I thought so too. But one surprising thing about military conflict is that it's easy to be stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lICRQPIduFc&ab_channel=Monte...

Even with overwhelming superiority during WW2, the US damn near lost their first attempt to invade Japan.

Ditto for Japan attacking Midway, and every other decisive battle.

It's unclear what Russia is even trying to achieve at this point. Supposedly they've only committed 1/3rd of their forces, which means they have about 100k troops in reserve. But the 50k they did commit seem to have achieved nothing. I was expecting a blackout (thanks to air bombardment), followed by a destruction of Ukraine's air force, then the fall of Kiev. Not one of those things happened.

It really makes you question whether Russia's reputation is well-earned.

The next few days will be crucial. Russia has only a few more chances to plan their next moves. If they continue failing, they'll be forced to withdraw when they run out of supplies. Which is to say, a Ukrainian victory doesn't seem to be impossible, and it doesn't seem to be the result of Russia not wanting to punch too hard.

They appear to have made the same mistake as Rumsfeld when invading Iraq, a similar sized country with a similar sized invading force - he tried to go light and immediate reinforcements were required. The difference is the country of Ukraine is better prepared, they have better resolve, and some better weapons, while the Russians have far lower equipment quality, morale, and training.

Nonetheless, there is an enormous logistical advantage of attacking a neighbor from three sides and not a country halfway around the world. Ukraine also has much more forgiving terrain for an attacker than Iraq.

Everything is up in the air, but I share your optimism that Ukraine could come out on top.

What you're missing here is the fog of war. When decisions are viewed through what information was available to the decision-makers, it paints a far more relatable picture. No one was stupid at Midway. Have a look at this long video going through the battle from the Japanese perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo

Edit: Nevermind. I am very wrong on this. What I understood to be a "quick" victory from my vague memory of history lessons was a month. I also never considered that Poland never surrendered but _lost_ the invasion. There was no surrender.

If Putin believes he had the means to capture Kyiv within a really short time AND he believes his own propaganda that Ukrainians are idiots and cowards and drug addicts and whatever then yeah. I do see how you could logically conclude that they would surrender quickly.

But Ukraine turned out to have an extremely strong leader, raising morale to levels far beyond Russia's. Turns out the folk is nationalistic, proud and doesn't want to take shit from Russia.

So many civilians in Kyiv are joining the fight because they want to and they have to.

Is that what Putin was expecting? I don't know.

Do want to note that on Dutch television a historian stated that he believes Russia believes they will have Kyiv captured before early March, since airports near the Ukrainian border have been closed until then. So while 3 days is long for Kyiv to hold out, the reality might be they'll have to hold out for at least 2 weeks before it starts really mattering in the eyes of Putin.

What are you talking about? The invasion lasted several weeks and had the support of the USSR. They quite literally destroyed the Polish army. In fact, Poland never officially surrendered.

This is the weird point to me. I had zero problem understanding why Afghanistan fell as quickly as did it. And that is with seeming IC warnings that Taliban had enough clout and American's sufficiently disliked.

It is hard for me to believe Russia did not have appropriate intelligence on nation's mood as a whole. And it seems like they either did or disregarded it.

Maybe there are other considerations at play that weigh harder than the risk. Then again, if Chechnya showed anything, it is that Russia can play long occupation and 'win'.

You can't compare Ukraine with Chechnya. Also Russian soldiers are much more hesitant to attack Ukrainians, the plan as I see it was to scare them to surrender, but Ukrainians weren't scared so what could follow might be a horror for humanity to behold if it continues for a long time because resentment builds up we might see some terrible atrocities of war.

I don't know what your understanding is of the invasion of Poland, but you should probably read up on it if you think it ended in an almost immediate surrender.

That's really the crux of the matter here. What is Russia's goal here? If you're operating on the assumption that they indeed want to capture the entire Ukraine, it then indeed looks like they aren't doing as well as a lot of people seem to have expected, thus far.

However, it's possible that Putin is using the Russo-Georgian-War (2008) playbook again which didn't aim to capture the entire country, with the goals of ultimately capturing only some of East Ukraine (Dombass in particular, and keeping Crimea) and forcing the remaining Ukraine in negotiations to become a "neutral" state located between Russia and NATO/EU. While again embarrassing the West and their military and diplomatic resolve as a cherry-on-top. That Russia has been hitting targets in the west of Ukraine might have been to destroy Ukrainian military's capabilities and capacities, in this scenario.

