One thing to note from very early into the war is that Russian troops had special comms equipment – or, at least, special forces units did. Those were Russian-made and intended for encrypted...
Exemplary
<...> the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said.
One thing to note from very early into the war is that Russian troops had special comms equipment – or, at least, special forces units did. Those were Russian-made and intended for encrypted communication.
The problem was that it didn't fucking work. I don't remember what the issue was, but it'd forced them to switch to old radio comms or even fucking cell phones, exposing themselves to Ukrainians like an open book. The recordings of Russian soldiers calling home were heartwrenching to listen to: sometimes out of sheer tragedy of men dying without a cause, sometimes because some of the men were sadists, maniacs, and otherwise unhinged.
Even if Ukraine'd lost the war by May, they would've had hours and hours of recordings to share with the world, to expose who Russians really were behind the thin veneer of Soviet-grade "legitimacy" Putin's still trying to put on.
One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training.
This is a common thread in how the mobilization's been going on: anyone and everyone is recruited, conscripted, forced to "volunteer", or just plain grabbed and pushed towards the front. I've seen stories of men who are legally-blind being given "sniper" military specialization (overriding their initial, and probably nonexistent, specialty, because the military was told to supply, not to train up), paraplegics being sent summon notices, boy of 18 years being grabbed off the street and "mobilized"...
My sister still believes that only those with prior military experience are being mobilized. I don't have a heart to go into this conversation with her. Her husband is an IT worker, so likely to be firmly protected against the mobilization. If he weren't, there wouldn't be much she could do to keep him from being drafted, let alone to get him back from the frontlines.
<...> with Kalashnikov rifles from half a century ago and virtually nothing to eat <...>
Again, a common thread. Apparently there were regiments that were very well-equipped: modern Russian gear, well-kept modern weapons... Still, the stories of "mobiks" (those mobilized and sent to the front) sleeping in the cold – with no heaters or even wood to start a fire with – are hardly one and only. The massive push within the country to collect everything, from food to thermal visors to ammo to socks and underpants, proves that it's a systemic issue faced by far too many a newly-made soldier.
(There were claims that this incredible failing of the military complex is just propaganda of its own, and that we – those observing it from inside Russia – were falling victim to it. The fact that I see another "let's save up for our boys" push every day in my feed stands in direct opposition to that notion. Sure, the Russian army is not all a bunch of underequipped, underfed boys dying of hypothermia-related diseases, in-fighting, and too much drinking, but that's hardly a solid point of view here.)
Also: LOL, the logbook misspells "сделать" (the very first written word at the top, spelled more phonetically, "зделать"). This is also a thread: Russians being so dumbfounded by simple linguistic problems it sheds light on every one of their countrymen. For example: misspelling "сердце" ("heart", with a silent Д in the middle) as "серце" (imagine spelling "heart" as "hart") in something patriotic, like "my heart is with my country". Or, worse yet: accidentally inverting the Z on their own fucking APC, in the beginning of the war.
The Russian military, despite Western assumptions about its prowess, was severely compromised, gutted by years of theft.
It was an open secret that everyone everywhere profits from pocketing the money intended for military upgrades or even basic maintainance for vehicles, buildings, and equipment. Corruption, after all, is the core of the post-Soviet Russia, just like it was the core of its Soviet predecessor. Still, even I was shocked by just how deep the problem ran when Russia faced its first – and probably last – real fight.
A lot of noise was made about Ratnik-3: a next-gen set of Russian armor and equipment, equivalent in expectations to the Future Warrior program. (Minus the outcome, of course. "Ратник" is an antiquated word for "warrior".) Meanwhile, I've seen soldiers being given out Mosin rifles, from the last days of the fucking Russian empire, and PPSh, the famous Soviet SMG used in the Second World War.
Right now, you're lucky if they have a coat your size.
Many of his fighters are commanded by people who are not even part of the military, like his former bodyguard, the leader of Chechnya and a mercenary boss who has provided catering for Kremlin events.
To clarify: these are three different persons. (Oxford comma, where is you?) Not sure who the first one is. The second one is Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin-installed leader of the conquered Chechnya, for whom the Kadyrovites are named. The third one is Yevgeny Prigozhin, known by his nickname "Putin's chef", who's also the head of the infamous Wagner private military company. Wagner's long been suspected of having deep ties with the Russian government, despite being (on paper) a separate mercenary outfit (even though mercenary craft is prohibited in Russia), due to them acting in the interests of Russia in Africa and the Middle East and training at the Russian MoD facilities.
Though the Kremlin insisted an invasion was not on the table, some could tell otherwise.
