That guy took that mine like a man like I've never seen before. Almost all of the time anyone steps on a personnel landmine and it blows off one or both his lower extremities or even legs up to the knees, they're bloodied and more importantly are screaming in pain and panic and freakout or, are in complete shock. This guy was trying to talk to someone on the radio and handing it to one of his comrades and was cool, calm and collected despite having just stepped on a mine! Incredible.
I always thought the Russians would easily wipe the Ukrainians off of their soil
Ukraine had no weapons
Their soldiers were poorly trained
They could hardly fend off the rebels in donesk
But they've put up a solid fight and the Russians have to fight for every inch of land
Kinda poor tactics from the Russian high command
No solid armour thrust anywhere on the front line
No intentions to break through and encircle the Ukrainians
This is very true. I think everyone, including the anti-Russian contingent are completely shocked and surprised at the performance of the Russians in this war. I think we were so accustomed to seeing all the Russian might that developed through the years post WWII, including their immense effort in defending Russia and then turning the tide against Nazi Germany while essentially defeating it first, before the Allies reached Berlin. While the Allies certainly share a large portion of the Nazi defeat, the Russians made their part of the conflict an unparalleled staple for their might and performance.
All that followed by the weapon's race between the Soviet Union and the United States including the near worldly disaster that was the Cuban Missile Crisis which still followed decades of mere level competition in power between the two countries until the fall of the Soviet Union.
I think that even with the collapse of communism in the USSR and its transformation into the Russian Federation and the result in stagnation in its economic & military industry, it still was able to eventually rebound and keep its standing as the 2nd most poweful superpower in the world. I don't think anyone denied that even with China's rise.
Then we're met with this strangely lacking performance, and I say lacking simply because it is so far off from our perception of Russia's military prowess. Even its scorched earth tactics that it used in Syria were still a display of its brutal power, regardless of its legalities, it still showcased its tremendous power and especially in the air.
So to see this performance in what Russia itself labels as only "a military operation" and not a full-fledged war, well, so wasn't their participation in Syria the same level. So why has it shown such underrated results in this case?
Even the fact that Ukraine was arguably the most essential republic of the former Soviet Union, with its economy and industry that flourished with its independence post-Soviet Union collapse and became one of Europe's most economically successful countries.
Even then, with all that success, it still used almost exclusively all Soviet and Russian equipment in its military. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm guessing that Soviet tactics and war strategies were also a large part of its methods which brings us to this perplexing status.
If all of this was so well-known to Russia, why has this "military operation" been a very difficult and very costly process for Russia? Is its military prowess actually false, overrated, or is its equipment the problem? Or was it a lack of a well-designed predetermined strategy that led to it just not have enough military discipline and training among all its branches to be able to conduct an effective, all-encompassing, well-planned & all-around well-executed, successful military campaign?
The first impression I got was that it didn't have a well-established combined arms protocol that it could base this and any other military conflict off of. It hadn't set up any formal, disciplined and well-planned strategy or training between land forces, air forces and navy. We see single units in huge open fields getting easily targeted by Ukrainian CMs and artillery or UCAvs. We see undisciplined strategies of taking the northern sector and getting shut down at Kyiv only to abandon that entire and essential target to focus on the east and south of Ukraine, primarily to create an all-out Russian land corridor to Crimea is my guess. This entire effort seems to lack that well-planned war effort of strategizing and prioritizing essential targets, fulfilling the required missions to achieve them and hold them.
Not to take anything away from the Ukrainians and the all-out worldly effort to assist & aid them against Russia (especially US material and the ever so important Intel,) but the lack of effectiveness in so many military engagements from the so-called 2nd superpower in the world is dumfounding.
Many might not like this, but they must look at this objectively regardless of who they're rooting for in this conflict and regardless of the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia. It still should've been able to crush the Ukrainian military and overwhelm the entire eastern front all the way to Kyiv in the north straight down to Crimea and do it exactly the way the US or NATO would've. After having performed extensive intel and organized a critical list of military (and even political) targets, being prepared in trained manpower, start the conflict with nothing but a month of pounding from the air with Tu-22s, Su-35s, Su-24s, etc. Drop tons of munitions on all acquired military targets (even past the critical Kyiv/Crimea line and into Ukraine proper) and soften the entire eastern portion of the Ukraine so that once that's completed, you then send in your land forces with the proper tactics in armored units and infantry. Plan their movements in organized patterns with specific lists of targets to take out and have a well-organized group of engineering battalions follow in cue to fix and setup critical aspects etc. and layout an effective, mobile air defense structure to protect those moving forces. Russia has the best mobile SAM systems in the world and to not have them placed well enough to completely obliterate a practically non-existent Ukrainian air force should be automatic. Instead, they were practically decapitated by Ukraine's use of UAVs and small amounts of Ukrainian air force sorties that boggles the mind.
The way they lost so many helicopters to MANPADs early through mid-part of the conflict is perfectly indicative of the lack of strategy I'm referring to. That's like such a no-brainer that we saw in Syria and several other recent conflicts that those losses should've been completely averted.
I could get into so much more of the technical aspects based on strictly my opinion, but the post is long already, and I don't want to bore you and others, but you get the gist of what I'm saying anyway.
As a huge fan of Russia but do not encourage or support the invasion of another country even though I do realize why Russia is doing this and, in some ways, understand the reason. Still, I would've rather seen a much more diplomatic resolution exhausted to its final limits first. But I'm sure that everyone who's following this war is either shocked or seriously disappointed at Russia's military strategy and overall performance in this conflict, regardless of what side you're on. There are no two ways about it.
So when you look at those conditions, Russia liberating the whole LPR and most of DPR in addition to big towns in the South such as Meriupol, Kherson, and others, clearly point to the overwhelming odds the Russians faced and their military superiority for gradually defeating Ukraine backed by NATO.
You make excellent points, Hassan. I still think that despite the sanctions, Russia was still in a formidable military position to perform much better than it has, especially in terms of strategy. The beginning and early part of the war did not look like a great military that did everything it needed to prepare for such a huge undertaking and it almost seems like a piece-meal effort. Figure it out as we go sort of thing and that's actually a very important element of war, having the ability to make critical decisions on the fly or when actions don't go as planned. But even to the layman, they didn't seem to start this conflict with a precise strategy to wipe out all or as much of Ukraine's critical military structures and soften its ability to fight before sending in their invasion forces.
I know this is sticky for many of the anti-US & pro-Russia fellas here, but just think what the US would've done if the roles were interchanged. Put the US in place of Russia and how do you suppose it would've handled the same exact thing? Anyone is welcome to answer that and I'm sure we would all agree on the same exact thing.
