A Ukraine and Russia post

[Paladin]

Tucker Carlson knocks it out of the ballpark. Again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifqp1bJp8Y

[K.Mooneyham]

Expecting the Russian government, and by extension its military, to behave as we do is akin to expecting violent criminal actors to behave as good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people. Just as violent criminal actors do not think as good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people, neither does the Russian government or its military. The US Army has Field Manual 6-27 (August 2019), the Commander's Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare which gives guidance on the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs ... WEB_v2.pdf If the Russian military has a book about LOAC, I feel confident that it very different from ours.

Based on Russian military actions during the Cold War as well as tactics used in Afghanistan and Syria, we can see their strategies and tactics have changed little. The Russian military started the invasion of Ukraine with a heavy artillery bombardment and air strikes aimed at defeating the Ukrainian air force. Putin's leadership seems to have resulted in a lack of maintenance and weapons procurement that may be an explanation for stalled convoys and the lack of the use of guided munitions. In the past, stalled Russian military leaders have used indiscriminate, large scale bombardment and chemical weapons.

Ward Carroll is a retired Navy Commander (O-5) who served 20 years as a Radar Intercept Officer in the F14 Tomcat. He has posted a clear and concise discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKtIsMoPoA

EXPOSED! What the Ukrainian Invasion has Revealed about Russian Military Power

The Russians obviously have some serious institutional failures within their military forces. You being a former US Army Captain, I'm certain you will understand the next thing I point out. We've seen, multiple times, Russian armored convoys being absolutely wrecked by lesser forces. Part of that is attributable to modern weapons, sure. However, it's also a serious failure of their leadership (thankfully for the Ukrainians' sake). For many, many decades now, it has been known and understood that armor cannot operate in a vacuum, so to speak. An armor force commander must have well-trained and coordinated infantry assets to work along with the armor, specifically to prevent the exact sort of enemy infantry (Ukrainian) response we've seen so far. Armor assets on their own become sitting ducks for trained infantry anti-tank teams. The Russians seem to have just tossed all those hard-learned lessons out the window. The Russians, again thankfully for the Ukrainians' sake, seem to have no good grasp of proper combined arms. And I'm just an amateur student of war, me being an aircraft mechanic, and never attended anything beyond a basic NCO school in the USAF. What the heck do they teach in the officer courses in Russia, the best ways to skim money from the budget?

[Ruark]

Ward Carroll is a retired Navy Commander (O-5) who served 20 years as a Radar Intercept Officer in the F14 Tomcat. He has posted a clear and concise discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKtIsMoPoA

I watched the video, thanks for posting it. At face value, I'm very skeptical of all these "retired generals" (commanders, whatever) speaking on the news channels giving their expert opinions, especially when it starts with something like "EXPOSED!!!!" like some supermarket tabloid. I have to ask, how does he know what Putin's "hopes" and "plans" are, right down to battle map detail? I've watched Russian military updates (videos of their active duty commanders speaking to rooms full of officers) and battle-map explanations, and they are TOTALLY different from what this guy's saying. We have to be careful, again, about media hype (on BOTH sides). If a Russian force slows down to regroup or resupply, the western media says they're "bogged down." They did not have the objective of combining with separatist groups (although they probably did some out of expediency) just W/NW of Donbass. Their is a cluster of about 70,000 Ukranian military, mostly radicals, collected in that area, that were putting huge amount of weapons in place to shell Donbass (as they've been doing for 8 years). Instead of attacking them frontally, which would cause excessive destruction and civilian casualties, they are in the process of encircling them, after which they will obliterate them, with local ethnic Russians cheering them on.

https://www.fairobserver.com/region/eur ... ion-89292/

"Truth is the first casualty of war."

[oljames3]

The Russians obviously have some serious institutional failures within their military forces. You being a former US Army Captain, I'm certain you will understand the next thing I point out. We've seen, multiple times, Russian armored convoys being absolutely wrecked by lesser forces. Part of that is attributable to modern weapons, sure. However, it's also a serious failure of their leadership (thankfully for the Ukrainians' sake). For many, many decades now, it has been known and understood that armor cannot operate in a vacuum, so to speak. An armor force commander must have well-trained and coordinated infantry assets to work along with the armor, specifically to prevent the exact sort of enemy infantry (Ukrainian) response we've seen so far. Armor assets on their own become sitting ducks for trained infantry anti-tank teams. The Russians seem to have just tossed all those hard-learned lessons out the window. The Russians, again thankfully for the Ukrainians' sake, seem to have no good grasp of proper combined arms. And I'm just an amateur student of war, me being an aircraft mechanic, and never attended anything beyond a basic NCO school in the USAF. What the heck do they teach in the officer courses in Russia, the best ways to skim money from the budget?