I got my bell when I heard that Russians were stockpiling blood supplies at the border with Ukraine in February. When you start putting shit you need on the battlefield next to the battlefield, you're aiming for a fight.
Still, I didn't wanna believe it. I was worried, sure, but in retrospect, I had no real clarity as to what's about to happen.
Needless to say, it was a shock.
“This is a big burden for us,” Mr. Peskov said, depicting Russia as taking on all of NATO’s military might in Ukraine.
This is the current narrative: that Russia is at war with the entirety of NATO. This narrative exists as a way to justify Russia losing the war against the tiny country run by "satanist fascists" this badly. Lots of fist-shaking towards the West going on from the people with no power to do more than shake fists. "We should do a preventive strike towards the UK" was the most recent one, the goal being to prevent Britain from supplying arms to Ukraine.
Noise, all of it. Also lots of shock.
Some of the war’s original supporters are starting to reckon with the idea of defeat.
This starts seeing traction even among pro-Kremlin channels on e.g. Telegram. Excuse me while I'm enjoying this bit of schadenfreude.
I'm gonna stop the commentary here 'cause there's a lot to unpack. Might pick it up later if there's interest.
↑ continuing this wall of text First of all: I'd read through to the end after finishing to parent comment, and was glad to see many of the details from the comment confirmed down the article....
↑ continuing this wall of text
First of all: I'd read through to the end after finishing to parent comment, and was glad to see many of the details from the comment confirmed down the article.
One of the details of the early blunders I remember is that assault column of vehicles getting stuck in the mud a few dozen kilometers outside Kyiv. The large, stretching column got stuck for one or many of the possible reasons:
— lack of supplies (also apparent in other areas of Russian assault),
— mud (Kyiv was at 3°C on March 1, but apparently the winter had been mild enough not to see a lot of ground frozen solid at that stage),
— morale issues among Russian troops
and other, less-plausible options, like the column looking to set up a forward base (ultimately, it seems, proven wrong by the fact the column'd dispersed eventually). Ukrainian resistance and assault have also been cited as possible reasons for the stalling.
One thing I remember about the column is the loud shouting on Twitter about how it should just be bombed, because that would prove a decisive blow to the Russian supplies. However, a few of the commentators I'd been following suggested that instead, Ukraine should leave the column alone: it's already stuck, poses no threat, and can't attack anything while it's there; instead, Ukrainians should redirect forces to where it matters more – in other words, where frontlines are active.
Sure enough, soon, the column disappeared without a major military response from Ukraine, proving the few correct. (Although apparently, the UK military asssessment of Ukrainian firepower concluded that Ukraine did not have enough force to destroy the column, only ever potentially leaving a few localized hits.)
The mother of one young tank soldier on the unit’s roster told Russian media that her son was brought home in pieces, identified only by his DNA.
Deaths of Russian troops are not readily publicized in Russia. Initially, the Russian propaganda apparatus even denied ever losing a life in the war. Eventually, they had to concede that "a few thousand troops" lost their lives in the conflict... while even independent US/UK assessments were well above that.
However, it's not a well-oiled machine, and if you care enough, you can collect a figure closer to the truth by scouting regional media outlets and Telegram channels. Social networks in particular see en masse reports of soldiers from Region R returning home as "груз 200" ("cargo 200": military slang for KIA, or killed-in-action).
However, even that won't tell you the real numbers. Stories have been abound of Russians "cleaning up" dead bodies of their comrades in Ukraine: via mobile incinerators, but also (as recently seen in the Kherson oblast) via regular burn piles. "Нет тела – нет дела"; literally "no body – no case": you can't open up a file over someone who's effectively MIA, or missing-in-action. This means the government doesn't have to pay "exit subsidy" over a dead soldier to the family.
The money situation is particularly harsh for the Russian government. A lot of the earlier, pre-mobilization soldiers were lured into the fight with massive monthly payments: over 100k₽/mo., or using a basic post-Crimea exchange rate of 60₽/$, about $1.6k. Sometimes, the payments went as high as 200k₽/mo., or roughly $3.3k. This may not seem like a lot, but in Russia, this lets a provincial nobody from the middle of nowhere live like a king.
That looks like it's been honored.
However, Putin's also promised a single payment of about 197k₽ to the family of every mobilized soldier, which... was not honored in the least. Hell, the internal news outlets I read keep saying that even basic monthly provisions for a soldier (currently serving in the active military) are not being paid out. (About 30k₽, or $500. Again, not a lot, but that's rent for the month and some change for food.) The goal was to keep people in line by promising them heaven. Now, families are upset. Not enough to riot, perhaps, but anger is brewing.
But the Ukrainian government had a backup plan: a separate satellite communications system, which it had tested only two months before, to make sure it was ready in the event of a Russian invasion.
