Putin was undisputed dictator of a huge damn country, with probably hundreds of billions in personal wealth, and the support of every other billionaire in the country. They were all living undeserved lives of luxury at the expense of other Russians, but they have the other Russians so addled with propaganda that, even now, the people seem to still largely support him.
Why toss all that out over Ukraine? How damn weak must his ego be, that he would burn all that down just to make Ukraine say “Uncle”? No one, not even Putin, needed this war. Putin just wanted it, but I have no idea why. I know a lot of people have speculated that he wanted to recreate the Russian Empire, but come on, he had to know there was never a real chance at that. Is he really just that delusional? I never really bought into the “Putin = Crazy” argument until now, because up until now, most of his actions made sense, at least from the point of view of a violent dictator.
Russia couldn’t take Mariopol if the Ukraine Army wasn’t tied up defending Kiev. Putin knew he had to open a multi-front war to soften up the Ukraine defenses.
They never thought there would be any serious serious fighting at all. They thought they could just march in and take over with minimal resistance, and that most Ukrainians would simply accept it.
They had no subtle and devious war plan, and no plan B. They were just caught up in the situation and had to do the best they could.
Kyiv was their main objective. They intended to drive to the centre of Kyiv, overthrow the government with the help of pro-Russian supporters, and install their own puppet regime.
They have now realised that it’s not possible for them to take Kyiv, so they are focusing on scaled-down objectives.
Well, and that’s why I expected there to be a feint up north to distract Ukraine while they tried to run across Mariupol and link to Crimea. I was mightily surprised to see the large mass of force we saw up there. And like I said, even if they had played it smart and only tried to bite a small piece of Ukraine off, I didn’t think they had the personnel in place to really do that, either.
From what I can see/have heard-read/guess, they were figuring a ‘grand envelopment’, striking from the North and South to meet in the center and cut off all Ukrainian troops fighting in the Eastern half of the country and then roll up the Western half. Not a bad strategy…if you have large, very mobile forces with good logistics and a command structure that values movement and hitting hard and quick, it’s not a bad way to win a war; however, it appears the Russians of today have none of those attributes (Georgy Zhukov is rolling in his grave).
Also,
Not sure the Daily Mail is the best source for news; does someone have a more reputable source for this?
Of course the Russo-Finnish War of 1940 would be the prime example, and the Boer War in S. Africa did not start well for the British at all.
I seriously doubt that is going to happen. It would rally the Russian people like nothing else would and could give Putin the excuse to go nuclear. Stick with just kicking them out of Ukraine as an objective.
Of course, if a few operatives crossed the border and blew up some railroad tracks, well, things like that happen…
I don’t think Russia has additional assets that it can bring to the fight. They’ve expended what they have. There is ample evidence that the troops do not want to fight. There is ample evidence that they do not have food, fuel, and other supplies. There is ample evidence that the material they do have is in remarkably poor condition. There is ample evidence that they are losing their senior leadership (and no it is not so simple as to say “Next!” and promote some colonel to general). Additionally, the sanctions put a real-time limit on what they can do. Overall, this is not the position you would want to be in to win a war.
Pulling back across the border to resupply is not going to fundamentally change things. In some sense it is worse. It will be even harder to motivate people pulled out of (losing) combat to go back in. It is simply the fundamental nature of the psychology of fighting. I.e, once you put your head down (when under fire), it is very hard to put it back up because you feel momentarily safe.
I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll certainly be wrong again; however, I think it would take a very improbable event to changes things for Russia. I think it is clear that Russia (well Putin) has changed their war goals and is willing to settle for Crimea and independence for Eastern Ukraine (with Russian puppets).
To some extent the Soviets did get their act together in Finland after a bad start, but the main deciding factor was that they were able to substantially increase the number of troops and amount of military equipment they committed, and keep feeding in more and more even after they outnumbered the Finns three to one.
The British were defeated in the First Boer War. In the Second Boer War 20 years later, they had improved their tactics, but they eventually won simply by force of numbers and a harsh scorched earth policy.
“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions, because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth,” said the official told NBC News, citing declassified intelligence.
“Putin didn’t even know his military was using and losing conscripts in Ukraine, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president,” the official added.
Western officials told reporters on Tuesday Russian elites will likely blame each other for Russia’s “disastrous progress” in its war with Ukraine.
I think the US should do airstrikes on Russian forces with stealth aircraft, then publicly deny it. Russia would know and complain, but the US would say “you bombarded Chernihiv, hurrr hurrr hurrr”