World War II taught us that the most effective form of conventional land warfare is combined arms; infantry, armor and artillery working in close coordination. This remains true today. The Russian military has excelled in combined arms operations in the past, but has always been hampered by their overall operational and tactical doctrine. The Soviet model emphasizes rigid top-down discipline and command over individual initiative and adaptation. This has changed little since Joseph Stalin and has been further aggravated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ascendancy of Putin. The evidence is the apparent inability of the Russian forces invading Ukraine to adapt to whatever is stalling their advance and long lines of halted armor.

The Soviet model does not prioritize non-commissioned officer authority and training as does our model. I am both a graduate and instructor of the US Army advanced NCO training and officer training. Soviet model NCOs are little more than better-paid privates. The US model teaches and rewards low-level, individual initiative and adaptation, empowering captains and sergeants to win.

Retired Navy Commander Ward Carrol continues to publish insightful videos on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBV-FG0fg9c

[srothstein]

The Soviet model does not prioritize non-commissioned officer authority and training as does our model. I am both a graduate and instructor of the US Army advanced NCO training and officer training. Soviet model NCOs are little more than better-paid privates. The US model teaches and rewards low-level, individual initiative and adaptation, empowering captains and sergeants to win.

I was always taught this was what gave us a true advantage over the Russians in a conventional war. If you killed a US Army officer, there was always someone who would step up and take charge to keep the unit fighting. If you killed a Russian Army officer, the unit would freeze in place until a new commander was appointed. It makes sense to me that our way is better for combat effectiveness.

[philip964]

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-ministry- ... 34417.html

Russian ministry of defense head hasn’t been seen in 12 days.

[srothstein]

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-ministry- ... 34417.html

Russian ministry of defense head hasn’t been seen in 12 days.

I think he has been convicted by his boss of the worst war crime of all - losing.

[The Annoyed Man]

Retired Navy Commander Ward Carrol continues to publish insightful videos on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBV-FG0fg9c

The one he published today, about the use of privately owned "quadcopter" drones, was particularly enlightening. That segment his interviewee showed of an artillery round of some sort hitting almost the exact spot where a drone operator had recovered his quadcopter just moments before was pretty impressive. If the Russians have the ability to geolocate a drone operator and put steel on foreheads within a few seconds of locating him, then we have it too. And that struck me as a concern for people who think they’ll be able to use their private quadcopters for surveillance/recon/intelligence gathering purposes in any kind of domestic civil war.

[K.Mooneyham]

Retired Navy Commander Ward Carrol continues to publish insightful videos on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBV-FG0fg9c

The one he published today, about the use of privately owned "quadcopter" drones, was particularly enlightening. That segment his interviewee showed of an artillery round of some sort hitting almost the exact spot where a drone operator had recovered his quadcopter just moments before was pretty impressive. If the Russians have the ability to geolocate a drone operator and put steel on foreheads within a few seconds of locating him, then we have it too. And that struck me as a concern for people who think they’ll be able to use their private quadcopters for surveillance/recon/intelligence gathering purposes in any kind of domestic civil war.

Regarding the use of light drones to deliver munitions, perhaps equipping some of the troops with shotguns and "heavy shot" shotshells wouldn't be such a bad idea. I mean, if the munition gets detonated high enough in the air, it seems like it would spread the blast out and at least reduce the potential damage to ground targets.

[philip964]

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-ministry- ... 34417.html

Russian ministry of defense head hasn’t been seen in 12 days.

I think he has been convicted by his boss of the worst war crime of all - losing.

Supposedly he showed up today, maybe because of the story he was missing.

There is a lot of really interesting posts here on warfare. I have no skill at warfare whatsoever. However I will say one thing. We get experience in warfare every time we go to Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc. It’s costly experience. The Russians really since Afghanistan have had no battle experience. A generation of soldiers have come and gone without any real experience in battle. I think it is showing.

[The Annoyed Man]

The Russians really since Afghanistan have had no battle experience. A generation of soldiers have come and gone without any real experience in battle. I think it is showing.

Not entirely so. Russia's experiences in Chechnya and Syria both post-date their Afghanistan experience. I think that one of the mistakes they made here was to underestimate their enemy’s capabilities, while overestimating their own. One of the videos below mentions that Russia didn’t even follow their own military doctrine during the invasion.

