summon when an enemy arrives aiming to crush them like ants.
- oneoff786 4y agoI’m surprised you can read the ISW updates and have that be your take on the situation. My primary takeaways from them recently: * Russia is having serious problems getting troops * their execution is terrible and all of their successes are very costly. Even Russian mil bloggers are complaining about this. * the push for the east is coming at great cost but provides basically no strategic benefit Recent news as of today has suggested significant Ukrainian success in severodonestk but let’s see. I expect the city will fall eventually. If it doesn’t then… idk, I feel like Russia has all but lost the war.
- orbifold 4y agoA drawn out conflict favors Russia, even though they surely preferred to solve this with a decapitating strike within a week. Ukraine’s economy has collapsed, Russia’s economy has suffered but not as much, the sanctions on oil actually will likely result in higher profits. Last time I checked Russia had a 10/1 advantage in heavy artillery, has not mobilized its army but is fighting with 1/5 of its available peacetime forces, whereas Ukraine is fully mobilized and has suffered massive casualties among its most capable forces.
- throwyawayyyy 4y ago> A drawn out conflict favors Russia Probably true. But there's no situation in which Russia ends up richer for having gone to war than had they not bothered in the first place. Which is to say, everyone has lost already. It's a tragedy for all parties -- and it's Putin's fault.
- orbifold 4y agoIf they manage to capture the coast including Odessa and the Donbass, they will have recovered a large chunk of the Russian speaking population lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and add a lot of industrial capacity. Long term this would benefit Russia, Ukraine would be reduced to a rump state. But yeah the pre-2014 situation would be vastly better for all sides involved. Ukraine could have taken the Belarussian or Khazak trajectory.
- oneoff786 4y agoThey are nowhere near taking Odessa. It is extremely unlikely that they will achieve that in the foreseeable future.
- Teever 4y agoPeople don't seem to realize that Odessa has 2500km of catacombs.[0] Taking Mariupol will seem like a walk in the park compared to trying to take Odessa. There's no way that Odessa falls to the Russians. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Catacombs
- KVFinn 4y ago>>Russia has failed to achieve most of its objectives in Ukraine because... >The opening comment makes its seem like this is now all in the past. I think its a bit early to comment on how much Russia achieves here - this is very much WIP with a lot dependent on the solidarity in the West and the reaction of the populations to the cost of the war and the war effort as it drags on. Essentially, the manner in which Russia will have to prosecute to the military side of the war to 'win' their military objectives, will make the political objectives that were the reason for the war in the first place, unachievable. In the first few days of the war it was possible to imagine Russia achieving those political objectives. Ukraine might have given up the capital immediately. Huge parts of the country might have decided they preferred to join Russia. Europe might have decided not to respond. But it soon became apparent that those assumptions were wildly off. Any victory now will, at best, include absolutely massive quantities of troops perpetually kept in Ukraine at an incredible cost of resources and lives over future years.
- type0 4y ago> Any victory now will, at best, include absolutely massive quantities of troops perpetually kept in Ukraine at an incredible cost of resources and lives over future years. They want the land, not the ukrainian people. Putin will gladly send them to Siberia.
- attentive 4y agoRussia population is declining. That's why they kidnap Ukrainian children by hundreds thousands. They also mobilize all men in occupied territories. Virtually all men in DNR/LNR are mobilized and sent as a 2d class cannon fodder in front of russian forces. Same seems to be in plans in occupied Herson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Adding 40mill Ukrainians to "russia" and then use them to attack other countries is the name of the game.
- rasz 4y agoFor context because due to the high number people seem to discount this as western war propaganda, so straight from horses mouth: https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1524843197951795200 https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1524843197951795200 "Russia's Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova: More than 190,000 children had arrived in Russia from Donbass by early May, including about 1,200 coming from orphanages in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics." Russians themselves are bragging about kidnapping 190K children.
- oneoff786 4y agoRussia made its objectives very clear, and then changed them when they failed to manifest. It’s very fair to say they failed to achieve their goals. They’re now shooting for much milder goals.
- oneoff786 4y agoI don’t think much can be learned from this war aside from some interesting drone and mortar tech. Russia’s performance has just been so poorly executed. Learning lessons on the general state of modern warfare would be a terrible training set.
- at0mic22 4y agoI don’t really think Russians were to take Kyiv at all. It all looked like a threatening operation which could have been effective if the Istanbul agreement were signed. They are not fools, and taking Kyiv is an impossible task with the limited allocated resources for this campaign. Besides that Russians clearly understand that they will succeed only in Russian-speaking regions, which they actually did. Assuming Russians were running an occupation campaign in the first phase is very wrong. They did not put any own city administration anywhere, left big gaps and gray areas and did not fortify their positions. It’s also good to ask yourself, why Russians never bombed government buildings (while they managed to successfully bomb pretty much everything in Kyiv). And more importantly: why Belarusian pocket army never took part, though being ready on the border. My guess is that if it were an occupation campaign in the first phase, Belarusians would start clearing cities on the back of Russians. There are more questions, than answers, but it’s fairly clear that once Russians pass the fortified (in the last 8 years) Donetsk region, they will be able to move much faster. However I don’t think they will - there’s not much interest in occupying territories with no coal or gas, and with hostile population. I am accepting bets, that once Kramatorsk story is over, they will take Odessa region, and will try to take Kharkiv. The military support west is providing will not win this war. Like with artillery and tanks - you can have weapons, but teaching properly artillerists and tank teams takes half a year at least. It’s not me being pro-Russian, but trying not to underestimate the enemy and not to take him as a fool. It’s a good practise to be overly pessimistic and assume worst-case scenarios. Especially considering that in the second phase not a single city was retaken by Ukrainians, but only lost
- MisterMower 4y agoI had heard that the Russian troops on the way to Kiev had anti-riot gear and very little ammunition. The impression I got was that Russia hoped to topple the entire Ukrainian government and install their own puppet government in a relatively bloodless campaign. We all know how that turned out.