Even if it's the Georgian playbook again, I still think Putin might have grossly overplayed his hand there. The NATO and EU will likely not let go as easily this time, especially not because in particular Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states as NATO and EU members feel very threatened and expressed themselves as such.

This keeps coming up as if Ukraine's acceptance into NATO was imminent any day now. Realistically NATO membership Ukraine was decades away, if ever.

It's a convenient pretext pitched mainly by Russian media, which needed to frame the sense of urgency, but the real reason must be elsewhere.

I've no idea what Putin's motives are, but I don't think the fact that Ukraine joining Nato wasn't weeks away from happening prevents it from being as likely a reason as if it was that imminent.

Even though what Putin hated was not the risk of Ukraine joining NATO, but merely Ukraine saying it wanted to join NATO, on the Russian side, it might have been now or never for Putin.

Make no mistake. This is a seizure of Ukrainian land, sovereignty, resources and infrastructure.

But 30 days, with almost all of the world against it? It's way too long and someone else may get involved.

I simply cannot see a scenario where a 30+ day slog in Ukraine, with attrition and mounting casualties, has any positive outcome for Putin.

(I struggle to see any positive outcome for Putin anyway and cannot understand what his endgame is, to be honest. Even success at toppling Ukraine's government, if achieved at all, may prove to be short-lived)

It's one thing for Putin to get it done in a week or so. Even then, how does he plan to hold his puppet government in Kiev?

Also keep in mind that China is working towards this same "resolution" with Taiwan. It's in their interest for Russia to succeed here.

This applies to Russia in Ukraine as well. It's mostly flat plains, Russia has support from Belarus and is a direct neighbour itself.

An important caveat is that this is according to Russia.

Ukraine's version is quite different (it was Russia's attempt to lure Ukraine's top officials to Minsk, which is the only place where Russia is prepared to conduct the talks).

In any event, it seems pretty clear that there was no actual ceasefire yesterday or today.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russia-ukraine...

Judging by the many videos of interrogations of Russian POWs, many of them are just kids who barely know where they are, are unmotivated and poorly equipped. Hardly a professional and well-equipped army. There are also indications of logistical challenges (videos of Russian military vehicles running out of fuel, that sort of thing).

Drivers are supposed to track how far they have driven, but if its driven by multiple people and someone forgets to log distance or the vehicle is forced to idle for a long time the distance can be off.

Also a broken fuel gauge will not mark the vehicle as a casualty. Its not critical equipment as your supposed to be tracking fuel usage as a driver.

They constantly lose their mates, move in a line like they are on a parade, move without deployed AA.

This is beyond "unmotivated and poorly equipped", this is Africa/Middle East levels of incompetency.

There is something very, very fishy going there.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30478794

https://www.stopfake.org/en/strana-ua-or-strana-ru-how-a-san...

> This "evidently Ukrainian site" is a Kremlin propaganda outlet

I'm not going reasoning here about how propagandistic is stopfake itself, because, as I already said, if you only wanted, you could easily find some information about this s*ithole for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t05R_cPVjtU

but I ask you:

did you find any confirmation or refutation of my words?

is the current advisor of the president of Ukraine any pro russian?

if you really wanted to, you could easily find an article on the evidently Ukrainian site, stated that "Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Orestovich in a comment to the Country confirmed that Ukraine refused to negotiate with Russia." (thanks to google translate)

https://strana.today/news/379089-ukraina-otkazalas-ot-pereho...

In this time it is really easy to wash brains and make fake news, but if you make a little effort and use different sources, you can always find the truth, and I encourage everyone to do so, use Telegram public channels, contact people from the "other side", always double check mass media and don't be ignorant.

This "evidently Ukrainian site" is a Kremlin propaganda outlet:

https://www.stopfake.org/en/strana-ua-or-strana-ru-how-a-san...

For the past several months Russia’s stated efforts at diplomacy have been an utter farce, the saying “pissing on you and saying it’s rain” does not go far enough.

Now all of a sudden Russia says they paused for negotiations… “fool me once shame on you; fool me 100 times with the same ruse, I should stop taking drugs”

It seems that the Russians are having logistical issues. They are running out of gas. Not sure how but it seems like it.

We are hearing today about them sending in more armored divisions. These will re enforce the supply lines. But this is a really risky play. It is a double edge sword. Now that they send more in they need even more gas. And if they run out they suffer a larger loss. What good are 4,000 tanks without fuel? Suddenly your armored division are infantry divisions who are outgunned on foreign soil.

The less risky play would be to withdraw there armor pretty far back. But this means an extend war. Which they should lose do to basically endless international support to the Ukraine and their willingness to fight.

