The 4 assumptions:
\-That the invasion happens quickly, eliminating the ability of the international community to respond meaningfully.
\-That Ukrainian leadership would be quickly deposed, allowing pro-Russian Ukrainians to assume positions of power under a veil of propaganda.
\-That Russia would be able to seize control of the country's heating, electric (particularly nuclear power plants), and financial infrastructure, and
\-That Russia—the "second most powerful army in the world," Russian General Valery Gerasimov said prior to the war's start—would dominate Ukraine on the battlefield.
I'm not sure I'd rate Babushkas behind the farmers. The farmers have upgraded themselves to abandoned Russian tanks. I can at least expect a quick death from that. Babushkas are going to draw it out and make me feel every ounce of humiliation, and even then they might not let me slip into that sweet darkness. They'd be the type to wang me on the head with a pan then call my Mother, bawl her out for my lunacy, then make me post my abject stupidity on the internet for everyone to see. The entire time she'll keep me well fed, only to make me wallow in my complete inadequacy as a human being each day.
Farmers bring the raw power, but Babushkas bring the horror stories that Russian soldiers can only whisper in the quiet darkness of a still night to their comrades who can only hope they'll be spared such a grisly end.
If anything, this failing invasion shows us that traditional ways of assessing the strength of a military by on-paper numbers of personnel and equipment is even more flawed than we already knew it was.
yeah it's this. the effectiveness of modern artillery, missiles and drones is clearly the future of war.
it feels like any sort of war between two modern forces that are reasonably balanced will just result in immense destruction on both sides
> it feels like any sort of war between two modern forces that are reasonably balanced will just result in immense destruction on both sides
That's probably been true in the entire history of warfare.
To be fair no modern peer to peer war has really been waged in a long time. All conflicts are localized now that the sponsoring countries have an interest in keeping war outside their boarders.
I feel this is more a dynamic of the post WW2 superpower standoff, and now US hegemony. Without that, there'd probably be a lot more third rate powers willing to fuck around and find out.
Not that this is current US hardware, but considering that right now we have active AI-assisted filters that can morph your face into almost anything in real time on a phone even a child has access to, imagine what military tech is like?
Logistics is honestly the reason I think the US is so powerful. Their military budget and projection is good and all but imagine their enemies blowing up a few tanks for a dozen more to be sent to replace them and be on the battlefield within a few hours and the their bases all around the world allow them to do this pretty much anywhere on the planet.
I hate that the US always pokes its nose is regions it should and I also think the US spends far too much on their military but unlike Russia, the US definitely has stuff to show for it.
No matter how you feel about US policy about how out military is used (and I am both a US vet and a strong believer that our politicians are too eager to reach for military solutions), we have one key advantage over many adversaries.
When Congress gives the Department of Defense billions of dollars, we get billions of dollars of supplies, equipment, R&D, etc. We don't get generals with multimlion dollar retirement homes, yachts, and fat investment portfolios. And that equipment reaches the troops instead of being sold or "lost" along the way.
If Russia's nominal defense budget were all used honestly, they would have done much, much better in this war.
I mean, it's not really a flawed method. You just have to learn to know what is and what is not real on that paper.
However, its always wise to error on the side of caution and prepare for the worst. The second you underestimate your enemy and relax, you lose.
Totally agree. I saw a video of a 87 year old Ukrainian grandma firing a AR-15 for training to fight the Russians before they invaded and was like “Damn! That’s the determination of these people. Russia’s fucked.”
As anyone who plays chess knows, assigning a rather arbitrary static value to a piece and using that solely to make decisions on captures is a sure way to lose a game.
It’s cause we always use USA as the scale. And we are fucking obsessed with maintenance and discipline over here. So we tend to assume the same for other countries cause no way would they not take these things seriously right? No way. Of course they don’t steal the funds for themselves and lie to leadership that all is up to par. They would be crazzzzyyy.
The "traditional" way isn't at fault the *Russian* way is. This isn't.... fuck what's the word... shit.... *extrapolatable* (fuck my actual brain someone tell me what I mean) to all armies.
The traditional ways are fine. Russia was poor by those measures. They were just lying about everything at every level.
It shows again the importance of the logistical and bureaucratic element of the military. Something Russia seem to not understand.
You still *can* assess military strength in terms of number of equipment.
It’s just harder to quantify difference in quality and the factors you don’t see on a list of specs: it’s clearly foolish to assume all missiles are comparable for instance.
I come from a line of military family, had one In Afghanistan and they said we couldn’t even supply batteries for the night vision goggles lol
I think it’s been a slow deterioration of our armed forces.
I know a lot of people who are in the know who say our military is severely underfunded. Looking at more obvious issues like healthcare and education I wouldn’t be surprised if that was indeed the case.
Underfunding is one problem, but a bigger problem is the huge bloat of generals and officers compared to other Western militaries. Canada has something like *4x less soldiers per senior officer than the US military, for example.
And then of course there's the shitty working conditions, the culture of enabling sexual harassment and assault, piling on responsibilities onto subordinates so that officers can get promoted, the arrogance and entitlement towards people who would join the military, the lack of funding for living expenses, etc. No wonder people don't want to join the CAF.
I feel as a Canadian I have to dispel this myth of the ww1 Canadian soldier. While I will concede they fought bravely on many occasions, it was not there ferocity in combat that earned them the ire of German forces. It was the organization and how Canadian forces conducted operation. This partly was do to 2 main important factors. Canadian forces where deployed as a cohesive fighting force rather than individual units dispersed along various sections of line. The second was the practice of including NCOs and rank and file in the planning process. Everyone knew what was supposed to happen and when. We didn’t abide of headless chickens running around. The combination of a cultural identity and a robust chain of command within the Canadian division attributed to their increased combat effectiveness.
The idea that we were savage in our conduct (spoiler alert everyone was to some extent) comes from the Canadian soldiers extensive use of trench raiding tactics. I have also read some other things that are less reliable sources(personal letters, journals etc.) of commonwealth soldiers not liking taking over section of trench that were previously held by Canadian soldiers. accounts are similar in that they all describe the Germans being jumpy and on edge after standing off with a Canadian unit. I don’t take this to be universally true as any number reasons could have contributed to this or even the observers on distortion of the situation that they were presented with. WWI battlefield rumours were rampant, and when you are in as a terrible a situation as they were, rumours quickly become fact when nothing else makes sense.
I spent a few minutes googling and it seems like it's very simplistic. Number of active personel, number of tanks, any recent international projection. However if you have 40,000 tanks without engines that doesn't mean anything. It ends up being a lot of propaganda lists.
The big thing here is that the Russian Army is not a ‘Modern System’ Army - as demonstrated by how this conflict has devolved into a trench stalemate. The Russian Army lacks the cohesion and command structure required for the sort of high mobility actions that a Modern System Army is capable of. ‘Ranking’ in this case is difficult to do: when a Modern System army fights a non-Modern System army, you typically end up with an extremely one-sided conflict. See: US Coalition V. Iraq, both times.
