# Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Tags:** ukraine-invasion, breaking-news
**Created:** [February 24, 2022, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037 "2022-02-24T08:30:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 107
### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2121 "2022-03-12T15:01:15Z")
You’d think someone named “[not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)” would anticipate disappointment. 😃
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### Author:  [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2122 "2022-03-12T15:19:33Z")
The chaotic invasion of Finland by the Soviets was in large part due to the great purge thousands of competent officers from the Russian army. Stalin was paranoid about threats to his authority and such purges terrorised Russian society. This conspicuous military weakness did not go unnoticed.
Now, why is the modern day Russian army is performing so badly? Putin exercises control by putting his old KGB friends in generals uniforms and they are not experts in the Combined Operations techniques required for a large scale invasion. Putin’s previous incursions were small scale.
That is not to take anything alway for the courage and tenacity if the Finns in the 1940s or the Ukrainians in 2022. They are defending home territory against a larger invading army. There are few more compelling reasons to take up arms than that. Conversely the Russian army relies on military discipline to urge its troops into battle. Propaganda works best on civilian populations and Putin has a well oiled machine. However frontline troops who come in contact with civilian populations rapidly discover that they have been told a pack of lies and are not keen on fighting Ukrainians who speak Russian and are from a very similar culture. They did not sign up to shoot grandma.
Fire and forget weapons like bombs, rockets and missiles. Russia has these in abundance. Taking cities by demolition and poison gas require hardened urban warfare troops. Hence the recruitment of the Syrians, Chechens and mercenaries turning Ukrainian cities into another Grozny or Aleppo. Whether they can muster enough committed troops for this kind of warfare with the huge losses involved is debatable. Ukraine is a big country and Russia has a large army, but it is not big enough.
Putin has started to purge the FSB, which indicates he thinks he is facing internal opposition at a senior level. The Russian army have had very poor military intelligence, whereas the Ukrainians seem to be very well informed.
The international reaction and the economic sanctions is progressing, Ukraine is getting help. But Putin knows how to manipulate the Russian population by controlling the media messages with propaganda. He knows what emotional strings to pull and Russians are famously patriotic. Their deep love of their country may, however, not extend to returning to the grim war economy that prevailed during Soviet times. It is not as if they had been prepared for this. Putin thought this invasion was going to be a walk over that could be done on the cheap.
This kind of thing has happened before.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2123 "2022-03-12T15:33:46Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#):
>
> I found this article to be interesting and I hope this person knows what they are talking about.
Francis Fukuyama has a reputation for poor predictions, to say the very least.
To be more specific, none of his claims here are supported by evidence.
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2124 "2022-03-12T15:35:14Z")
> [@Cervaise](#):
>
> He’s one of those ivory-tower intellectuals who are very skilled at saying dumb things in a superficially smart way {…}
Shit.
That’s like the only club in my bag.
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### Author:  [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2125 "2022-03-12T15:53:02Z")
There’s an unconfirmed report from the Ukrainian government that in addition to the FSB purge, Putin has fired 8 generals because of their failures in Ukraine and replaced them.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2126 "2022-03-12T15:54:13Z")
Russia announced yesterday they’re considering attacking convoys of supplies from Western nations to Ukraine. This didn’t get as much media play as you’d think, but is an alarming escalation. I’d assume they plan to restrict such attacks to when the supplies are physically in Ukraine, but you know how these things go.
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### Author:  [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2127 "2022-03-12T16:12:08Z")
It is curious that attacking supply lines from the West did not feature in the Russian invasion plan from the beginning.I guess they did not think Ukraine would be able to muster outside military aid in time.
It is much too late, huge shipments must already have been made and there are many alternative routes from the extensive western border and there will be air attack counter measures in place. Not least the Ukraine airforce and the various ‘eyes in the sky’ surveillance planes looking over the border.
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### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2128 "2022-03-12T16:14:11Z")
Lavrov suggested supply ships would be targets. Not sure if there’s too much of that (maybe only from Turkey?) but be definition that would be outside of Ukrainian territory. If that is a threat aimed at Turkey then it might force the Turks to send military aid the long way overland via Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova. Those Turkish drones are playing havoc with the Russian forces.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2129 "2022-03-12T16:16:45Z")
What naval assets does NATO currently have in the Black Sea?
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2130 "2022-03-12T16:28:39Z")
Probably just what the Turks have. But there’s a US carrier group floating about the eastern Med, currently in the Adriatic.
If the Russians decide they’re entitled to shoot at foreign-flagged ships in the Black Sea that would seem to be a major escalation to me and a good way to start a shooting war with NATO.
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### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2131 "2022-03-12T16:30:53Z")
Actually I’m not sure if Turkey are sending military aid anyway. They did send an aid convoy but that was via road.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2132 "2022-03-12T16:31:02Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Technically, nuclear reactors are built as giant bunkers, before even getting to the matter that your opponent doesn’t really want to shoot at them.
> […]
> Getting them out of there would require special operations for a small arms duke-out.
>
> Alternately, you spray the thing with napalm and burn the oxygen out - likely killing all the people inside who are keeping the thing running.
I’ll change this to smoking them out. Even if they have gas masks, eventually the filters will run out.
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### Author:  [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2133 "2022-03-12T16:40:31Z")
Turkey is a key supplier.
Ukraine got another shipment of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones recently to add to the 20 they already had.