So the play would be to pull back and stick to claiming the small section of the separateness region they have capture so far. This is will happened when the last of the armored units cross the line to cover the retreat. Given Ukraine can last four more days and keep the supply lines broken.

This entire invasion is already a disaster. Russia still has an advantage but they're taking unnecessary losses already.

-------

No Ukrainian city is encircled yet either. Kyiv can't run out of food when it's still safe for supplies to come into the city.

Russia needs to establish the basics, and haven't even done that yet.

EDIT: it's been like 3 days. It's too soon to expect Russia's military to have a big success yet. Russia's superior weaponry should have a relatively easy time but... Russia is basically trying to perform 4 or 5 simultaneous 'Battle of Fallujah's here simultaneously.

Just going all in on major cities around the country simultaneously, where most people in those cities really hate Russians right now.

All signs point to this IMO. Russians have failed in that attempt this far, but it's only day 3.

Ukraine has been routing or killing a lot of airborne / paratroopers in and around Kyiv (Russian VDV units). Russia really is going for a quick victory, committing so many airborne units there.

I do realize that this is a Ukrainian propaganda, but their claims are incredible: https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1497643063...

7 aircraft shot down in a singular night, including 2x IL-76 MD just last night alone. Big, slow, 4-wing transport airplanes (carrying either 100+ paratroopers or heavy equipment to the front lines). These aren't drones they're shooting down, Ukrainians continue to threaten the logistical support Russia needs to feed the front lines.

We're no longer in "slightly higher cost" territory. We're in "Russians failed to disable Ukrainian's airforce and air-defenses... advanced _ANYWAY_ and are taking heavy losses" territory.

Yeah, Russia may win after this. But what's incredible... something completely unthinkable just a few days ago... is that the Ukrainians might actually win conventionally. Russia's failure to disable Ukrainian's air force is already a costly mistake, especially because Russia continues to advance despite being in a state of air-parity with the Ukrainians.

--------

I think the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv is in trouble however. But there's video proof of entire convoys being blown up (https://mobile.twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/149757339550817...) on their way to Kharkiv, definitely proving that the Ukrainian Air Force continues to fly.

The ensuing Western-supported insurgency, under the name of either Zelenskyy the hero or Zelenskyy the martyr? Quite a bit more doubtful.

I'm not an experienced armchair logisticians, but it seems like at this moment: Russia can't bring in supplies to the airfields; Ukraine has anti-tank weapons that I'd expect to work well against supply convoys; Ukraine has a motivated population resistant to the Russians.

Maybe the route from Belarus, through the Chernobyl exclusion zone is short enough to avoid interruptions. And if Russia can establish operations at an airstrip, that changes a lot. The route from the south seems disruptable because there's a single bridge chokepoint. (But maybe temporary bridges are viable, again, no logistics experience).

It does seem unlikely and I can't confirm specifics but someone posted on another thread that the Ukranians or their allies have apparently disabled all the train lines from Russia to the border to frustrate Russian logistics.

A bit far-fetched I admit, but thinking outside the box, perhaps those on the Russian side of the front line don't really fancy being involved in this ? In other words, "we need to make some noise because the boss is watching" but really the commitment isn't there.

Reason I say that is perhaps its an extension of what we saw on that infamous broadcast where Putin was seeking approval from his cabinet but some of them were struggling to find a way to disagree without actually saying it.

> It really makes you question whether Russia's reputation is well-earned.

But this is also a possibility of course.

Who knows. Its impossible to second-guess Putin.

I think that's definitely the case, Russians are very close to Ukrainians culturally and ethnically. They were on the same side on several wars.

I think this may explain why things are not going full on bloodthirsty kill-everything-that-moves yet... but just wait until coffins start piling up on the hangar. Seeing your mates being killed has a way to make you de-humanize and hate the other side, no matter who they are. That's how you end up with entire cities bombed to the ground in later stages of a war... I don't think any war starts that way, that's how it usually ends though.

Let's hope they'll find a way to stop this in time.

There's also a long history of people in wars not even firing their weapons covered in the book "On Killing". People generally don't want to needlessly kill other human beings and a big part of army training and tactics is to work around this basic human instinct e.g. making you fight to keep your small group of friends alive, rather than for the financial benefit of some oligarch hundreds of miles away in safety.

I wonder if that's the actual source of the purported necessary 3:1 attacker to defender ratio in an insurgency. You have three times as many people willing to kill to defend their home as to invade, so you need more people to get the same number of shooters.