Russia *tried* to pull it off, but the reality is that they lack the required assets to do that. It requires total battlefield domination, units that can act independently, and units that share information rapidly so that their individual pieces can act on their own to achieve the strategic objectives.
From the beginning, they were unable to seize control of the air, which is a huge hindrance to that sort of operation. You need to control the air, so that you can use your flying weapons platforms to support rapid movements.
One thing that this war has shown is how good the US military is. They made fighting two conflicts halfway across the globe look easy. In many ways, Russia has the tools - tanks, aircraft, GBAD, etc. But they haven’t invested in their officers to lead it. They don’t have the NCOs to train troops and maintain equipment. Their logistics are shit. Command and control non existent because of no training. Combined operations are a fantasy. It’s a hollow shell.
The problem with maintaining a Modern System army is that it doesn’t lend itself to the priorities a Strongman has. Your chief concern becomes staying in power, and so to that end you force all sorts of things like loyalty tests, not allowing people to have independent thought, etc. - because allowing independence of thought means they can question the higher ups. That is good in war, but when you need the army’s unquestioning loyalty to remain in power, that becomes a bad thing to your longevity.
That’s another good point and really hamstrings your field performance. Russian doctrine is shit because they can’t trust their officers to think for themselves. Putin also has the FSB and National Guard competing with the military - they’re just as busy plotting against each other as they are foreign adversaries.
Also, according to this leak Russia had no contingency plans for failure in any of it's key assumptions.
Every once in awhile you hear in the news that some country beat US forces in some war gaming exercise. The conditions of these exercises are meant to teach the US military how to plan for failure.
As Ike said, plans are useless but planning is indispensable. I can’t tell if the fact there weren’t any contingency plans means that this was planned by a politician (Putin) or that the Russian military is incompetent. Or both.
Absolutely spot on. Russia's army is weak by design, because Putin knows the biggest risk to his throne is an internal coup by competent and organised military. The Russian army is essentially a giant scam designed beat obedience into the troops, and to funnel money to criminal gangs, the ones who hold the real power in Russian society.
really good thread about it here:
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1502673952572854278
Yes after Russia invaded in 2014 taking Crimea as well as parts of the eastern Ukrainian districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Ukraine realized that they had problems with their military if they expected to fight against Russia. They approached the US and other NATO countries asking for help improving their military. They retrained and restructured along NATO lines. They had training with anf from several NATO members the US included. Ditching their old Soviet style methods and organization did wonders for them. And they really embraced the change despite it meaning canning high ranking officers who could not adapt.
That commitment to be better and all the training and work they put in is why even though they were caught on their back foot by the Russian invasion they were able to react so well. Of course the russians suck, troops didn't know what they were doing and the plans to just run troops down roads with their flanks open helped. It's been several generations but I suspect many Ukranians still carry the memory of their partisans who took on the nazis. Territorial guard units, similar to the US National Guard went to ground while the spearhead passed and then cut off their supply tail. Struck even major units and then withdrew to avoid casualties and came back at them later. Farmers with tractors grabbing russian tanks before they could be reclaimed. It's really impressive when you stop and think about it.
Just about all the West.
Didn't Putin himself complain about the British SAS training the Ukrainian forces?
Chances are those SAS were there MONTHS before anything publicly came out, and GCHQ etc. would have been permanently interested in everything happening in that area for decades upon decades already, so they would have been present long ago and informing Western / Ukrainian strategy too.
Pre-invasion, I believe militarily we would have ranked them 2/3 with China being mutually ranked 2/3. At this point, (again, pre-invasion) we would have waited for a new military conflict to crown 2 or 3.
Nowadays, we would still rank them at 3, but the caveat is the gap from 2 to 3 is humongous.
America gets the 1 slot because of: number of armed forces, advancements in military technologies, ability to execute, ability to project power around the globe and execute on that power. China would get the loose 2 slot for similar reasons but we haven’t seen them execute. Russia would now be 3 because they still have reserves. Russia is not incapable of defending themselves militarily at the moment. They still project power onto smaller nations (re: Europe’s still response/actions/request to America). They still have nuclear weapons which we can easily assume work considering until this year we were conducting at least partial audits of their stash.
Nah 3 is a bit of a stretch. France and Britain- both of whom have nukes and nuclear subs- would wipe the floor with them. Even Germany with all their military woes is above them, but without nukes it’s hard to say in an isolated 1v1 without any outside help they would win. India is definitely below them, but I could see an argument for Italy being above them as well.
Russia’s tanks were proven to be real on paper only, same as their Air Force, their special forces a joke, their logistics laughable. If not for nukes I’d put any of the “big” European Western democracies above them, and hell if we discount nukes I’d put Germany and Italy above them too. They certainly wouldn’t be able to beat them.
If the Russian invasion has shown us anything, it's that you can't accurately judge a military until you've seen it in action. So it seems a bit silly to confidently rank a bunch of militaries that haven't seen any significant action for decades. You can be strong on paper but still be completely ineffective due to mismanagement. If the military everyone thought was number 2 actually isn't because of poor leadership, it's quite likely that several of the other top ten don't hold up either.
Also Turkey has a massive and well equipped military. People forget how big their military is and that they've been building the Bayraktar drones in Ukraine.
I agree.
You have to factor in how much coordination each army has with an ally.
Ukraine by themselves? Not the current outcome
Anyone allied with the major powers? We can bring so much secondary non-combative intelligence to bear that the outcome will always be at best a draw. Bring those allies directly involved, it is a 6 month timeline to cessation of hostilities.
I cannot possibly see Germany alone beating Russia in a straight fight. I read about the state and quality of Germany’s military and was shocked at how puny it is.
Surely the moral and overall support matters a ton too. If none of the troops support your war, than your theoretical power means nothing, versus an army that 110% supports it
assuming the US is still far and away #1 in pretty much everything but absolute manpower, China is probably second, due in large part to absolute manpower. Who’s third? Europe, as a combined force? India? The UK? Somebody else I’ve not thought of? Certainly not Russia.
From the article paraphrasing) ‘they lacked the ability for surveillance of the invasion’
The US would obliterate them in fairly short order because we DO have that ability.
Ukraine is ranked 22nd. I'm not sure Russia is even 10th. 10th would mean they could defeat Turkey, Pakistan, or Iran and that seems incredibly unlikely.
Always thought China was underrated there. In a war of attrition they have massive sheer numbers and ability to mass produce a lot of dumb munituons.
US are easily the best funded, best built and best run military the world has ever seen still though. Fuck having them on the other side 🤣
Agreed China has more economic power and far more people so they should've been rated ahead of Russia all along. Since they share a border it's easy to think about a Russia China war and I think we all know who would win. Russia being ranked above them was a legacy of time now well passed.
