Still in the opinion that it's a dumb move to completely abandon hostomel-bucha area at the Northwest outskirts of Kiev...
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Ukrainian War Developments
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The whole campaign revealed that the "number 2 status" of the Russian military has been a big overstatement, primarily driven by Soviet-era reputation and nuclear weapons. The marketed new toys are very scarce, most of the equipment is old; military strategists utterly failed in their planning; most soldiers are undertrained.
The West miscalculated when they froze Russian assets and reserves though, this has made the Russian campaign more successful than it would be otherwise as many countries are now considering diversifying their holdings seeing that they could be appropriated at a whim. Plus they again proved that they are willing to go only so far with the sanctions - the EU has chickened out from imposing an energy embargo, which would be painful for both the EU and Russia. This means that their chest-beating about sanctioning and decoupling from China is doomed to failure.
The West miscalculated when they froze Russian assets and reserves though, this has made the Russian campaign more successful than it would be otherwise as many countries are now considering diversifying their holdings seeing that they could be appropriated at a whim. Plus they again proved that they are willing to go only so far with the sanctions - the EU has chickened out from imposing an energy embargo, which would be painful for both the EU and Russia. This means that their chest-beating about sanctioning and decoupling from China is doomed to failure.
It was difficult to sustain without significantly greater additional manpower and equipment and other resources accordingly. The Russians NEVER committed remotely enough personnel to the Kiev front to surround Kiev, let alone storm it. They were operating under the flawed, extremely hubristic assumption that the Ukrainians would give up with them just showing up around Kiev. Even the initial rush to Kiev was undertaken too quickly, with combat units going ahead well ahead of logistics and supplies, and leaving their rear unguarded and even logistics and supplies insufficiently guarded during the first week of the war. Hence their casualties there were very heavy at the time.
The Kiev Operation by the Russians will go down in history as one of the biggest blunders of the 21st century in terms of its calculations, preparations, and executions:
1) Assuming that the Ukrainians would give up as soon as the Russians showed up at Kiev - WRONG!
2) Manpower and materiel resources necessary for the objective - INSUFFICIENT!
3) Speed of the advance and necessary protective precautions - WAY TO FAST AND LARGELY ABSENT.
And 3) and 2) were predicated on 1). Having the attitude of 1) was because of extreme hubris. The Russians completely forgot their chastening of the 1st Chechen War, which made them extremely cautious and respectful in the 2nd Chechen War.
I differ. If the southeast coastline is taken and a landbridge is secured, Russia literally owns the blacksea as well as secures Russian speaking Ukrainians. If anyone was expecting occupation of whole Ukraine, that one was actually smoking, or virtualizing as someone might say. I am not talking about right or wrong here, just geopolitics.Recent events changed my take on this conflict. Russia is giving up on the real threats on Kiev (potential taking of the capital and black sea coast) which means it gave up on regime change (denazification as they call it), too, and they say they will only focus on donbass. In addition, now, Putin says Germany/EU has until April 15 for ruble payments (two week extension which I see as backtracking). So overall, very halfhearted approach both in Ukraine and in economic/political front. To put it crudely: You go all the way or you go home. Therefore, I see Russia as the loser of this war, now. Ukraine will be die hard anti-Russia country, Russia lost a lot men, and suffered economic losses. what will they get? *maybe* recognition of Crimea
Russia failed in the Kiev front because they assumed the Ukrainians would give up as soon as they showed up the gates of the Kiev, and accordingly they advanced to quickly, well ahead of logistics and supplies, and they did not dedicate enough manpower and materiel resources to it.
Had the Russians been much more cautious, even without increasing their dedication of personnel and material resources to it, they would still be in Northeast, even though more distant from Kiev, and would keep Kiev under check, making the Ukrainian constantly worry that there could be any major assault on Kiev at any time...
The failure of Kiev ultimately is down to their extremely hubristic assumptions of Kiev giving up as soon as the Russians showed up at their door step.
Wasn't the figure of Russia being 2nd Military Power before US came from Globalfirepower in which their methods of ranking is questionable at best?
And it's quite common for a large military having most or some of their troops as undertrained, it's usually because of the State only cares about the number, because Big Number = Intimidating, also considering the fact that Russian military expanditure is very miniscule compare to the Big 2 (China and US).
About the new toys, same can be argued with its military expanditure, and some of them has been used in the conflict currently (like T-80BVM, UGV, UCAV).
T-14 Armata main problem is the cost of its tech, Russia still producing it in smaller numbers and i think they will mass produce it when the technology within the tank is already affordable and much cheaper.
SU-57 Pak-Fa from what i can see is a dead project, some of it's specs had some problems and bugs, i think this is the reasoning behind the new SU-75, because SU-75 from what i can see was a simplified version of SU-57.
The amount of cruise missile they fired is way beyond anyone has done it and some of them are thousands of kms at pinpoint accuracy.
similar is very extensive use of attack choppers. so where is the Soviet-era crudness, unreliability of systems?
Israel is now giving work permit to all Israeli firms employees as fast possible. it will take some time for people to understand it.
By about 2011 or so people started questioning whether Russia really was militarily #2 during their first poor showing in the Georgian War and PLAAF coming out with the J-20. It tilted back to them in 2014 with their successes in Crimea/Syria and coming out with the Su-57, but then tilted back towards China in 2015 with the launch of 052D and 055. Since then it's been seen that China and Russia are roughly equal with their own strengths and weaknesses - Russia had more experience, better intel and better strategic forces, China had the better navy and space forces.
Now it is clear. Russia is at best #3, and closer to Japan, Germany or UK than to China. And more than their military reputation, their political games are called into even more question. They got a neighboring Slavic country's basic political stance ("do they hate Russia?" "do they actually like their government?") dead wrong...
Coastline, Eastern Ukraine would be ideal for Russia. Any more than that would be counterproductive
True, but the Kiev Operation was one huge bungled operation... Only by taking control of the Donbass and inflicting significant casualties on the Ukrainians, either forcing a major retreat, or destroying Ukrainian forces there, or/and preventing any meaningful reinforcements from reaching the Donbass Area can Russia recover much of its reputation. Russia is going to go all out with regards to Donbass. All out short of using nukes and WMDs... Demonstrating that it could have done the same in the North but didn't do so and that it will not repeat the mistakes of the Northern front...
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