This is some Hollywood shit. Everybody would be moaning and bitching if I'd written something like that. "Oh yeah, right, they just happened to have a backup satellite network. Bitch, please!"
And yet here we motherfuckin' are.
“Some take only what they need, some take everything, from old nonfunctional phones to plasma TVs, computers, and expensive alcohol.”
And lingerie, and vibrators, and washing machines, and toilets, and microwaves, and bathtubs, and webcams, and...
“We found everything that we lacked so much, even sweets,” the soldier wrote. “Everyone rejoiced like children.”
If you read down the diary page right beneath that line... They started handing out looted sweets to the children, and the soldier says on the page: "It was very nice to hear words of gratitude from the people, even though we understand that this is, at least partially, our fault too".
They then camped out in a "partially" residential building. (Whether that is because it's also partially commercial or because it'd been bombed by artillery, it's impossible to say now.) "Took a shower [made] out of wet wipes. Found a radio, listened to what's happening in the world, listened to some music, and then went to bed".
A big part of me is furious with how careless and reckless all this is: looted a store, shoo'd out a bunch of Ukrainians (by pretending there are many more troops around), gave out stolen candy to children, "commandeered" someone's apartment... A different part of me thinks: to be a fly on the wall, to see this with my own eyes for a few moments at a time. This conflict is so outrageous, so painful, so wasteful, so foolish, that to really understand how bad things are, one'd need to be there and see for themselves.
It'd probably be extremely dissonant. One moment you're chatting with a guy about life, the next he's throwing a grenade at a bunch of civilians holed up in the basement, just for the kicks of it.
One Pentagon intelligence report said that Russian military drivers were poking holes in their gas tanks, disabling their own vehicles to avoid going into battle.
Just a reminder that that happened, back when we all thought Russian army was worth a damn.
Back then, Mr. Putin’s instincts mostly proved right. The Ukrainian military withdrew swiftly from Crimea — some soldiers and sailors switched sides to join Russia — and the West’s limited sanctions scarcely affected Russia’s economy, sealing Mr. Putin’s confidence.
My parents went to Crimea the summer after it'd been annexed. On return, knowing my position of "Crimea is Ukraine", my mother told me she was talking to the locals, and they were glad Russia took over.
It took me a while to come to the conclusion of "Well, yeah, you dumb bitch, like they're gonna tell a russo turisto they don't like the Russian rule forced upon them". ("Russo turisto" is that dumb fuck that always comes visiting from Russia: loud, obnoxious, doesn't speak the least bit of English, walks around like they own the place... You've seen the one.)
A former Putin confidant compared the dynamic to the radicalization spiral of a social media algorithm, feeding users content that provokes an emotional reaction.
While I have many questions in regards to quotes from Putin provided in this article, this bit does appear to hold water even without those.
My (admittedly incomplete, as is the rest of the world's at the moment) understanding is that Putin is ill – cancer, perhaps, which he got treatment for in April – which is what spurred the invasion: he seems his grip on life loosen, so he takes more and more radical steps to entrench himself in history, possibly genuinely engulfed by the idea of returning to the Soviet (or even Soviet-esque) past he so longed for.
Crimea made sense for him, politically: he got away with a lot up to this point, and so he pushed the limit once again. Like the article says, his instincts were proven right: he got away with it, all in all. (Though I wouldn't say the sanctions made no difference. Imported electronics – that is, most of electronics above $10 – went up in price overnight.)
Ukraine as a whole, though? Seems like lunacy unless you subscribe to the idea of a duped FSB and, by extenstion, a duped Putin. Even then, you'd think this makes no sense: what if the country doesn't want to give up willingly? Well, Crimea did: the article mentions the Ukrainian army retreating into continental Ukraine, while some switched sides for Russia.
There's also the fact that Putin appears to have surrounded himself with yes-men who dare not speak the truth lest they anger the vozhd ("вождь", as in leader of a tribe, which is what the German word Führer means, too). If we are to believe this bit of intelligence to hold solid, it would appear that on paper, everything in Russia is fine, and Putin doesn't get to see everyone scrambling all the time behind the curtain. You'd think a control freak like Putin would have his hands on everything and would be able to see through it all, but I guess that's how dictators are eventually.
All of this suggests that Ukraine has pulled off the biggest political scam of the last century, and perhaps of all time. The invasion was inevitable, so the fact that they now have to fight Russia is irrelevant as far as calculating the weight of the outcome goes. What that did, however, is buy Ukraine enough time to regroup and mobilize at the very beginning of the war, potentially saving thousands of lives, by making Russians think they need not prepare for assault and can just waltz in.