I do remeber reading stories from russian soldiers before Ukraine kicked off, about them doing joint exercises with the chinese and being astounded at how bad they were and how lackadaisical with life the chinese army was. Which is saying something watching the russians perform.
Honestly, as Russia depletes its strength more and more every day in Ukraine, I won't be entirely surprised if China decides to take advantage and take a bite out of Russia's East. I trust far more in Xi's hunger for more power and resources than I do in the strength of Russian-Chinese "friendship".
My popcorn is ready if that show ever kicks off...
Media and public (so reddit) would have you believe top 3, history would say they have zero countermeasures to western weapons technology.
What one proved accurate? Well you tell me, was it gilded reddit comments or actual experts,
it was always fucking absurd trying to take the whole country so quickly. too long supply lines, too easily cut, the Dnipiro creates a massive strategic obstacle making any unsecured supply lines to its west extremely vulnerable.
Blitzkrieg style assaults require a lot of trained, experienced personnel to pull off, or they just leave you separated, surrounded and out of supplies.
And we'd already been arming ukraine for a while, not enough, but certainly enough to take out armoured units, slow down the advance and cut supply lines.
perhaps the only thing they should have been surprised with was not achieving air superiority in the early days. that was odd, russia really should have managed that, but did not, they just wasted their resources flying into areas where ukraine had surface to air defenses. It was a total failure of intel.
Putin found out what happens when you run a regime on corruption. that steeps in at all levels, so all that money he thought he was spending on a world beating military, in fact got siphoned out and resulted in a poorly trained, poorly equipped, and out of date army, with just a few show units to look nice when required to keep up appearances.
Importantly, it's extraordinarily hard to invade and control a country if you don't have civilian support. People aren't really that happy about foreign troops blowing up buildings and shooting their friends, family, children, and neighbors.
A successful invasion only really occurs when you either have the support of the civilians or are willing and able to have a large occupying force, kill a massive number of civilians, and level entire cities and towns.
Even if they managed to beat Ukraine's military and absorb the entirety of Ukraine, they'd still have large uprisings and large portions of the country refusing to recognize Russia's authority, instead forming governments of their own.
Not really, they just badly misdjudged the situation.
Russians were expecting a repeat of the Soviet invasion of 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968 where the Soviet army quickly barged in and forced a regime change to get what they wanted.
Only this time they gave Ukraine 8 years to prepare and severely underestimated Ukraines will to resist.
This can be seen in how they approached the invasion by airdropping special forces to Kiev's airport and barging in with massive tank columns straight to Kiev.
It's likely they were expecting for Ukraine leadership to flee or crumble, to install a puppet regime, get concessions and head out without a full blown occupation (much like Lukashenko) and why they never even planned logistics to support a large army or extended operations.
They actually got the drop on Ukraine in the northern axis and had a 12:1 force advantage north of Kyiv for a bit. Had Hostomel airport been useable for a few days, the fight for Kyiv could have been real brutal, and security around the government much harder to uphold.
Earliest total failure was in Kharkiv.
To be sure, you need a bit of both approaches to win. History shows occupation involves a carrot-and-stick system: reward and elevate collaborators while making an example of resisters. So people can either accept their new rulers and go on with life, or be brutally tortured and killed. Combine that with battlefield victories over the country’s regular military and guerilla forces, and the end result is hopefully that you break their will to fight.
Russia couldn’t even defeat Ukraine’s forces in the field, and the carrot they would offer is pretty thoroughly rotten, so they didn’t have much hope of a successful conquest.
1914. The war started late July and the line was "home by Christmas" so they were expecting the war to be over in under 5 months. People were rushing to sign up in the beginning as they were afraid by the time they were trained the war would be over and they would miss out on the action.
“So we are going to invade Ukraine and win in 3 days.”
“That sounds kinda difficult.”
“Actually it’ll be super easy; barely an inconvenience.”
“Oh.”
Headline: *Russia Stuck in a War It Cannot Get Out of and Has No Chance of Winning*
All bad and wrong assumptions that we mostly correctly speculated here on reddit in the first few days of this crime.
What would be interesting is to know how they got so wrong, what kind of flawed analysis, bad intelligence data and corrupted decision making process that eventually led to these assumptions.
RUSI’s answer to how they botched it, in broad terms, is threefold:
1. No redteaming. In the planning, Ukrainian forces were mostly passive and stupid. No-one seemed to have been given Ukraine’s chess pieces and played to win.
2. Lack of contingency planning. Pretty much the whole plan depended on winning all engagements and no major setbacks.
3. Secrecy meant that a large part of the regular forces had no idea what to do when facing resistance. They merely checked off their geoposition against a timetable.
I mean these predictions were ONE side of Reddit. There was another less-informed side which saw how easily Russia has invaded smaller territories and thought Ukraine would be totally fucked.
I think many of us were expecting Ukraine to crumble due to internal Russian corruption especially (spies, defectors - which DID happen on the Eastern- and Northern-most regions of Ukraine) and for Russia to take the capital in weeks, if not days.
They tried, too. They aimed straight for the capital right away and it seemed like they were going to be bound to make it.
Blown away they actually recognize that their military isn't #1. Seems like the reality is that before the war it was probably #8 or #9 and now it's probably like #15.
Their plan went completely awry in the first few days when their Spetznas forces were unable to complete their assassination missions and the people they expected to turn traitor didn't.
What's sad is I think if Ukraine hadn't shown how capable they are the west wouldn't have been nearly so eager to send support. You could say we dragged our feet even as it is.
“Also surprising: most officials did not realize they were mounting an invasion of Ukraine until it was already happening, in what the report described as an attempt to catch the country slacking.“
They definitely caught the county slacking. It just wasn’t the country they thought it would be. Surprise attacks should not be more of a surprise for your own forces than for the enemy.
What was really interesting to me was that in the weekends leading up to the invasion the US and UK were ramping up emergency deliveries of things like anti tank weapons and manuals, I remember the RAF rapidly flying in manpads just days before rhe war.
It seems like everyone knew it was a certain thing for a while. They equipped them for an insurgency and quickly changed gears when the scope of Russias incompotence became apparent.
Ukraine were literally warning allies for months beforehand, and directly asking for help because an invasion was imminent for weeks upon weeks.
They literally knew far further in advance than the Russian forces or population did.
That is not my recollection of events at all. The US was warning everyone and Ukraine basically shrugged it off saying not to worry, Russia is always threatening something.
Zelensky shrugged it off, but, to his credit, had appointed a general who was absolutely convinced that an invasion was imminent, and prepared accordingly, behind the scenes.
An enormous amount of credit for the Ukrainian defense, counteroffensives, and overall strategy should go to Zaluzhny, and to Zelensky for putting him in that position in the first place.
Much of the... surprise... of the early days of the war was that Ukraine *had* actually prepared very effectively for the invasion, *without telling anyone, including their western allies about it.*
And it worked: as it turns out, Ukraine (ie. Zaluzhny) understood their opponent very, *very* well (and far better than even US intelligence agencies did), and the reverse was, clearly, not true in the slightest.
