I need a “how did Russia convince itself the optimal play was to try to win the war in Ukraine on a bargain-basement military budget” WTYP episode
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They probably could have occupied majority of the country successfully if they approached it as a war instead of expecting it to be like Czechoslovakia in 1968. They still would have lost over time, but not in such a humiliating way and they could have done a lot more genocide.
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Their army is designed around having a huge number of BTGs with a mix of professional soldiers and conscripts kept at low strength during peace time. It's meant to have a bunch of officers and few actual infantry troops. Meant to be filled in by fully mobilizing via conscription.
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Officially, Russia is only using professional volunteers including mercenaries. They aren't sending the conscripts and haven't mobilized. Due to corruption, some conscripts are being sent, and they forcefully mobilized Ukrainian population in occupied territory as cannon fodder.
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They approached start of the war by rushing a bunch of vehicles deep into Ukraine without support or proper logistics. Did you know the Russian army doesn't even use pallets, forklifts, etc? They hand load crates onto trains, and they can't properly maintain / use trucks at all.
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Ukraine has too much air defence for Russia's shitty air force to work which isn't trained / equipped for SEAD. They also wasted their best airborne / special forces troops on failed overly confident attacks like the Antonov Airport attack. Hubris, corruption, incompetence...
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Ukraine ran out of Soviet artillery ammunition while Russia has an essentially limitless supply but they can't get it to where it needs to go anymore. Entirely dependent on rail + massive depots + hand loading which was solidly fucked over by ~30 M270/HIMARS (US has >1k) + GMLRS.
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I think Ukraine will have recently considerably replenished their soviet supplies thanks to fleeing Russians 👍
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Ukraine got a ton of tanks, artillery, etc. but they're going to go through the artillery ammunition very quickly and run out again. They'll get far more equipment / ammunition from Kherson soon. Ukraine's artillery is increasingly NATO artillery because they can get ammo for it.
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Russian equipment is also mostly terrible. Russian MLRS means firing a whole bunch of ridiculously inaccurate unguided rockets over a large area. Manually reload each rocket for each volley. NATO MLRS means firing 6-12 GPS guided rockets with 5m precision. Reloaded as 1 pack.
Ukraine having ~30 HIMARS/MLRS is enough to completely fuck over Russia's command / logistics. US has literally hundreds, and US / NATO are heavily focused on their air forces, not artillery. Massive resources US put into future fight with Russia turns out to be extreme overkill.
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The positive side to the US putting such a ridiculous amount of money into the military is that they're essentially just throwing some scraps to Ukraine and it's enough for them to win. Aren't even giving them any tanks or planes at this point. Not even any old F-16s / A-10s yet.