Of course they did, and totally underestimated their corruption levels.
The current reasonable estimate is that 84% of the initial Russian war materiel has been expended, to gain what exactly? They canāt replace the most technical equipment, like the electronic warfare planes. Their wunderwaffen jet and tank seem to be a figment of their imagination.
They should have been able to march on Kyiv at will yet they immediately had vehicles being abandoned due to awful logistics, soldier training and woeful operational doctrine.
Compare this to the first gulf war to see how a superpower flexes their muscle
I was reading that theyāve been rounding up young people from gyms and shopping centres to go and fightā¦ The article made references to night clubs and raves and music festivals going onā¦ Some war.
Who is making these estimatesā¦the same clowns than planned the glorious counter offensive? The russians could flatten kiew tomorrow- theyāre producing 200k shells per month while the US and europe can muster 30k between them. Didnāt biden say as much when he resorted to cluster bombs and depleted uranium.
The middle east us a different situation- it was fine to indiscriminately bomb largely unarmed brown peopleā¦thereās no comparison between the two situations. Do you expect russia to bomb ethnic russians in odessa?
Oryx was the gold standard but it isnāt being updated anymore, there is no sure set of figures but itās not difficult to read reports of vehicle stores and examined unexploded ammunitions to see what they have in stock. Their entire primary attack helicopter fleet has been mangled, a small percentage are in various states of repairs and none seen in action for a couple of months now as an example.
They have loads of guns from 50 years ago, the ukies can shoot further and more accurately.
I thought there was a credible report about the US and EU carefully supplying only enough to maintain a standstill. The quality of the western supplied war materiel is high and everything has been maintained properly, are NK shells going to be as good when they donāt have CNC machines? Itās reasonable to say no
The vast majority of materiel supplied by the west was mothballed and they are happy to get it off the maintenance books, itās really costing very little in new money.
I just donāt buy it, the Russians were just incredibly inept in attack. Defending along the dniper and defending in general is a different kettle of fish and they are more competent in that form of battle.
The yanks could largely hit what they wanted back then with accurate munitions, the Russians definitely donāt have that capability and have shown no issue firing howitzers indiscriminately at cities, apartment blocks, hospitals ect
That would all be fine and well if the counter offensive didnāt fail miserably and the russians werent winning. The Ukrainian army was the largest and best equipped in europe. It had been trained and armed for a decade for the sole purpose of taking back crimea. Itās goneā¦within a year
And the idea that the russians are firing indiscriminately is nonsense. When the west pulls stunts like blowing up a pipeline or bridge the russians simply knock out the power supply in kievā¦the israelis killed more civilians in a month than the russians did in a year
Winning what? They have ground they canāt hold long term, great?
Raw numbers wise it was not a huge army with significant issues around funding.
You are very quick to skate over the quality of what was taking to the field at the outset.
Technologically the Russians had better gear in the late Soviet era, and thatās what it boils down to. The Ukrainians started off with old Soviet gear, increasingly they now have western gear that was designed to destroy that Soviet gear. The brain drain from Russia and the entire Soviet block is quite well documented and they just havenāt been able to make any strides forward. They also donāt have any semiconductor production and are scrambling for knockoff Chinese shite that may or may not work very well, this is why you see them banging their chests of number of guns, shells and artillery pieces.
They are firing indiscriminately partly due to worn gun barrels and an inability to be accurate to the same degree as well maintained artillery with consistent, functioning, powder and shells.
Winning a war for a large patch of eastern Ukraine that theyād have preffered to see either wholly or partly independent. And crimea. A strange sort of victory alright. But thereās no chance of Ukraine taking back any of that land, the only question is how much more will russia take.
Thats the hand they were dealtā¦and you should forget about all that abandoned tanks and fighting with shovels larkā¦thatās up there with biden proclaiming that russia has already lost
If the Russian army was as competent as the power brokers assumed it was then I can understand what their victory looked like with some extra beaches for the summer holidays and turmoil in Europe, do you really think the plan was for some war torn acres and half their irreplaceable naval assets sunk, conscription, further brain drain, an attempted coup and further scrutiny on Russian owned assets in the US and EU? Sounds like a worthwhile exercise to me alright
Chuckleā¦minsk i, minsk ii, request to the UN and the US pre invasion, peace talks in april '22. Ukrainian army lining up to invade the donbas and crimea, cluster bombs being dropped on donetsk, nato threatening to arm ukraine etc.