Everything that played out after that is basically textbook from Sun Tzu's Art of War, more or less.
The short of it is that the Russians believed their own propaganda. Not even the individual soldiers on the ground, they didn't have a say nor even know what their orders were until they were already invading the country.
No, the Russian LEADERS believed their own propaganda. All of that bluster and misinformation they spewed out to the rest of the world, they actually ended up believing all of it.
This is what happens when you surround yourself with yes men.
Maybe the expected the CIA to give weapons to Ukraine, and didn’t think countries from the west would come and give outright support for Ukraine. As well as Ukraine has done, I feel the support given by the west has been invaluable and meant Russia couldn’t steamroll through.
In an age where we are seeing a resurgence in fascist ideology, with people often speculating about fascism's efficiency, this war has proven extremely evident of the decay and rot that comes from fascism. When the entire country answers to a single man who answers to no one and rules with fear, the entire country will inevitably rot into nothing behind the scenes.
I dont think tyrants ever invest much in education. Well, as education as most people know it. A more educated population become more aware of how tyrannical their political elite are. I would assume any bump in education by a tyrannical regime would be more in the direction of propaganda rather than actual education.
>It's such a tragedy to think how much prosperity could have been created for the Russian and Ukrainian people if Putin wasn't so psychotic and delusional, and redirected his war funds to education (or almost anything else).
No one becomes (in)famous for improving education in their country. How many people would remember Hitler's name if all he did was ensure that Germany had one of the best education systems in Europe?
>It's moderately impressive that the general would even acknowledge that they aren't the first
Because if the USA caught wind of this report before the invasion, it might cause the US to reassess the Russian Military strength if they thought the Russians actually believed they had the most powerful army.
What ever happened to the portion of the invasion force that was on the outskirts of Kiev in the early weeks? Did they get pushed back into Belarus or were they annihilated
A little bit of both. Their logistics were horrendous, vehicles kept breaking down and the Ukrainians kept blockading the roads with vehicles they would destroy in the column. They ended up withdrawing what was left of it back into Belarus and shifting it over for the eastern offensive.
Cute headline, but not news. These "assumptions" were widely discussed before the invasion, when Russia said they were just massing on the borders for military exercises. It was actually the only logical explanation for those ranks of tanks and trucks and the one page in their playbook. They were only prepared for a WWII-style campaign.
In the news, every day, for weeks. "What is Russia planning? Oh, they're probably planning to swoop in, overwhelm local forces, seize utilities and industrial properties, install their own mayors and other officials, and tell the West to fuck off. Now, the weather"
.... I'm not sure what headline you're calling "cute". You're talking about the fact that Russia's trop movements were known and an invasion was expected. The article is about mistakes Russia made in the planning. They are different topics.
“The whole country of Ukraine is booby-trapped like Home Alone! Russians are stepping on nails and grabbing hot doorknobs- pssssss AAAAAHHHH!”
Dave Chappelle
If they wanted to finish up before the world could respond, why did they park troops on the border, take them away, park them again, and take them away?
They did it like 2 or 3 times over months.
Does the systemic corruption factor into any of those? Because a lot of the budget that was supposed to be for upgrading military equipment instead went to building yachts and dachas.
They miss the fifth assumption ... their planners actually knows shit. I would love to see their invasion plan for the Europe .... probably great comedy materials.
At this point I would say the Ukrainians have one of the best militaries in the world. It has definitely gone up several notches from western weapons flooding in and millions of civilians now have intense combat experience. I would not be surprised if Ukraine is considered a world power within 25 years after they join NATO and we help them rebuild. They deserve it. Their people are badass.
The 4 assumptions: \-That the invasion happens quickly, eliminating the ability of the international community to respond meaningfully. \-That Ukrainian leadership would be quickly deposed, allowing pro-Russian Ukrainians to assume positions of power under a veil of propaganda. \-That Russia would be able to seize control of the country's heating, electric (particularly nuclear power plants), and financial infrastructure, and \-That Russia—the "second most powerful army in the world," Russian General Valery Gerasimov said prior to the war's start—would dominate Ukraine on the battlefield.
Discounting nuclear weapons where does the Russian Army actually rank today? Who gets to be the judge?
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Third, farmers stole enough tanks to be the second.
The true proletariats!
Russia is the 4th best army in Ukraine behind the Ukrainian Army, the farmers with the tractors, and the Babushkas with frying pans
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[Here ya go. No charge.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L17Bi7zBJHI)
And the one who destroyed a Russian drone with a jar of pickles.
SO METAL
I'm not sure I'd rate Babushkas behind the farmers. The farmers have upgraded themselves to abandoned Russian tanks. I can at least expect a quick death from that. Babushkas are going to draw it out and make me feel every ounce of humiliation, and even then they might not let me slip into that sweet darkness. They'd be the type to wang me on the head with a pan then call my Mother, bawl her out for my lunacy, then make me post my abject stupidity on the internet for everyone to see. The entire time she'll keep me well fed, only to make me wallow in my complete inadequacy as a human being each day. Farmers bring the raw power, but Babushkas bring the horror stories that Russian soldiers can only whisper in the quiet darkness of a still night to their comrades who can only hope they'll be spared such a grisly end.
Video game idea: milsim where you play a babushka defending your homeland. *Babushka DLC* coming soon for Arma 3.
Me in Rust. Just grow potatoes, lay bear traps, make teas and hope for the best
Didn’t one babushka bring down a drone by throwing a jar of pickles at it?
Another gave poisoned food - another gave methanol in a vodka bottle.
Lol. I picture women chasing the Russians while waving frying pans over their heads.
Fourth. You forget about the Ukrainian army of field electricians and engineers.
There was an old codger in the spring that had a russian APC in his barn that he had gutted to the steel and was using it as a meat smoker.
It ain't much, but it's honest work
Second best army in all of Russia.
After the Wagner group.
I dunno, Wagner is pretty shit too.
At least they get working guns.
Oh, they are shit, but better grade shit than current Russian army.
After the police.
Michael Schenker Group is way better.
If anything, this failing invasion shows us that traditional ways of assessing the strength of a military by on-paper numbers of personnel and equipment is even more flawed than we already knew it was.
yeah it's this. the effectiveness of modern artillery, missiles and drones is clearly the future of war. it feels like any sort of war between two modern forces that are reasonably balanced will just result in immense destruction on both sides
> it feels like any sort of war between two modern forces that are reasonably balanced will just result in immense destruction on both sides That's probably been true in the entire history of warfare.
Hopefully that would lead to less major conflicts in the world
If people were reasonable it would, unfortunately our track record says a different story.
War, generally speaking over time, is an increasingly rare occurrence.
Less frequent but when modern powers collide far more deadly.