Arrogance is one hell of a drug. It's entirely possible that Russia believed its own propaganda and thought they would be welcomed as liberators by the Ukrainian people. The US literally did the same thing in the war in Iraq.

With the number of lies the Russian state throws out on a daily basis I'm sure it's hard to keep things straight.

My conclusion was that “the Ukraine” refers to the geography and territory (it would read as The Borderland in East Slavic, between the steppe and the Carpathians) whereas Ukraine is the republic and nation that resides in the territory.

Since this war directly involves the population and the government, it is Ukraine the nation, not ‘the Ukraine’ the land.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Le_Vasseur_de_Beaupl... for details.

Russians are trying to downplay this and replace Oo at the beginning with Oh, to create Russian word Outskirt instead.

As you can guess, there is no definitive article "the" in Ukrainian language:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171014083357/http://www.ukrwee...

they took out 200 men with /200 helicopters/ to take over an airstrip

and 17 blokes on an island in a shed with a /warship/

'The Ukraine' used to be perfectly acceptable English.

It's a bit like Burma vs Myanmar.

The United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Bahamas, the Gambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and probably others) would like a word. :)

I will admit commonwealth countries are often "The Republic of The X". But that naming seems left over from when they were territories of the British Empire, where "the X" is referring to a subdivision of the empire.

> The Netherlands (Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdərlɑnt] (audio speaker)), informally Holland,[15][16] is a country located in Western Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands

Looks like it wasn't a clear political statement, and was instead an honest mistake. Let's not get too carried away with this, there's a very real conflict going on and I don't imagine the people being shelled and shot at are particularly concerned about the word "the" right now.

Ummm, I made no clear political statement, just a linguistic one. I am instinctively conservative, and deeply suspicious of folks who promote change for change's sake. Our language is a lovely, beautiful one and we have spent the last several decades abusing it.

And the only reason it ain't longer, is because if you go far enough back, it's different enough that we can't call it our language anymore.

Language evolves and political correctness is just one force amongst many, and not even a new one:

> "Rooster" was originally shorthand for "roosting bird," preferred by the Puritans to the double entendre of the more typical "cock."

From https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/...

These days saying rooster doesn't typical indicate any prude leanings by the speaker, even though that's how this change started.

> the Russians are not stupid

these 2 points have been on my mind unrelated to your argument. I do not think they're stupid which is why I can't help to figure out why they botched this up. The whole thing looks like an unhinged ego trip of a single ruler that has grown increasingly isolated (maybe because of the pandemic), like Stalins final days. But Putin isn't Stalin.

So either they failed on strategy, nobody was brave enough to question Gerasimov, or the bigger plan is yet to reveal itself. For now it's Occams razor I think.

Same here. Could the issue be morale? I heard isolated reports that the lower-rung soldiers appeared to have very low fighting morale, and apparently many had not believed that the invasion would actually go ahead. Allegedly, some hadn't been told they were actually doing an invasion.

What if this problem exists from the top down? It only takes a few disillusioned generals so they fail to deploy 70% of their forces, and the troops that do make it to the battlegrounds are not being properly coordinated. The only other reason I can think of besides internal sabotage is that they're worried about the optics of a too brutal assault, but then again they have not really worried about optics in the past.

My point is that Russians and Ukrainians people like each other: the problem is that Ukrainie does not have puppet like Lukashenko as a leader.

[1] https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1497485623225200640?s=2...

Ukraine is a pretty soft target and has great strategic value. After taking Crimea and installing favorable leaders in Belarus Russia was prepared to invade from all sides with no resistance (Which was probably planned years in advance). Europe is helplessly dependent on Russian gas, and won’t risk intervening. China is collaborating with them behind the scenes mitigating the West’s threats of sanctions.

From my perspective I see a highly intelligent, strategic set of decisions made over a long period of time. Unfortunately it seems most people seem to be ignorant to the facts and analyzing the situation emotionally.

I don't believe he's an idiot and I'm sure he knew that he could take the Ukraine without much resistance from the West. It comes with significant drawbacks, however - the EU might not cease trading completely, but the sanctions still hit the economy hard and their own stock market tanked. The war is also really expensive and quite unpopular, both inside Russia and on the global stage. Finland and Sweden will also most likely join the NATO now, which, while geographically not that important, still makes him a tad more surrounded. Lastly, a destroyed Ukraine full of people hating him is really not that useful.

It's a bit unexpected, but we also know now that the Ukraine is putting up quite fierce resistance and is not really a soft target. I was wrong about him invading at all, so my predictions about Russia might be wrong again, but I think invading was strategically a really bad move.