I mentioned I think Putin's ill. You can see the signs here and there, no matter how much the bunker grandpa tries to hide it. Apparently, his swollen forehead on May 9 and before is a sign of taking corticosteroids. His walk is at times unsteady: when meeting Erdogan a few months ago, Putin had to be held by the taller Turkish president as they walked down the hall. Also, the infamous table death grip. There were also what appears to be IV marks on his right hand.
Or maybe he's just a 70-year-old who's finally glimpsed at the end of his days and has become very, very scared with leaving nothing of import before fizzling out.
From Christo Grozev, the lead Russia investigator with Bellingcat, back in March. But the whole thread is worth reading.
Russian troops had special comms equipment – or, at least, special forces units did. Those were Russian-made and intended for encrypted communication.
The problem was that it didn't fucking work. I don't remember what the issue was, but it'd forced them to switch to old radio comms or even fucking cell phones, exposing themselves to Ukrainians like an open book.
From Christo Grozev, the lead Russia investigator with Bellingcat, back in March.
The idiots tried to use the Era cryptophones in Kharkiv, after destroying many 3g cell towers and also replacing others with stingrays. Era needs 3g/4g to communicate.
The Russian army is equipped with secure phones that can't work in areas where the Russian army operates.
The overall sentiment seems to be that Russian military is more incompetent than expected. Do you suppose this is general across the board or are certain branches still more or less capable than...
The overall sentiment seems to be that Russian military is more incompetent than expected. Do you suppose this is general across the board or are certain branches still more or less capable than others?
I'm by no means an expert on the Russian military, or military in general. I just follow the news of the war, which often includes examples of extremely-poor performance by the Russian armed...
I'm by no means an expert on the Russian military, or military in general. I just follow the news of the war, which often includes examples of extremely-poor performance by the Russian armed forces. So, I don't feel like I have the insight to answer this question with the depth it deserves.
What limited insight I do have into the matter tells me that most of the general armed forces (excluding special forces and independent units like Wagner and other PMCs) have proven themselves to be at the very least underprepared.
I stopped commenting well before the part where the article goes into how the soldiers were expected to march across Kyiv as liberators celebrated by the Ukrainian people. As such, they were told to pack just a little over a dress uniform: something to change into once they inevitably got the laurels they deserved after defeating the neo-Nazi regime led by Zelenskyy. No extra food, no water, no dry/warm gear (it was still the end of winter when the war started, remember), no additional ammo... Those Russian troops coming from Belarus (which would make it so much closer to Kyiv) were genuinely expected to parade soon after entering the capital's limits.
Part of it comes off as a devastating lack of informedness. I wonder why the article doesn't cover this part: the idea was that Ukrainian "collaborators" fed the FSB bullshit for months, got paid millions to set up grounds for a coup (to oust Zelenskyy and those loyal to him from the government, and to set up a puppet state afterwards), and then just fuckin' left with the money. The FSB'd genuinely thought everything was ready for that liberation parade in Kyiv, which is what they told Putin.
But the article does mention how many a regiment were caught off-guard by the sudden shift towards the war... sorry, the special military operation. I remember reading of a few divisions straight-up giving themselves up to the Ukrainians – their reasoning being "we didn't know we're going into the war, and we don't want to fight a brotherly nation" – and many more abandoning their vehicles and gear and deserting or going back. (The "we didn't know" part is interesting because I've seen documents confirming the soldiers, or at least some of them, were required to sign off on going into a military action in a foreign country before the invasion. This is similar to how conscripts – not active military personnel – were forced to sign papers of early leave from their regular conscription, which did immediately make them active military personnel, thus confining them to service in Ukraine.)
Beyond that... Like I said: corruption in the Russian military is no hidden matter. Everybody who's ever served cracks jokes about it. It was so obvious, it made its way (though hardly in a lashing manner) into a very-popular fiction TV show about conscript life, "Солдаты" ("Soldiers"). So if, say, Russian infantry shows itself to be inept on the battlefield, I'd expect tanks and aircraft and artillery to follow suit.
While I do hear news of special forces being wiped out here and there in Ukraine, it's comparatively rare – rarer still now, months after mobilization'd started. (As you can imagine, most of those being wiped out now are "mobiks", i.e. the recently-mobilized sent into the meat grinder.) So while it's clear Russian armed forces are generally incompetent, I'd follow that immediately by saying there are pockets of expertise here and there, though even those suffer from inept leadership and stiff, inflexible command structure requiring orders going up and down the chain of command before execution.
All of that, followed by the reminder that I'm no military expert. There are probably better people to ask this question. My best guess would be looking into Twitter lists and threads reporting on the war, and filtering for those who report on battlefield conditions of the Russian side. I've seen a couple, though none spring to mind immediately. If I remember one or a few, I'll let you know.