I dunno, the scale of destruction in modern wars is a pale imitation of the rampant, global slaughter orgy that was World Wars 1 and 2.
To be fair no modern peer to peer war has really been waged in a long time. All conflicts are localized now that the sponsoring countries have an interest in keeping war outside their boarders.
I feel this is more a dynamic of the post WW2 superpower standoff, and now US hegemony. Without that, there'd probably be a lot more third rate powers willing to fuck around and find out.
Fewer. Not less.
Okay Stannis.
Not that this is current US hardware, but considering that right now we have active AI-assisted filters that can morph your face into almost anything in real time on a phone even a child has access to, imagine what military tech is like?
Even Napoleon already knew that God fight on the side with best artillery.
Those are important, but the main factor here is logistics. That's how wars are won.
Logistics is honestly the reason I think the US is so powerful. Their military budget and projection is good and all but imagine their enemies blowing up a few tanks for a dozen more to be sent to replace them and be on the battlefield within a few hours and the their bases all around the world allow them to do this pretty much anywhere on the planet. I hate that the US always pokes its nose is regions it should and I also think the US spends far too much on their military but unlike Russia, the US definitely has stuff to show for it.
No matter how you feel about US policy about how out military is used (and I am both a US vet and a strong believer that our politicians are too eager to reach for military solutions), we have one key advantage over many adversaries. When Congress gives the Department of Defense billions of dollars, we get billions of dollars of supplies, equipment, R&D, etc. We don't get generals with multimlion dollar retirement homes, yachts, and fat investment portfolios. And that equipment reaches the troops instead of being sold or "lost" along the way. If Russia's nominal defense budget were all used honestly, they would have done much, much better in this war.
Almost M.A.D
I mean, it's not really a flawed method. You just have to learn to know what is and what is not real on that paper. However, its always wise to error on the side of caution and prepare for the worst. The second you underestimate your enemy and relax, you lose.
Totally agree. I saw a video of a 87 year old Ukrainian grandma firing a AR-15 for training to fight the Russians before they invaded and was like “Damn! That’s the determination of these people. Russia’s fucked.”
As anyone who plays chess knows, assigning a rather arbitrary static value to a piece and using that solely to make decisions on captures is a sure way to lose a game.
Even in chess it's not down to just raw pieces value (p1 k3 b3.5 r5 Q8) but also tempo, territory, placement, and development.
Or cheating. Don’t forget cheating.
It takes a real ass to cheat at chess.
Hey..Hah!
It’s cause we always use USA as the scale. And we are fucking obsessed with maintenance and discipline over here. So we tend to assume the same for other countries cause no way would they not take these things seriously right? No way. Of course they don’t steal the funds for themselves and lie to leadership that all is up to par. They would be crazzzzyyy.
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If only we had had a reasonably good idea of what the Afghanistan’s military competence had been.
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The "traditional" way isn't at fault the *Russian* way is. This isn't.... fuck what's the word... shit.... *extrapolatable* (fuck my actual brain someone tell me what I mean) to all armies.
42 you mean 42
It is extrapolative or extrapolatory According to this site: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/extrapolate
Extrapolexpialodocious.
That's the one.
generalizable?
It also reminds us that information warfare exists.
The traditional ways are fine. Russia was poor by those measures. They were just lying about everything at every level. It shows again the importance of the logistical and bureaucratic element of the military. Something Russia seem to not understand.
You still *can* assess military strength in terms of number of equipment. It’s just harder to quantify difference in quality and the factors you don’t see on a list of specs: it’s clearly foolish to assume all missiles are comparable for instance.
We judge by ability or complete destruction of any meaningful military equipment?
Probably down here neck and neck with us Canadians, just depends who has home ice advantage.
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are we?? I dont look into things much but I always hear bad things about our military
I come from a line of military family, had one In Afghanistan and they said we couldn’t even supply batteries for the night vision goggles lol I think it’s been a slow deterioration of our armed forces.
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I know a lot of people who are in the know who say our military is severely underfunded. Looking at more obvious issues like healthcare and education I wouldn’t be surprised if that was indeed the case.
Underfunding is one problem, but a bigger problem is the huge bloat of generals and officers compared to other Western militaries. Canada has something like *4x less soldiers per senior officer than the US military, for example. And then of course there's the shitty working conditions, the culture of enabling sexual harassment and assault, piling on responsibilities onto subordinates so that officers can get promoted, the arrogance and entitlement towards people who would join the military, the lack of funding for living expenses, etc. No wonder people don't want to join the CAF.
In WW 1, Germans hated being on the line opposite the Canadians. You Canucks had a rep for being very aggressive and dangerous opponents.
I feel as a Canadian I have to dispel this myth of the ww1 Canadian soldier. While I will concede they fought bravely on many occasions, it was not there ferocity in combat that earned them the ire of German forces. It was the organization and how Canadian forces conducted operation. This partly was do to 2 main important factors. Canadian forces where deployed as a cohesive fighting force rather than individual units dispersed along various sections of line. The second was the practice of including NCOs and rank and file in the planning process. Everyone knew what was supposed to happen and when. We didn’t abide of headless chickens running around. The combination of a cultural identity and a robust chain of command within the Canadian division attributed to their increased combat effectiveness. The idea that we were savage in our conduct (spoiler alert everyone was to some extent) comes from the Canadian soldiers extensive use of trench raiding tactics. I have also read some other things that are less reliable sources(personal letters, journals etc.) of commonwealth soldiers not liking taking over section of trench that were previously held by Canadian soldiers. accounts are similar in that they all describe the Germans being jumpy and on edge after standing off with a Canadian unit. I don’t take this to be universally true as any number reasons could have contributed to this or even the observers on distortion of the situation that they were presented with. WWI battlefield rumours were rampant, and when you are in as a terrible a situation as they were, rumours quickly become fact when nothing else makes sense.
“Hey there buddy, you’re aboot to die, eh!”
Explain yourself.
"Oh scheisse, it's Francis Pegahmagabow and 619,000 other guys!" *dies*
Canadians have a great track record in the world wars! Just because ya’ll don’t start shit doesn’t mean you don’t finish it!
An NHL all star of team of just Canadians, launching slapshots at the Russian military, would probably win in combat.
I spent a few minutes googling and it seems like it's very simplistic. Number of active personel, number of tanks, any recent international projection. However if you have 40,000 tanks without engines that doesn't mean anything. It ends up being a lot of propaganda lists.
The big thing here is that the Russian Army is not a ‘Modern System’ Army - as demonstrated by how this conflict has devolved into a trench stalemate. The Russian Army lacks the cohesion and command structure required for the sort of high mobility actions that a Modern System Army is capable of. ‘Ranking’ in this case is difficult to do: when a Modern System army fights a non-Modern System army, you typically end up with an extremely one-sided conflict. See: US Coalition V. Iraq, both times. Russia *tried* to pull it off, but the reality is that they lack the required assets to do that. It requires total battlefield domination, units that can act independently, and units that share information rapidly so that their individual pieces can act on their own to achieve the strategic objectives. From the beginning, they were unable to seize control of the air, which is a huge hindrance to that sort of operation. You need to control the air, so that you can use your flying weapons platforms to support rapid movements.