> **[Ukraine receives more armed drones amid Russian invasion](https://www.navytimes.com/flashpoints/ukraine/2022/03/03/ukraine-receives-more-armed-drones-amid-russian-invasion/)**
>
> The country has secured fresh drones in order to continue striking Russian vehicles, according to Ukraine's defense minister.
Turkey also bought the Russian SA-400 air defense system from Russia.
Turkey is also part of NATO…kind of.
So there is a lot of hard bargaining going on in the background and President Erdogan’s phone will have been buzzing from all directions.
These drones get all the publicity, but a bigger factor may be the lack of an effective air defence to protect the Russian convoys.
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### Author:  [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2134 "2022-03-12T16:45:56Z")
> **[Russians shelled a mosque where 80 people were sheltering in Mariupol,...](https://www.npr.org/2022/03/12/1086271579/russians-shelled-a-mosque-where-80-people-were-sheltering-in-mariupol-ukraine-sa)**
>
> The Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey said that a group of 86 Turkish nationals, including 34 children, were among the people who had sought safety in the mosque.
Turkey is not going to happy about this.
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### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2135 "2022-03-12T16:46:02Z")
Thanks for that. Looks like they were flown to Poland rather than shipped. That makes sense I guess - it would take a while for a ship to make the journey and there’s no way of knowing if the destination port will be secure by the time it got there.
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### Author:  [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2136 "2022-03-12T17:14:25Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#):
>
> Russia already has pretty much of what it wants; the two breakaway republics, Crimea, and a strip of land connecting them in the south. I suspect one reason the Kyiv and other Northern/Western attacks have gone so relatively poorly is that the Russian Army put most of their more able troops into the Southern region that they most wanted and used conscripts on the other fronts, figuring that would be sufficient.
>
> If the Russians withdrew from Kyiv and the other areas but reinforced those Southern areas, it would put Ukraine in a bind; they wouldn’t have the destruction of their cities to point to and they would have to attack to get the Russians out, and the Rus have always been tough to root out of an area once they have it. Could eventually lead to a stalemate, Ukraine not recognizing the area as part of Russia but unable to do much of anything to pry them out of there–sanctions might do it, but they would have to be long-lasting and without cities burning and refugees everywhere, it would be harder and harder for the West to keep up the sanctions.
This brings up a thought - what if Russia did stop once they got the areas they wanted, plus deposing the current government and installing their preferred stooges\*? Trying to swallow the entirety of Ukraine and keep it under their control is going to give them severe indigestion, and the people of Ukraine are going to hate their guts no matter what happens. It would actually be easier, somewhat, for them to stop, declare ‘victory’ and pretend they are being magnanimous for not going further/claim they have successfully ‘denazified’ the country so mission accomplished.
\*Somewhere upthread someone posted a link to a series of Tweets that are supposedly the thoughts of a FSB analyst. It was said in that thread that the Russians are having a hard time finding a willing puppet to head a new Ukraine government. If it’s true that’s going to complicate things for them even more.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2137 "2022-03-12T17:32:30Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#):
>
> At a guess, it is a relic of WWII and specifically the Russo-Finnish War of 1940.
> [@filmstar-en](#):
>
> The chaotic invasion of Finland by the Soviets was in large part due to the great purge thousands of competent officers from the Russian army.
And it certainly wasn’t Soviet doctrine by 1945. The troops spearheading the final push into Germany were the high-end, veteran, well-equipped units. The undisciplined conscripts followed behind to mop up and occupy.
So I was just reading [this short analysis of Russian problems during the Russo-Georgian War of 2008](https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/russian-performance-in-the-russo-georgian-war-revisited/), written in 2018. It is eerily familiar and points out a lot of the flaws we are seeing today (which apparently still haven’t been sufficiently addressed, like it appears the aircraft IFF). In particular I found the description of the Russian ‘seat-of-the-pants’ philosophical approach to tactical planning, which can and has led to some serous breakdowns when optimistic outlooks go sideways, very illuminating.
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2138 "2022-03-12T18:12:47Z")
> [@Folacin](#):
>
> I can (just) imagine Putin giving Iran a nuclear weapon, but can in no way imagine Iran being stupid enough to use it on any US target.
One would hope that. But Iran is not controlled by a rational person. It’s controlled by a belief system and backed up by people who will do God’s bidding in a quest for martyrdom.
imagine giving Jim Jones a nuclear weapon and see how his “revolutionary suicide” plays out.
This not a discussion hill I want to die on. My point was that Germany allowed Hitler and the Nazi party to rise out of the financial penalties imposed on them from WW-I, the lesson learned was at the expense of millions and millions of people. A single man created that nightmare that started by gobbling up smaller nations as the world stood by and watched.
If you consider economic hardship as the engine driving WW-II consider how badly Russia is going to get crushed financially in the future. And now think about who controls Russia.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2139 "2022-03-12T18:18:18Z")
Russia looks as if they’re making a renewed push to the west of Kyiv. The capital is still at threat of being surrounded and cut off.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/2140 "2022-03-12T18:32:52Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> Here’s an excellent and balanced article from the Kyiv Independent about the current situation in the Kyiv area.
>
> It goes into detail and references reputable Western intelligence sources, such as the Institute for the Study of War in Washington and the British Defence Ministry, as well as other experts and think tanks, and of course Ukrainian sources.
>
> This is the best article I’ve seen about the current situation.
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#):
>
> I found this article to be interesting and I hope this person knows what they are talking about.
>
> [Preparing for Defeat](https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/preparing-for-defeat/)
>
> "I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications:
>
> 1. Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine.
great reads - both of them!
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