Max Boot: Stop overestimating the Russian military and underestimating the Ukrainians

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/28/stop-overestimating-russian-military-and-underestimating-ukrainians-one-month-war/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/i1yIc

The United States had excellent intelligence about the Russian plan to invade Ukraine but terrible intelligence about how the invasion would fare. At the start of the war, officials expected that Kyiv would fall within two days. That was more than 30 days ago. This wildly off-target assessment is the mirror image of the U.S. mistake in Afghanistan, where the intelligence community was surprised by the speed of the government’s collapse.

Spectacular Russian setbacks are changing that view, but there still appears to be a residual assumption that sooner or later Moscow will get its act together and crush Ukrainian resistance. While the Russians have shown an appalling willingness to commit war crimes, there is no indication that they are breaking Ukraine’s will to fight. More than a month into the war, the invaders are losing — and there is no reason to expect a sudden reversal of fortune.

The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be skilled and courageous defenders who are taking full advantage of Western-supplied weapons. They retreated into the cities — where the power of Russian armor and air power is dissipated — and set about wearing down the invaders by targeting their supply lines and commanders.

One vignette from the fighting near Kyiv illustrates the Ukrainian advantage. “The Ukrainians have put up a drone video armed with thermal imaging,” writes a British war correspondent in New Line Magazine. “It’s so chilly out there that the Russian tank crews sit with their engines running through the night. As the Ukrainian drone hovers over the woods in the blackness, it picks out the Russian tanks hiding in the cold. Each Russian exhaust spills its presence, white on black. Then Ukrainian artillery, pinpointed by the drone, moves in for the kill and takes out each white dot, one by one.”

*snip*

[CentralMass]

1. Don't underrstimate the Russian missiles destroying civilian areas of Ukraines cities and the

War crimes being committed by Putin.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Invading armies facing guerilla warfare often have a difficult time /nt

[yagotme]

3. Brad Pitt, in "Fury",

(in German) "Send me more pigs to kill."

[paleotn]

4. Ukrainians have been preparing for this since 2014.

NATO advisors have been training them since 2014. They've learned their lessons well. They're doing what we would do to counter Russian doctrine of brute force if they had rolled into West Germany....or Poland at this late date. Lean on your strengths. Agility and technology, thanks to their NATO partners. Massed formations of armor are obsolete in the face of air power, including drones, and MANPADS that can crack nearly any armored vehicle ever built.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

5. Did you tell him you know how it feels?

We just got done with that.