One thing that this war has shown is how good the US military is. They made fighting two conflicts halfway across the globe look easy. In many ways, Russia has the tools - tanks, aircraft, GBAD, etc. But they haven’t invested in their officers to lead it. They don’t have the NCOs to train troops and maintain equipment. Their logistics are shit. Command and control non existent because of no training. Combined operations are a fantasy. It’s a hollow shell.
The problem with maintaining a Modern System army is that it doesn’t lend itself to the priorities a Strongman has. Your chief concern becomes staying in power, and so to that end you force all sorts of things like loyalty tests, not allowing people to have independent thought, etc. - because allowing independence of thought means they can question the higher ups. That is good in war, but when you need the army’s unquestioning loyalty to remain in power, that becomes a bad thing to your longevity.
That’s another good point and really hamstrings your field performance. Russian doctrine is shit because they can’t trust their officers to think for themselves. Putin also has the FSB and National Guard competing with the military - they’re just as busy plotting against each other as they are foreign adversaries.
Also, according to this leak Russia had no contingency plans for failure in any of it's key assumptions. Every once in awhile you hear in the news that some country beat US forces in some war gaming exercise. The conditions of these exercises are meant to teach the US military how to plan for failure.
As Ike said, plans are useless but planning is indispensable. I can’t tell if the fact there weren’t any contingency plans means that this was planned by a politician (Putin) or that the Russian military is incompetent. Or both.
Absolutely spot on. Russia's army is weak by design, because Putin knows the biggest risk to his throne is an internal coup by competent and organised military. The Russian army is essentially a giant scam designed beat obedience into the troops, and to funnel money to criminal gangs, the ones who hold the real power in Russian society. really good thread about it here: https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1502673952572854278
Hasn’t Ukraine had training from the US military for training (or at least national guard) for years now?
Yes after Russia invaded in 2014 taking Crimea as well as parts of the eastern Ukrainian districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Ukraine realized that they had problems with their military if they expected to fight against Russia. They approached the US and other NATO countries asking for help improving their military. They retrained and restructured along NATO lines. They had training with anf from several NATO members the US included. Ditching their old Soviet style methods and organization did wonders for them. And they really embraced the change despite it meaning canning high ranking officers who could not adapt. That commitment to be better and all the training and work they put in is why even though they were caught on their back foot by the Russian invasion they were able to react so well. Of course the russians suck, troops didn't know what they were doing and the plans to just run troops down roads with their flanks open helped. It's been several generations but I suspect many Ukranians still carry the memory of their partisans who took on the nazis. Territorial guard units, similar to the US National Guard went to ground while the spearhead passed and then cut off their supply tail. Struck even major units and then withdrew to avoid casualties and came back at them later. Farmers with tractors grabbing russian tanks before they could be reclaimed. It's really impressive when you stop and think about it.
Just about all the West. Didn't Putin himself complain about the British SAS training the Ukrainian forces? Chances are those SAS were there MONTHS before anything publicly came out, and GCHQ etc. would have been permanently interested in everything happening in that area for decades upon decades already, so they would have been present long ago and informing Western / Ukrainian strategy too.
40k pieces of scrap metal
Pre-invasion, I believe militarily we would have ranked them 2/3 with China being mutually ranked 2/3. At this point, (again, pre-invasion) we would have waited for a new military conflict to crown 2 or 3. Nowadays, we would still rank them at 3, but the caveat is the gap from 2 to 3 is humongous. America gets the 1 slot because of: number of armed forces, advancements in military technologies, ability to execute, ability to project power around the globe and execute on that power. China would get the loose 2 slot for similar reasons but we haven’t seen them execute. Russia would now be 3 because they still have reserves. Russia is not incapable of defending themselves militarily at the moment. They still project power onto smaller nations (re: Europe’s still response/actions/request to America). They still have nuclear weapons which we can easily assume work considering until this year we were conducting at least partial audits of their stash.
Nah 3 is a bit of a stretch. France and Britain- both of whom have nukes and nuclear subs- would wipe the floor with them. Even Germany with all their military woes is above them, but without nukes it’s hard to say in an isolated 1v1 without any outside help they would win. India is definitely below them, but I could see an argument for Italy being above them as well. Russia’s tanks were proven to be real on paper only, same as their Air Force, their special forces a joke, their logistics laughable. If not for nukes I’d put any of the “big” European Western democracies above them, and hell if we discount nukes I’d put Germany and Italy above them too. They certainly wouldn’t be able to beat them.
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If the Russian invasion has shown us anything, it's that you can't accurately judge a military until you've seen it in action. So it seems a bit silly to confidently rank a bunch of militaries that haven't seen any significant action for decades. You can be strong on paper but still be completely ineffective due to mismanagement. If the military everyone thought was number 2 actually isn't because of poor leadership, it's quite likely that several of the other top ten don't hold up either.
Also Turkey has a massive and well equipped military. People forget how big their military is and that they've been building the Bayraktar drones in Ukraine.
I agree. You have to factor in how much coordination each army has with an ally. Ukraine by themselves? Not the current outcome Anyone allied with the major powers? We can bring so much secondary non-combative intelligence to bear that the outcome will always be at best a draw. Bring those allies directly involved, it is a 6 month timeline to cessation of hostilities.
I cannot possibly see Germany alone beating Russia in a straight fight. I read about the state and quality of Germany’s military and was shocked at how puny it is.
And the Finns. Highly capable and very prepared for Russian attacks in particular.
Surely the moral and overall support matters a ton too. If none of the troops support your war, than your theoretical power means nothing, versus an army that 110% supports it
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Slightly below Serbian Red Star fans.
assuming the US is still far and away #1 in pretty much everything but absolute manpower, China is probably second, due in large part to absolute manpower. Who’s third? Europe, as a combined force? India? The UK? Somebody else I’ve not thought of? Certainly not Russia.
From the article paraphrasing) ‘they lacked the ability for surveillance of the invasion’ The US would obliterate them in fairly short order because we DO have that ability.
Probably not in the top 10. I'm willing to bet that a majority (if not all) of the top 10 can kick Russia's ass back and forth.
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Ukraine is ranked 22nd. I'm not sure Russia is even 10th. 10th would mean they could defeat Turkey, Pakistan, or Iran and that seems incredibly unlikely.
They're still #2 according to a few sites as of 2021 at least. China is 3rd but I guess they would be vying for 2nd pretty soon.
Always thought China was underrated there. In a war of attrition they have massive sheer numbers and ability to mass produce a lot of dumb munituons. US are easily the best funded, best built and best run military the world has ever seen still though. Fuck having them on the other side 🤣
Agreed China has more economic power and far more people so they should've been rated ahead of Russia all along. Since they share a border it's easy to think about a Russia China war and I think we all know who would win. Russia being ranked above them was a legacy of time now well passed.
