> 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 op

> 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.