This is a huge article, composed of many different investigations and sources of information; one of the best overviews I’ve seen so far, hence the post outside of the weekly megathread.
A Times investigation based on interviews, intercepts, documents and secret battle plans shows how a “walk in the park” became a catastrophe for Russia.
This is a huge article, composed of many different investigations and sources of information; one of the best overviews I’ve seen so far, hence the post outside of the weekly megathread.
President Vladimir V. Putin’s war was never supposed to be like this. When the head of the C.I.A. traveled to Moscow last year to warn against invading Ukraine, he found a supremely confident Kremlin, with Mr. Putin’s national security adviser boasting that Russia’s cutting-edge armed forces were strong enough to stand up even to the Americans.
Russian invasion plans, obtained by The New York Times, show that the military expected to sprint hundreds of miles across Ukraine and triumph within days. Officers were told to pack their dress uniforms and medals in anticipation of military parades in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
But instead of that resounding victory, with tens of thousands of his troops killed and parts of his army in shambles after nearly 10 months of war, Mr. Putin faces something else entirely: his nation’s greatest human and strategic calamity since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
One thing to note from very early into the war is that Russian troops had special comms equipment – or, at least, special forces units did. Those were Russian-made and intended for encrypted communication.
The problem was that it didn't fucking work. I don't remember what the issue was, but it'd forced them to switch to old radio comms or even fucking cell phones, exposing themselves to Ukrainians like an open book. The recordings of Russian soldiers calling home were heartwrenching to listen to: sometimes out of sheer tragedy of men dying without a cause, sometimes because some of the men were sadists, maniacs, and otherwise unhinged.
Even if Ukraine'd lost the war by May, they would've had hours and hours of recordings to share with the world, to expose who Russians really were behind the thin veneer of Soviet-grade "legitimacy" Putin's still trying to put on.
This is a common thread in how the mobilization's been going on: anyone and everyone is recruited, conscripted, forced to "volunteer", or just plain grabbed and pushed towards the front. I've seen stories of men who are legally-blind being given "sniper" military specialization (overriding their initial, and probably nonexistent, specialty, because the military was told to supply, not to train up), paraplegics being sent summon notices, boy of 18 years being grabbed off the street and "mobilized"...
My sister still believes that only those with prior military experience are being mobilized. I don't have a heart to go into this conversation with her. Her husband is an IT worker, so likely to be firmly protected against the mobilization. If he weren't, there wouldn't be much she could do to keep him from being drafted, let alone to get him back from the frontlines.
Again, a common thread. Apparently there were regiments that were very well-equipped: modern Russian gear, well-kept modern weapons... Still, the stories of "mobiks" (those mobilized and sent to the front) sleeping in the cold – with no heaters or even wood to start a fire with – are hardly one and only. The massive push within the country to collect everything, from food to thermal visors to ammo to socks and underpants, proves that it's a systemic issue faced by far too many a newly-made soldier.
(There were claims that this incredible failing of the military complex is just propaganda of its own, and that we – those observing it from inside Russia – were falling victim to it. The fact that I see another "let's save up for our boys" push every day in my feed stands in direct opposition to that notion. Sure, the Russian army is not all a bunch of underequipped, underfed boys dying of hypothermia-related diseases, in-fighting, and too much drinking, but that's hardly a solid point of view here.)
Also: LOL, the logbook misspells "сделать" (the very first written word at the top, spelled more phonetically, "зделать"). This is also a thread: Russians being so dumbfounded by simple linguistic problems it sheds light on every one of their countrymen. For example: misspelling "сердце" ("heart", with a silent Д in the middle) as "серце" (imagine spelling "heart" as "hart") in something patriotic, like "my heart is with my country". Or, worse yet: accidentally inverting the Z on their own fucking APC, in the beginning of the war.
It was an open secret that everyone everywhere profits from pocketing the money intended for military upgrades or even basic maintainance for vehicles, buildings, and equipment. Corruption, after all, is the core of the post-Soviet Russia, just like it was the core of its Soviet predecessor. Still, even I was shocked by just how deep the problem ran when Russia faced its first – and probably last – real fight.
A lot of noise was made about Ratnik-3: a next-gen set of Russian armor and equipment, equivalent in expectations to the Future Warrior program. (Minus the outcome, of course. "Ратник" is an antiquated word for "warrior".) Meanwhile, I've seen soldiers being given out Mosin rifles, from the last days of the fucking Russian empire, and PPSh, the famous Soviet SMG used in the Second World War.
Right now, you're lucky if they have a coat your size.