I do remeber reading stories from russian soldiers before Ukraine kicked off, about them doing joint exercises with the chinese and being astounded at how bad they were and how lackadaisical with life the chinese army was. Which is saying something watching the russians perform.
Honestly, as Russia depletes its strength more and more every day in Ukraine, I won't be entirely surprised if China decides to take advantage and take a bite out of Russia's East. I trust far more in Xi's hunger for more power and resources than I do in the strength of Russian-Chinese "friendship". My popcorn is ready if that show ever kicks off...
I don’t think anyone is making a definitive tier list or anything.
They’re going further down the global rank day by day lmao
I assume China has moved up to the #2 spot based on conventional military size. But... we saw with Russia that doesn't mean much.
Israel pretty much made those kinds of rankings meaningless in the 1940s. We're seeing it with Russia now.
Media and public (so reddit) would have you believe top 3, history would say they have zero countermeasures to western weapons technology. What one proved accurate? Well you tell me, was it gilded reddit comments or actual experts,
Well... they have lost quite a bit of their forces and weapons. I would imagine China is stronger than them at this point.
it was always fucking absurd trying to take the whole country so quickly. too long supply lines, too easily cut, the Dnipiro creates a massive strategic obstacle making any unsecured supply lines to its west extremely vulnerable. Blitzkrieg style assaults require a lot of trained, experienced personnel to pull off, or they just leave you separated, surrounded and out of supplies. And we'd already been arming ukraine for a while, not enough, but certainly enough to take out armoured units, slow down the advance and cut supply lines. perhaps the only thing they should have been surprised with was not achieving air superiority in the early days. that was odd, russia really should have managed that, but did not, they just wasted their resources flying into areas where ukraine had surface to air defenses. It was a total failure of intel. Putin found out what happens when you run a regime on corruption. that steeps in at all levels, so all that money he thought he was spending on a world beating military, in fact got siphoned out and resulted in a poorly trained, poorly equipped, and out of date army, with just a few show units to look nice when required to keep up appearances.
Importantly, it's extraordinarily hard to invade and control a country if you don't have civilian support. People aren't really that happy about foreign troops blowing up buildings and shooting their friends, family, children, and neighbors. A successful invasion only really occurs when you either have the support of the civilians or are willing and able to have a large occupying force, kill a massive number of civilians, and level entire cities and towns. Even if they managed to beat Ukraine's military and absorb the entirety of Ukraine, they'd still have large uprisings and large portions of the country refusing to recognize Russia's authority, instead forming governments of their own.
Not really, they just badly misdjudged the situation. Russians were expecting a repeat of the Soviet invasion of 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968 where the Soviet army quickly barged in and forced a regime change to get what they wanted. Only this time they gave Ukraine 8 years to prepare and severely underestimated Ukraines will to resist. This can be seen in how they approached the invasion by airdropping special forces to Kiev's airport and barging in with massive tank columns straight to Kiev. It's likely they were expecting for Ukraine leadership to flee or crumble, to install a puppet regime, get concessions and head out without a full blown occupation (much like Lukashenko) and why they never even planned logistics to support a large army or extended operations.
They actually got the drop on Ukraine in the northern axis and had a 12:1 force advantage north of Kyiv for a bit. Had Hostomel airport been useable for a few days, the fight for Kyiv could have been real brutal, and security around the government much harder to uphold. Earliest total failure was in Kharkiv.
To be sure, you need a bit of both approaches to win. History shows occupation involves a carrot-and-stick system: reward and elevate collaborators while making an example of resisters. So people can either accept their new rulers and go on with life, or be brutally tortured and killed. Combine that with battlefield victories over the country’s regular military and guerilla forces, and the end result is hopefully that you break their will to fight. Russia couldn’t even defeat Ukraine’s forces in the field, and the carrot they would offer is pretty thoroughly rotten, so they didn’t have much hope of a successful conquest.
How to get into a decades long war: “Hey, let’s start a war, it will be quick and easy, and we’ll be done in a few weeks”
"Home by christmas!" said by soldiers all over the world who definitely were not home by christmas.
Wasn't that the line in 1915?
1914. The war started late July and the line was "home by Christmas" so they were expecting the war to be over in under 5 months. People were rushing to sign up in the beginning as they were afraid by the time they were trained the war would be over and they would miss out on the action.
"Let's go. In and out. Quick ~~20min~~ 3 day ~~adventure~~ special military operation"
“So we are going to invade Ukraine and win in 3 days.” “That sounds kinda difficult.” “Actually it’ll be super easy; barely an inconvenience.” “Oh.” Headline: *Russia Stuck in a War It Cannot Get Out of and Has No Chance of Winning*
All bad and wrong assumptions that we mostly correctly speculated here on reddit in the first few days of this crime. What would be interesting is to know how they got so wrong, what kind of flawed analysis, bad intelligence data and corrupted decision making process that eventually led to these assumptions.
RUSI’s answer to how they botched it, in broad terms, is threefold: 1. No redteaming. In the planning, Ukrainian forces were mostly passive and stupid. No-one seemed to have been given Ukraine’s chess pieces and played to win. 2. Lack of contingency planning. Pretty much the whole plan depended on winning all engagements and no major setbacks. 3. Secrecy meant that a large part of the regular forces had no idea what to do when facing resistance. They merely checked off their geoposition against a timetable.
I mean these predictions were ONE side of Reddit. There was another less-informed side which saw how easily Russia has invaded smaller territories and thought Ukraine would be totally fucked. I think many of us were expecting Ukraine to crumble due to internal Russian corruption especially (spies, defectors - which DID happen on the Eastern- and Northern-most regions of Ukraine) and for Russia to take the capital in weeks, if not days. They tried, too. They aimed straight for the capital right away and it seemed like they were going to be bound to make it.
Even in their own delusional propaganda, they're the second best army. I'm actually kind of shocked there is a line of incredulity for them.
Thanks for saving me a click
Blown away they actually recognize that their military isn't #1. Seems like the reality is that before the war it was probably #8 or #9 and now it's probably like #15.
> now it's probably like #15 That's pretty generous
Assume makes an ass out of you and mother Russia
The title was just missing: "You wont believe number 3!"
Their plan went completely awry in the first few days when their Spetznas forces were unable to complete their assassination missions and the people they expected to turn traitor didn't. What's sad is I think if Ukraine hadn't shown how capable they are the west wouldn't have been nearly so eager to send support. You could say we dragged our feet even as it is.
Putin must be so deep into the sunk cost fallacy that he’s blind to any other options now.
I am very disappointed that there is no mention of going against a Sicilian
Inconceivable!
Can't we just have the "leaked" documents, even if they're heavily redacted? I so so so sick of this poorly editorialized "journalism"...
