It’s probably more similar to Vietnam than the 1991 Gulf War.
The Russian military has a much different mindset than the U.S. military. First of all, there is the old Russian philosophy of “quantity has a quality all its own”. The Russians like to make everything in their military cheap and simple. One of the classic examples is the Soviet AK-47 vs. the U.S. M-16. The AK-47 is less accurate, but it’s much less expensive and much easier to produce. This strategy worked extremely well in WWII, where the classic example was the German Tiger tank vs. the Soviet T-34. The Tiger was by every measure a much better tank. It had a more powerful gun. It had more powerful armor. There are numerous stories (many exaggerated, but some actually true) of Soviet tank crews getting so frustrated that their tanks couldn’t defeat the Tigers that they would just ram full speed into the Tiger. The much simpler and more rugged T-34 would often survive the collision, and the Tiger would get knocked out. But here’s the important thing. The Tiger cost so much to make that the Germans couldn’t afford to have anywhere as many of them on the field. So the “inferior” T-34 tanks just rolled across the border in wave after wave and completely overwhelmed the Germans. We did the same thing with our Sherman tanks. They were even more outgunned than the Soviet T-34s, but we could produce 10 Shermans for the same amount of resources as 1 Tiger.
The U.S. has gotten away from that philosophy a bit, but the Russians have kept with it. I have read some of the opinions of military experts, and one thing that they have said about the Ukraine war is that a lot of people are now questioning whether the Russian/Soviet philosophy of using “almost as good” weapons actually works in modern warfare. This may have a huge impact on foreign arms sales, as countries may decide that buying cheaper Russian weapons is actually a waste of money if they can be so easily defeated by smaller numbers of better U.S. weapons.
Another thing that factors into the Ukraine war is the use of modern man-portable anti-aircraft systems. If the Russians had committed a month-long air campaign, they would have likely lost a lot of valuable aircraft. As it is, the Russians have lost quite a few aircraft to portable MANPADS systems. It’s easy to understand why the Russian Air Force is a bit reluctant to send in large numbers of aircraft.
A third thing that has come out of this is how corrupt the Russian military is, and how much this has had a negative impact on their fighting ability. Russian recruiters have long over-stated how many soldiers they have recruited so that they could skim off funds for these extra non-existent recruits. Tank builders have neglected to install proper reactive armor, so that they could pocket the money they saved from not bothering with it. Many tanks have been destroyed in the Ukraine because the reactive armor that should have stopped an incoming round was nothing but a hollowed-out shell with nothing inside of it (reactive armor works by having explosives inside the outer shell, so that when an incoming round strikes it sets off the explosives, which blows back against the incoming round and drastically reduces its effectiveness). Fuel for military vehicles and other vital logistical supplies were sold on the black market. The end result is fewer soldiers on the field, huge logistical issues, and ineffective weapons and armor. The Russians had a huge ego and thought that their mighty army was so strong that it wouldn’t make a difference. They also thought that they would be welcomed with open arms as “liberators”. They were wrong on both counts.
You also can’t discount Western training and support. The West, especially the U.S., has been supplying a lot of those deadly and effective MANPADS systems, along with drones and all sorts of arms. NATO has been training for a Soviet/Russian invasion for decades, and since most NATO members don’t have the huge military budgets like the U.S. they have been specifically training for how less well-armed militaries with smaller numbers can fight off a ground invasion by the Russians. The U.S. and NATO have trained Ukrainian commanders to use these techniques, and they have been very effective.
And finally, morale makes a huge difference. Russian soldiers really don’t want to be there, and don’t have a huge motivation to die for Putin. The Ukrainians on the other hand are literally fighting for the existence of their country. Russia has long had a policy of being more than willing to just throw men into battle. The U.S. by comparison is much less willing to sacrifice bodies for military victories. Vietnam became an extremely unpopular war when average Americans started seeing body bags on TV news every night. It’s difficult for a Russian soldier to stay motivated when he knows that Putin and all of the Russian generals really don’t care if he lives or dies, and are more than willing to sacrifice his life for a few miles of captured territory.