Here are a few videos that explain Russia's poor showing more thoroughly…

LACK OF LOGISTICS:

https://youtu.be/jo4OoBm0Vis

https://youtu.be/b4wRdoWpw0w

PUTIN'S SEVERELY BAD JUDGEMENT:

https://youtu.be/BeacXBxPARQ

https://youtu.be/SrTrpwzVt4g

Your Average Infantryman Chris Cappi's outlook on Russia's performance.

https://youtu.be/FDKH_FxFdrw

The bottom line is that Russia actually has all kinds of cool military technology, but it lacks the funding to deploy that technology at anywhere below their version of Tier 1 operators. They haven’t even gotten their latest battle rifle, the AK-12, issued out to most of their infantry…most of whom are still packing the much older AK-74. Russia's development of their still-not-fielded T-14 "super tank" program is another example. They’re definitely not a paper tiger, but their performance in Ukraine shows us that NATO took counsel of their fears for a long time, believing Russian bluster, rather than having a more sober realization of the truth.

Putin has done in 1 month what it took the USSR 70 years to accomplish: he tanked the Russian economy to massage his ego. Russia may yet succeed in Ukraine—although increasingly, analysts are saying that his invasion will ultimately fail—but he is wrecking the Russian economy in doing so, killing thousands of Russia's youth in muddy Ukrainian fields, growing the numbers of his domestic dissenters, and making his nation a global pariah second only to North Korea. He has, in fact, become Europe’s Kim Jong-un.

The sad part of that, above and beyond his responsibility for the 1000s of Ukrainian dead, the BILLIONS of dollars of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure and economy, and the 1000s of Russian boys whose bodies will be fertilizing sunflower fields in Ukraine, is that the Russian people—who deserve MUCH better than Putin or any other Russian or soviet pig of a strongman has ever given them—will suffer under their government’s boot heel just as they did in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

[philip964]

The Russians really since Afghanistan have had no battle experience. A generation of soldiers have come and gone without any real experience in battle. I think it is showing.

Not entirely so. Russia's experiences in Chechnya and Syria both post-date their Afghanistan experience. I think that one of the mistakes they made here was to underestimate their enemy’s capabilities, while overestimating their own. One of the videos below mentions that Russia didn’t even follow their own military doctrine during the invasion.

Here are a few videos that explain Russia's poor showing more thoroughly…

LACK OF LOGISTICS:

https://youtu.be/jo4OoBm0Vis

https://youtu.be/b4wRdoWpw0w

PUTIN'S SEVERELY BAD JUDGEMENT:

https://youtu.be/BeacXBxPARQ

https://youtu.be/SrTrpwzVt4g

Your Average Infantryman Chris Cappi's outlook on Russia's performance.

https://youtu.be/FDKH_FxFdrw

The bottom line is that Russia actually has all kinds of cool military technology, but it lacks the funding to deploy that technology at anywhere below their version of Tier 1 operators. They haven’t even gotten their latest battle rifle, the AK-12, issued out to most of their infantry…most of whom are still packing the much older AK-74. Russia's development of their still-not-fielded T-14 "super tank" program is another example. They’re definitely not a paper tiger, but their performance in Ukraine shows us that NATO took counsel of their fears for a long time, believing Russian bluster, rather than having a more sober realization of the truth.

Putin has done in 1 month what it took the USSR 70 years to accomplish: he tanked the Russian economy to massage his ego. Russia may yet succeed in Ukraine—although increasingly, analysts are saying that his invasion will ultimately fail—but he is wrecking the Russian economy in doing so, killing thousands of Russia's youth in muddy Ukrainian fields, growing the numbers of his domestic dissenters, and making his nation a global pariah second only to North Korea. He has, in fact, become Europe’s Kim Jong-un.

The sad part of that, above and beyond his responsibility for the 1000s of Ukrainian dead, the BILLIONS of dollars of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure and economy, and the 1000s of Russian boys whose bodies will be fertilizing sunflower fields in Ukraine, is that the Russian people—who deserve MUCH better than Putin or any other Russian or soviet pig of a strongman has ever given them—will suffer under their government’s boot heel just as they did in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Russia a year or so before Trump took office. It was not the country that had been portrayed in the cold war. The people were warm and friendly, they drove Volvo's and Honda's. The women were not ugly. It was to me an ordinary European country, well somewhat. I was hoping after Trump's election, he would be able to soften Putin and allow American's easier access to the country. The Democratic plan was otherwise. I feel sorry for the Russian public, however, not as sorry as I feel for the Ukrainians. This is Putin's war not the people of Russia's war, but they will be the ones to suffer for it, both in their young son's lives but in the economic hardship this will cause now and in the future.