To clarify: these are three different persons. (Oxford comma, where is you?) Not sure who the first one is. The second one is Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin-installed leader of the conquered Chechnya, for whom the Kadyrovites are named. The third one is Yevgeny Prigozhin, known by his nickname "Putin's chef", who's also the head of the infamous Wagner private military company. Wagner's long been suspected of having deep ties with the Russian government, despite being (on paper) a separate mercenary outfit (even though mercenary craft is prohibited in Russia), due to them acting in the interests of Russia in Africa and the Middle East and training at the Russian MoD facilities.
I got my bell when I heard that Russians were stockpiling blood supplies at the border with Ukraine in February. When you start putting shit you need on the battlefield next to the battlefield, you're aiming for a fight.
Still, I didn't wanna believe it. I was worried, sure, but in retrospect, I had no real clarity as to what's about to happen.
Needless to say, it was a shock.
This is the current narrative: that Russia is at war with the entirety of NATO. This narrative exists as a way to justify Russia losing the war against the tiny country run by "satanist fascists" this badly. Lots of fist-shaking towards the West going on from the people with no power to do more than shake fists. "We should do a preventive strike towards the UK" was the most recent one, the goal being to prevent Britain from supplying arms to Ukraine.
Noise, all of it. Also lots of shock.
This starts seeing traction even among pro-Kremlin channels on e.g. Telegram. Excuse me while I'm enjoying this bit of schadenfreude.
I'm gonna stop the commentary here 'cause there's a lot to unpack. Might pick it up later if there's interest.
Your perspective is invaluable, and I'm certainly interested in hearing more.
↑ continuing this wall of text
First of all: I'd read through to the end after finishing to parent comment, and was glad to see many of the details from the comment confirmed down the article.
Onto further commentary:
@MimicSquid @cmccabe
One of the details of the early blunders I remember is that assault column of vehicles getting stuck in the mud a few dozen kilometers outside Kyiv. The large, stretching column got stuck for one or many of the possible reasons:
— lack of supplies (also apparent in other areas of Russian assault),
— mud (Kyiv was at 3°C on March 1, but apparently the winter had been mild enough not to see a lot of ground frozen solid at that stage),
— morale issues among Russian troops
and other, less-plausible options, like the column looking to set up a forward base (ultimately, it seems, proven wrong by the fact the column'd dispersed eventually). Ukrainian resistance and assault have also been cited as possible reasons for the stalling.
One thing I remember about the column is the loud shouting on Twitter about how it should just be bombed, because that would prove a decisive blow to the Russian supplies. However, a few of the commentators I'd been following suggested that instead, Ukraine should leave the column alone: it's already stuck, poses no threat, and can't attack anything while it's there; instead, Ukrainians should redirect forces to where it matters more – in other words, where frontlines are active.
Sure enough, soon, the column disappeared without a major military response from Ukraine, proving the few correct. (Although apparently, the UK military asssessment of Ukrainian firepower concluded that Ukraine did not have enough force to destroy the column, only ever potentially leaving a few localized hits.)
Deaths of Russian troops are not readily publicized in Russia. Initially, the Russian propaganda apparatus even denied ever losing a life in the war. Eventually, they had to concede that "a few thousand troops" lost their lives in the conflict... while even independent US/UK assessments were well above that.
However, it's not a well-oiled machine, and if you care enough, you can collect a figure closer to the truth by scouting regional media outlets and Telegram channels. Social networks in particular see en masse reports of soldiers from Region R returning home as "груз 200" ("cargo 200": military slang for KIA, or killed-in-action).
However, even that won't tell you the real numbers. Stories have been abound of Russians "cleaning up" dead bodies of their comrades in Ukraine: via mobile incinerators, but also (as recently seen in the Kherson oblast) via regular burn piles. "Нет тела – нет дела"; literally "no body – no case": you can't open up a file over someone who's effectively MIA, or missing-in-action. This means the government doesn't have to pay "exit subsidy" over a dead soldier to the family.
The money situation is particularly harsh for the Russian government. A lot of the earlier, pre-mobilization soldiers were lured into the fight with massive monthly payments: over 100k₽/mo., or using a basic post-Crimea exchange rate of 60₽/$, about $1.6k. Sometimes, the payments went as high as 200k₽/mo., or roughly $3.3k. This may not seem like a lot, but in Russia, this lets a provincial nobody from the middle of nowhere live like a king.
That looks like it's been honored.
However, Putin's also promised a single payment of about 197k₽ to the family of every mobilized soldier, which... was not honored in the least. Hell, the internal news outlets I read keep saying that even basic monthly provisions for a soldier (currently serving in the active military) are not being paid out. (About 30k₽, or $500. Again, not a lot, but that's rent for the month and some change for food.) The goal was to keep people in line by promising them heaven. Now, families are upset. Not enough to riot, perhaps, but anger is brewing.
