Sir,
1. Why the Russian Military has underestimated the Ukraine resistance capability ?
2. From observation, it looks like the Russians don’t have any plans and training in combine warfare for build up areas, do you agree ? And if so why is that so ?
3. Why the Russians were not capable of gaining air superiority?
4. Why the Russians are underestimating and ignorant regarding the fluency of NATO weapons into Ukraine? Would the the Russians take steps against that ?
5. Did the Russians not calculated the ESINT help of NATO to Ukraine? Will they do something about that ?
6. Are this Russian units the “we’ll trained” forces ? Because sometimes ones get the impression It’s just a paper Tiger forces
7. My impression is that the Russians have ignored their logistical war planing, regarding the protection of supplies lines
8. Russian convoy movement looks something like a rag tag Army, without convoy movement discipline and protection
Does all the points which you have described in your analysis and which the layman can obeserve regarding the weaknesses of the Russian military and their misconceptions and miscalculation let us to the conclusion that the Russians Military was never an par in Quality with the NATO ?
Best regards
Thanks for your question. You don't need to call me sir unless you planned to enlist
Anyway, I try my best to answer your question.
1.) Now before I say anything, I am not going to pretend I know what's Russia is doing, I wasn't trained by the Russian, I was trained by the US, which follow NATO Doctrine. I did study how Russia or Soviet Union conduct war extensively, so I probably have some insight on their mind on operation.
Now, going back to your question, why Russia has underestimated Ukraine warfighting capability? Well, many different issue. The usual suspect is failure to collect relevant intelligence, failure to interpret said intelligence, over estimate their own combat capability, all the way down to general laziness.
However, I think (again, I don't know, so take it anyway as you will) the major reason why the Russian underperform is because they have to, the were tied by their own perspective. The Russia see this war as a liberation, which mean they cannot just went in with all the troop and swarm the entire country, that is evident that the Russian troop in Brest had not move to cut off Western Ukraine from Lviv to Odessa. Because once they did that, they will virtually cut off the entire country, no supplies could come in and out of Ukraine, people are stuck there. Which would create a humanitarian problem the Russian Public do not want. Which mean by that, they can't really deal with the issue head on.
The entire operational planning is to have Ukraine submit by separating military and civilian, but that planning is based on faulty intelligence, if you understand what I am talking about.
2.) Yes, I don't think Russia is trained on MOUT (Military Operation in Urban Terrain) also, they can't do what the usual Soviet Doctrine dictated on Ukraine. which is level the city and by-pass the city center, and starve the residence into submission. They can't really do that in Ukraine....
3.) I think the core problem is what I have been saying for a long time, both on PDF and elsewhere, the dependence on cruise and tactical missile. Notice that Russia seems to try to preserve the Airforce and not fly their plane as much as they uses missile. While you can destroy hard target but missile being a point to point attacking tool, the damage is limited. Which mean damage done to them can be repaired quickly. Take a look on this Satellite Photo of Chuhuiv Airbase (near Kharkiv) after missile strike on the 24th February
You can see the airport being hit and black smoke bellowing from the control tower or some sort of administration building area. But the airfield is largely intact, with proper Field Traffic Control, this airport is "Operational" until the runway is render useless or the airport itself is taken by the Russian (which I think they did, but don't quote me on that)
The over reliant on missile contribute to the effectiveness of air campaign. That is the reason why the Russian are having trouble taking Air Superiority. The only real way to do that is to fly 24/7 sorties all the way around Ukraine, but that will expose Russian fighter with SAM and other Anti-Air Asset.
4.) That I can't tell you. I can guess, probably the reason is that Russia brush aside the effectiveness of those NATO weapon being handed to Ukraine. Either they have not studied how we run into trouble with our Bradley and Abrams on Iraqi with RPG in tight corner, and now Ukrainian are doing the same to Russia using RPG, N-LAW and Javelin. Or they somehow think their tank are better defended against those handheld ATGM than the American Tank? That is probably the best answer I can tell you, as for why they do what I think they did? I honestly don't know, that depends on their military tradition, and as I said, I am not trained with it.
5.) I think they did, they have anticipated NATO help with intelligence front in general, using all available technology at their disposal, flying EMINT sorties, Using Satellite and anything from SIGINT to HUMINT. But there are pretty much nothing Russia can do to that directly because that would involve attacking NATO asset. The only thing Russia can do is to cut off communication between NATO and Ukraine, which is nearly impossible in this information age.
6.) As with any military, some unit are well train and some unit are not. In Russia case, there are draftee and professional soldier. Current intelligence suggest that 20% of those are national serviceman, which mean the quality of Russian troop are uneven. Depends on what Russia actually sent to Ukraine, quality can vary.
However, judging by numerous video leaked/released on purpose, I have a feeling that Russian soldier in theatre is not taking the war seriously. If you have seen a video about a Ukrainian in a car driven by a BMP that run out of fuel and he ask "If he can tow him back to Russia"? That exchange would not have happened if Russian are taking this seriously, I am not saying the soldier should have shoot the man, but I am saying they would have wave him off and not taking a friendly stance. That suggest the war we saw and the war Russian told to its soldier are two different thing.
7.) Yes, especially when they split the advance up into 3, that mean you have 3 logistical responsibility instead of one. General Westly Clark commented on a TV program today saying Russia is choosing the complicated way to invade Ukraine, his guess is that Russia want to finish this operation ASAP, but that mean you now have 3 logistic problem instead of 1. Also, traditional Soviet tactics uses a large armor column to sweep thru the area with overwhelming power, this would not do well unless Russia can catch up with their logistic operation. And that is an issue if they split their force in 3.
In my assessment, I said Day 7 would be D-Day on this war, because by then we will know how much Russia have prepared for in terms of logistic, by Day 7, the Russian should have exhausted what they brought with them, which will expose their logistic problem if they have any, because if they didn't prepare and cannot catch up, the whole operation will fall apart, and Ukraine can really win this thing, normally I would not think this is going to be that but seeing how Russian fight, I am not too sure now.
8.) Well, I think that goes back to my answer to question 6. They act like they are on peacekeeping mission (Which ironically is what Putin tell the world, maybe they did tell the troop that? I don't know) instead of an invasion. The convoy run without flank security and forward security in warzone would most likely be ambush or cut to piece. You don't run convoy like that or you will end up like what happened to Jessica Lynch (Her convoy was lost and ambushed and wipe out by Iraqi near Nasiriyah.
From my perspective, this does not live up to the Russian army hype. I think it's safe to say most Military Pundit like me or anyone else would expect a quick victory seeing how enormous different between the Armed Force of Russia and the Armed Force of Ukraine. But I don't see the advantage show in this war. I don't see effective communication, effective deployment of force or even appraisal of the entire situation.
Now that said, this operation is not going to be representing the true capability of Russia. As there are a lot of thing they can do and a lot of thing they cannot do. But all in all, I don't see at least in this war. Russia is as strong as they projected.
I hope I have answered your question in a satisfactory manner. If you have any other question, please feel free to ask.