As my guide told me, the communists were one chapter of a very long book. This will be another sad chapter for them.

[srothstein]

This story is interesting to me. It shows how the US Army Green Berets have been training Ukrainian forces since just after the Crimea invasion in 2014. It does mention teaching them how to build militias and a resistance group. I have faith that the Green berets know what they are doing in this kind of mission as it is their primary specialty. So, this helps explain to me how the Ukrainians have managed to hold off the Russians so well.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-arm ... in-ukraine

The two most interesting parts of it are the start and end dates of the training. They started in 2014, which means I finally have to grant Obama some credit for doing the right thing. He must have approved the deployment. And it ended in February, just before the invasion. Which is another thing to bash Biden for. He must have pulled the troops when the Russian build up started, knowing they would fight along side their trainees. I know there are political considerations that are above my pay grade, but it shows that he never had any intention of properly supporting the Ukrainians in this fight.

[The Annoyed Man]

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Russia a year or so before Trump took office. It was not the country that had been portrayed in the cold war. The people were warm and friendly, they drove Volvo's and Honda's. The women were not ugly. It was to me an ordinary European country, well somewhat. I was hoping after Trump's election, he would be able to soften Putin and allow American's easier access to the country. The Democratic plan was otherwise. I feel sorry for the Russian public, however, not as sorry as I feel for the Ukrainians. This is Putin's war not the people of Russia's war, but they will be the ones to suffer for it, both in their young son's lives but in the economic hardship this will cause now and in the future.

As my guide told me, the communists were one chapter of a very long book. This will be another sad chapter for them.

I have nothing against the Russian people. I never have. This war is increasingly unpopular in Russia. I’ve never been there, but my mother has, a couple of times, and she shared the experience with us. Many Russians are intensely patriotic, particularly older Russians about their roles in WW2. If the Russian people at large have a flaw, it is generational at this point…and that is the flaw of allowing themselves to be ruled by autocratic strongmen—whether that is a tzar, or a Soviet premier, or a Putin. Their legislative body exists to rubber stamp whatever the strongman wants. And this particular strongman's wants are irrational.

I feel bad for them. But I feel worse for the Ukrainians. They’ve been a sovereign nation since January of 1990—32 years now. They have an absolute right to maintain their sovereignty. Absent Ukraine having invaded Russia…which they have NOT…Russia has ZERO right to invade Ukraine for any reason whatsoever. Putin is an evil pig, and the deaths of all involved are on his head.

[03Lightningrocks]

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Russia a year or so before Trump took office. It was not the country that had been portrayed in the cold war. The people were warm and friendly, they drove Volvo's and Honda's. The women were not ugly. It was to me an ordinary European country, well somewhat. I was hoping after Trump's election, he would be able to soften Putin and allow American's easier access to the country. The Democratic plan was otherwise. I feel sorry for the Russian public, however, not as sorry as I feel for the Ukrainians. This is Putin's war not the people of Russia's war, but they will be the ones to suffer for it, both in their young son's lives but in the economic hardship this will cause now and in the future.

As my guide told me, the communists were one chapter of a very long book. This will be another sad chapter for them.

I have nothing against the Russian people. I never have. This war is increasingly unpopular in Russia. I’ve never been there, but my mother has, a couple of times, and she shared the experience with us. Many Russians are intensely patriotic, particularly older Russians about their roles in WW2. If the Russian people at large have a flaw, it is generational at this point…and that is the flaw of allowing themselves to be ruled by autocratic strongmen—whether that is a tzar, or a Soviet premier, or a Putin. Their legislative body exists to rubber stamp whatever the strongman wants. And this particular strongman's wants are irrational.

I feel bad for them. But I feel worse for the Ukrainians. They’ve been a sovereign nation since January of 1990—32 years now. They have an absolute right to maintain their sovereignty. Absent Ukraine having invaded Russia…which they have NOT…Russia has ZERO right to invade Ukraine for any reason whatsoever. Putin is an evil pig, and the deaths of all involved are on his head.

I have never met a Russian woman in person but occasionally get friend requests from them on FB. They are always beautiful, 20-25 years old and say they are interested in older men. I decline the requests as 20-25 years old is a bit younger than I feel I want to deal with. I guess they don't have older guys in Russia.