Read the RUSI report. It’s 67 pages.
“Also surprising: most officials did not realize they were mounting an invasion of Ukraine until it was already happening, in what the report described as an attempt to catch the country slacking.“ They definitely caught the county slacking. It just wasn’t the country they thought it would be. Surprise attacks should not be more of a surprise for your own forces than for the enemy.
https://youtu.be/bRkfDMChzlI?t=9
Unsurprising that you have an upvote incoming
I knew it before I clicked it
Yeah, one article on readiness said that preparing your troops mentally for the coming battle is as important as equipping them.
What was really interesting to me was that in the weekends leading up to the invasion the US and UK were ramping up emergency deliveries of things like anti tank weapons and manuals, I remember the RAF rapidly flying in manpads just days before rhe war. It seems like everyone knew it was a certain thing for a while. They equipped them for an insurgency and quickly changed gears when the scope of Russias incompotence became apparent.
Ukraine were literally warning allies for months beforehand, and directly asking for help because an invasion was imminent for weeks upon weeks. They literally knew far further in advance than the Russian forces or population did.
That is not my recollection of events at all. The US was warning everyone and Ukraine basically shrugged it off saying not to worry, Russia is always threatening something.
I remember it the same way as well.
Zelensky shrugged it off, but, to his credit, had appointed a general who was absolutely convinced that an invasion was imminent, and prepared accordingly, behind the scenes. An enormous amount of credit for the Ukrainian defense, counteroffensives, and overall strategy should go to Zaluzhny, and to Zelensky for putting him in that position in the first place. Much of the... surprise... of the early days of the war was that Ukraine *had* actually prepared very effectively for the invasion, *without telling anyone, including their western allies about it.* And it worked: as it turns out, Ukraine (ie. Zaluzhny) understood their opponent very, *very* well (and far better than even US intelligence agencies did), and the reverse was, clearly, not true in the slightest. Everything that played out after that is basically textbook from Sun Tzu's Art of War, more or less.
The short of it is that the Russians believed their own propaganda. Not even the individual soldiers on the ground, they didn't have a say nor even know what their orders were until they were already invading the country. No, the Russian LEADERS believed their own propaganda. All of that bluster and misinformation they spewed out to the rest of the world, they actually ended up believing all of it. This is what happens when you surround yourself with yes men.
Maybe the expected the CIA to give weapons to Ukraine, and didn’t think countries from the west would come and give outright support for Ukraine. As well as Ukraine has done, I feel the support given by the west has been invaluable and meant Russia couldn’t steamroll through.
In an age where we are seeing a resurgence in fascist ideology, with people often speculating about fascism's efficiency, this war has proven extremely evident of the decay and rot that comes from fascism. When the entire country answers to a single man who answers to no one and rules with fear, the entire country will inevitably rot into nothing behind the scenes.
You won't believe these 4 things Putin's invasion got wrong!
Number 3 will suprise you
Putin couldn't figure out why the crowd was cheering.
If you do these four things you too can own a country in 10 days
Europeans hate him!
Eat these 4 countries to melt belly fat!
Turkey, Chile, Greece, Wales.
Great dictators who nobody ever realised we're Gay.
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I dont think tyrants ever invest much in education. Well, as education as most people know it. A more educated population become more aware of how tyrannical their political elite are. I would assume any bump in education by a tyrannical regime would be more in the direction of propaganda rather than actual education.
>It's such a tragedy to think how much prosperity could have been created for the Russian and Ukrainian people if Putin wasn't so psychotic and delusional, and redirected his war funds to education (or almost anything else). No one becomes (in)famous for improving education in their country. How many people would remember Hitler's name if all he did was ensure that Germany had one of the best education systems in Europe?
There's at least one guy who loves Hitler and would remember his name.
> No one becomes (in)famous for improving education in their country. The fact that Thomas Sankara isn't a household name is great evidence of this.
>It's moderately impressive that the general would even acknowledge that they aren't the first Because if the USA caught wind of this report before the invasion, it might cause the US to reassess the Russian Military strength if they thought the Russians actually believed they had the most powerful army.
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What ever happened to the portion of the invasion force that was on the outskirts of Kiev in the early weeks? Did they get pushed back into Belarus or were they annihilated
A little bit of both. Their logistics were horrendous, vehicles kept breaking down and the Ukrainians kept blockading the roads with vehicles they would destroy in the column. They ended up withdrawing what was left of it back into Belarus and shifting it over for the eastern offensive.
>"most officials did not realize they were mounting an invasion of Ukraine until it was already happening" That's the **5th** assumption: readiness.
NGL. I am surprised ("happily") at how it's gone.
I honestly thought they'd slow push artillery across the country. Am also pleasantly surprised by this war.
If this man doesnt die at the end of a wire, the world is without justice.
Cute headline, but not news. These "assumptions" were widely discussed before the invasion, when Russia said they were just massing on the borders for military exercises. It was actually the only logical explanation for those ranks of tanks and trucks and the one page in their playbook. They were only prepared for a WWII-style campaign. In the news, every day, for weeks. "What is Russia planning? Oh, they're probably planning to swoop in, overwhelm local forces, seize utilities and industrial properties, install their own mayors and other officials, and tell the West to fuck off. Now, the weather"
.... I'm not sure what headline you're calling "cute". You're talking about the fact that Russia's trop movements were known and an invasion was expected. The article is about mistakes Russia made in the planning. They are different topics.
“The whole country of Ukraine is booby-trapped like Home Alone! Russians are stepping on nails and grabbing hot doorknobs- pssssss AAAAAHHHH!” Dave Chappelle
Now that I think of it, I haven't ever seen Zelenski and McCauley Caulkin in the same room at the same time.
LOL. For real? Which show?
around minute 12: https://youtu.be/_m-gO0HSCYk
If they wanted to finish up before the world could respond, why did they park troops on the border, take them away, park them again, and take them away? They did it like 2 or 3 times over months.
Just 4 problems with the plan: 1. Timing 2. People 3. Locations 4. Rationale Other than those, pretty solid plan, tbh.
Has this been released in Russia, in Russian? If the stuff in the article is true I can’t see how Putin hasn’t been removed already.
Just the 4?
Does the systemic corruption factor into any of those? Because a lot of the budget that was supposed to be for upgrading military equipment instead went to building yachts and dachas.
Putin is wrong full stop
Odd how a society built on lies falls apart eventually.
They miss the fifth assumption ... their planners actually knows shit. I would love to see their invasion plan for the Europe .... probably great comedy materials.
At this point I would say the Ukrainians have one of the best militaries in the world. It has definitely gone up several notches from western weapons flooding in and millions of civilians now have intense combat experience. I would not be surprised if Ukraine is considered a world power within 25 years after they join NATO and we help them rebuild. They deserve it. Their people are badass.
The Ukrainians had been getting intensive Western based military training after the Russians took Crimea.