This is some Hollywood shit. Everybody would be moaning and bitching if I'd written something like that. "Oh yeah, right, they just happened to have a backup satellite network. Bitch, please!"
And yet here we motherfuckin' are.
And lingerie, and vibrators, and washing machines, and toilets, and microwaves, and bathtubs, and webcams, and...
If you read down the diary page right beneath that line... They started handing out looted sweets to the children, and the soldier says on the page: "It was very nice to hear words of gratitude from the people, even though we understand that this is, at least partially, our fault too".
They then camped out in a "partially" residential building. (Whether that is because it's also partially commercial or because it'd been bombed by artillery, it's impossible to say now.) "Took a shower [made] out of wet wipes. Found a radio, listened to what's happening in the world, listened to some music, and then went to bed".
A big part of me is furious with how careless and reckless all this is: looted a store, shoo'd out a bunch of Ukrainians (by pretending there are many more troops around), gave out stolen candy to children, "commandeered" someone's apartment... A different part of me thinks: to be a fly on the wall, to see this with my own eyes for a few moments at a time. This conflict is so outrageous, so painful, so wasteful, so foolish, that to really understand how bad things are, one'd need to be there and see for themselves.
It'd probably be extremely dissonant. One moment you're chatting with a guy about life, the next he's throwing a grenade at a bunch of civilians holed up in the basement, just for the kicks of it.
Just a reminder that that happened, back when we all thought Russian army was worth a damn.
My parents went to Crimea the summer after it'd been annexed. On return, knowing my position of "Crimea is Ukraine", my mother told me she was talking to the locals, and they were glad Russia took over.
It took me a while to come to the conclusion of "Well, yeah, you dumb bitch, like they're gonna tell a russo turisto they don't like the Russian rule forced upon them". ("Russo turisto" is that dumb fuck that always comes visiting from Russia: loud, obnoxious, doesn't speak the least bit of English, walks around like they own the place... You've seen the one.)
While I have many questions in regards to quotes from Putin provided in this article, this bit does appear to hold water even without those.
My (admittedly incomplete, as is the rest of the world's at the moment) understanding is that Putin is ill – cancer, perhaps, which he got treatment for in April – which is what spurred the invasion: he seems his grip on life loosen, so he takes more and more radical steps to entrench himself in history, possibly genuinely engulfed by the idea of returning to the Soviet (or even Soviet-esque) past he so longed for.
Crimea made sense for him, politically: he got away with a lot up to this point, and so he pushed the limit once again. Like the article says, his instincts were proven right: he got away with it, all in all. (Though I wouldn't say the sanctions made no difference. Imported electronics – that is, most of electronics above $10 – went up in price overnight.)
Ukraine as a whole, though? Seems like lunacy unless you subscribe to the idea of a duped FSB and, by extenstion, a duped Putin. Even then, you'd think this makes no sense: what if the country doesn't want to give up willingly? Well, Crimea did: the article mentions the Ukrainian army retreating into continental Ukraine, while some switched sides for Russia.
There's also the fact that Putin appears to have surrounded himself with yes-men who dare not speak the truth lest they anger the vozhd ("вождь", as in leader of a tribe, which is what the German word Führer means, too). If we are to believe this bit of intelligence to hold solid, it would appear that on paper, everything in Russia is fine, and Putin doesn't get to see everyone scrambling all the time behind the curtain. You'd think a control freak like Putin would have his hands on everything and would be able to see through it all, but I guess that's how dictators are eventually.
All of this suggests that Ukraine has pulled off the biggest political scam of the last century, and perhaps of all time. The invasion was inevitable, so the fact that they now have to fight Russia is irrelevant as far as calculating the weight of the outcome goes. What that did, however, is buy Ukraine enough time to regroup and mobilize at the very beginning of the war, potentially saving thousands of lives, by making Russians think they need not prepare for assault and can just waltz in.
I mentioned I think Putin's ill. You can see the signs here and there, no matter how much the bunker grandpa tries to hide it. Apparently, his swollen forehead on May 9 and before is a sign of taking corticosteroids. His walk is at times unsteady: when meeting Erdogan a few months ago, Putin had to be held by the taller Turkish president as they walked down the hall. Also, the infamous table death grip. There were also what appears to be IV marks on his right hand.
Or maybe he's just a 70-year-old who's finally glimpsed at the end of his days and has become very, very scared with leaving nothing of import before fizzling out.
From Christo Grozev, the lead Russia investigator with Bellingcat, back in March.
But the whole thread is worth reading.