- at0mic22 4y agoJust bomb it, no? They send perfectly targeted missiles to Yavrov thousands miles away, but never had a single shot over the government buildings? Wtf, Putin? It’s not that simple IMO I think the idea of first stage was: 1. Put the pressure 2. Sign a peace agreement And being honest, from todays perspective, it better should have been signed.
- bzmrgonz 4y agoI peg Russia's failures to 2 things a)lack of experience(they haven't been in a ware in ages). and b)where the hell are the drones? it's 2022 for crying out loud. Wars are not won with big-iron anymore, you can buy/build a fleet of drones for the price of one single jet fighter. Wait till they build tortoise mimicking sea drones, then it's bye-bye aircraft carriers. The missile of a manpad cost 38k, lookup ukraine's "punisher drone" to understand what Im talking about. The point is, Russia needs to level up, before the world take them for a lame duck super-power and the West decides to bring some freedom and liberation to the siberian region!!
- at0mic22 4y agoSyria for instance? Drones are a big failure which they already fixed. I haven’t heard of any successful bairaktar attack for the last few months.
- attentive 4y agoVery prominent multiple use on Snake Island in May with videos etc?
- bzmrgonz 4y agoI am waiting to see swarm drone attacks. Has anyone tried it yet? I think the money bracket is just right for this kind of experiment. 38k for one manpad missile (check). cheap disposable long range heavy lifting drone<approx 50k??> (check). Software onboard to support swarming (check). So say a million for a swarm of 10?? 10 synchronized explosions would make a sizeable hole in the ground right?? Seems the problem would be stealth and anti-jamming tech.
- at0mic22 4y agoIt looks like the snake island was a huge failure for Ukrainians, with videos confirming that
- bzmrgonz 4y agoSyria is/was a proxy war. Their troops and top brass is as rusty as the hardware they sent initially into Ukraine.
- wrp 4y ago> Russia has failed to achieve most of its objectives in Ukraine because... The Russian military has a lot of problems, sure. But the failure of the initial operation was because they were completely deluded about what to expect. If they had understood what to expect, they would have prepared differently. It is wrong to keep using "capabilities" as the explanation for the failure. > Russia's failures will force the Russian military to fundamentally rethink its... None of the Russian military's problems have come as a surprise to the Russians. Take the corruption, for example. It's been a major point of discussion for centuries. They will most likely continue to deal with these problems as they have always done. > ...roughly a dozen Russian generals and other senior officials were killed on the battlefield...These firings and deaths may have exacerbated command and control problems that the Russian military was already experiencing. This has already been discussed a lot online, that Russian military doctrine requires senior officers to lead from the front, so higher casualties among officers are expected. Some comments in this article indicate a poor understanding of Russian military culture. > In practice, the BTGs were likely understrength and lacked sufficient infantry. That's an understatement. The units initially sent in were at peacetime strength, which means they were lacking a major portion of their personnel. For example, armored units apparently deployed without any footsoldiers. > ...Russian army...lacked a professional corps of noncommissioned officers. This talking point has been overdone. European militaries traditionally had "commissioned officers" who were upper-class, and "non-commissioned officers" who were lower-class. You can't have that kind of class distinction in a proletarian society. Just because the Russian army doesn't have "NCOs" doesn't mean they don't have people with equivalent training and responsibilities. > ...the tendency of poorly trained Russian forces to conduct massive bombardments of towns and cities in a war of attrition, rather than conducting basic fire and maneuver, will make it difficult to seize and hold substantial territory... Observers of the war are increasingly admitting that artillery still rules the battlefield. Even President Zelensky recently expressed frustration that countries keep sending them missiles when what they really need is artillery. The front line, maintained by artillery support, has become pretty stable. Advance by either side will likely become increasingly hard. > Russia has a recent history of attempting to grind out military victories. Recent? Are you kidding? Doesn't anyone remember WW2? Anyone who thinks the Russians will eventually shrug it off and go home really doesn't understand their history/culture. > The status quo is also unlikely to be acceptable for Ukrainian leaders... The odd thing about this is that even before 2014, some Ukrainians were floating the idea that they should ask the Donbas region to split off. In interviews after 2014, Ukrainian politicians would privately say they would rather not reintegrate the Donbas. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30698057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30698057) So it seems that the Ukrainian leadership is forced to push for something that they don't really want. > Over the past eight years, Moscow has seized larger portions of Ukrainian territory and tried to overthrow the government. This ignores what the Kremlin's motivations have been. They didn't want to annex Donbas. They wanted to keep it integrated with Ukraine so the ethnic Russian population there could exert influence on Ukrainian politics. It is unclear at this point whether the Kremlin has given up on that.
- markvdb 4y agoThis is war. Billions are still flowing to Russia for natural gas. It would be neigh impossible for Russia to export natural gas to alternative markets. So if you really want to weaken the Russian war effort... ... set an EU-wide tarriff on Russian gas. Subsidise EU energy independence with the proceeds: alternative natural gas sources, green energy production, energy savings, ... And make more structural social corrections to avoid energy poverty.