Oh yeah, LOL, that's where I remember that from! They bombed their own fucking comms!
I’m definitely interested. I really appreciate your perspective.
The overall sentiment seems to be that Russian military is more incompetent than expected. Do you suppose this is general across the board or are certain branches still more or less capable than others?
I'm by no means an expert on the Russian military, or military in general. I just follow the news of the war, which often includes examples of extremely-poor performance by the Russian armed forces. So, I don't feel like I have the insight to answer this question with the depth it deserves.
What limited insight I do have into the matter tells me that most of the general armed forces (excluding special forces and independent units like Wagner and other PMCs) have proven themselves to be at the very least underprepared.
I stopped commenting well before the part where the article goes into how the soldiers were expected to march across Kyiv as liberators celebrated by the Ukrainian people. As such, they were told to pack just a little over a dress uniform: something to change into once they inevitably got the laurels they deserved after defeating the neo-Nazi regime led by Zelenskyy. No extra food, no water, no dry/warm gear (it was still the end of winter when the war started, remember), no additional ammo... Those Russian troops coming from Belarus (which would make it so much closer to Kyiv) were genuinely expected to parade soon after entering the capital's limits.
Part of it comes off as a devastating lack of informedness. I wonder why the article doesn't cover this part: the idea was that Ukrainian "collaborators" fed the FSB bullshit for months, got paid millions to set up grounds for a coup (to oust Zelenskyy and those loyal to him from the government, and to set up a puppet state afterwards), and then just fuckin' left with the money. The FSB'd genuinely thought everything was ready for that liberation parade in Kyiv, which is what they told Putin.
But the article does mention how many a regiment were caught off-guard by the sudden shift towards the war... sorry, the special military operation. I remember reading of a few divisions straight-up giving themselves up to the Ukrainians – their reasoning being "we didn't know we're going into the war, and we don't want to fight a brotherly nation" – and many more abandoning their vehicles and gear and deserting or going back. (The "we didn't know" part is interesting because I've seen documents confirming the soldiers, or at least some of them, were required to sign off on going into a military action in a foreign country before the invasion. This is similar to how conscripts – not active military personnel – were forced to sign papers of early leave from their regular conscription, which did immediately make them active military personnel, thus confining them to service in Ukraine.)
Beyond that... Like I said: corruption in the Russian military is no hidden matter. Everybody who's ever served cracks jokes about it. It was so obvious, it made its way (though hardly in a lashing manner) into a very-popular fiction TV show about conscript life, "Солдаты" ("Soldiers"). So if, say, Russian infantry shows itself to be inept on the battlefield, I'd expect tanks and aircraft and artillery to follow suit.
While I do hear news of special forces being wiped out here and there in Ukraine, it's comparatively rare – rarer still now, months after mobilization'd started. (As you can imagine, most of those being wiped out now are "mobiks", i.e. the recently-mobilized sent into the meat grinder.) So while it's clear Russian armed forces are generally incompetent, I'd follow that immediately by saying there are pockets of expertise here and there, though even those suffer from inept leadership and stiff, inflexible command structure requiring orders going up and down the chain of command before execution.
All of that, followed by the reminder that I'm no military expert. There are probably better people to ask this question. My best guess would be looking into Twitter lists and threads reporting on the war, and filtering for those who report on battlefield conditions of the Russian side. I've seen a couple, though none spring to mind immediately. If I remember one or a few, I'll let you know.
This is a huge article, composed of many different investigations and sources of information; one of the best overviews I’ve seen so far, hence the post outside of the weekly megathread.
Would appreciate if someone posts the non-paywall version when it's available.
It is... well... available.
Excellent, thanks.
My article "gift" link:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=z7pJ5ss9kFOca18u737sEhGaMeOV1o8RlUz_qxtyfIHjIiE2UHpyBKiKNwM6ktNYrD7pacD81e_PT8Zm5L4lqa9G3qZYn-4HjVJbCoVbSfeg5Pu8DqC30k_w6wm4J76QdIQVi41kjpvU9j6oilYeInDPw5uvBBL0hUanQ3Nn1_RX0aOi-PnHtVajb7DlReaJcvPBBDwqe5dJfIsafuESMkwRKgpAuucjtcg-H7TNYdfnszIZqC-mV5QeWfs6oZA0PszdHtskMnf9bYzGuE0SfatCkhLzy3kVZBAcA-aXa66f7fzu0b5wF6g51uhP4V35WfQHnOWt5Sm3IhQuy7DP0hdfqm1KFfEoi9ehyckqIdMP6nOX0kSrOGKLqIGa6t1j&smid=share-url
I have some issues with NYT's content, but articles like these really make it worth paying for.
Neato, cheers.