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Kind of a rosy assessment of Russian military power given they are bogged down in the poorest European country right now. This whole war can be seen as nothing but a failure by any objective observer. It is pathetic. They thought they could take Ukraine in a week and now we're watching years go by. It is just sad and I was much more worried about Russia before they revealed exactly how weak they are.
Bogged down in the poorest European country
1 ) Ukraine isn't the poorest. Moldova is, iirc.
From less high tech weapons, it got ~1000 tanks, 1000s of IFVs, most of its artillery shells and so on.
Poorest country except it got military equipment on par with the French army, at least artillery wise.
Without that help and those supplies, it'd have been over for Ukraine by fall of '22 probably.
you're also eliding that it gets specialist foreign troops operating air defense and elint equipment. (no, they didn't train Ukes to operate it. It takes years of training just to get basic familiarity. )
but a failure by any objective observer. Yeah, the initial plan A (watch the bribed government scram) was a failure.
Plan B, grind down Ukrainian army to the point they can't go on is ongoing. Even Americans are now admitting it's unwinnable.
But it is also showing how faithless Americans are. Despite all their big words, they're unable to even provide Ukraine with something as basic as air defenses. Richest country in the world can't or won't give out thousands of radar guided missiles. Could it? (honestly don't know, but I suspect it has thousands of Aim-120 which should be adaptable for ground launch)
Just passed some more aid. So a bit more faith eh? I mean you say they are hanging on due to foreign aid and we're giving it to them.
Based on the Russian war machine stalling for so long, I don't think they had a plan B. This is just what a land war in Europe naturally turns into, a trenched out meatgrinder.
Being able to bog down all of Russia's forces using just a fraction of our military budget, some extra last gen weapons systems and no boots on the ground for years in open country is truly amazing. What a bargain! You really couldn't have planned a better way to isolate and deplete Russia. Make them think they can almost do it...then blamo, Russia is fully committed to all out war for 2 1/2 years to take some grain fields and bombed out towns.
Meanwhile Europe is more on the American natural gas and oil teat now, not the Russian one, NATO expanding, Euros actually spending some money on defense for once... We also get to evaluate the current state of Russian war power (not good, getting better). I mean shoot, you almost couldn't plan something this good for the USA and this bad for Russia.
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Wow. Imagine how bad Russia would fare against a foe that was already trained and equipped with that top-tier weaponry you described and proficient in combined arms and maneuver warfare?
Seems like that would go poorly for them.
Wow. Imagine thinking US could do combined arms warfare in absence of air superiority.
Note that you’re avoiding the main point that Russia demonstrably sucks against a weaker foe, let alone a peer or more.
But also, imagine thinking the US needs air superiority to be effective at combined arms on the ground.
It’s even funnier to think the US wouldn’t have air superiority against the joke of Russian capabilities we’ve seen.
I guess you haven't been paying attention to Russia destroying US 'smart' munitions, in flight, repeatedly.
My understanding is the Ukrainians have been able to penetrate Russian airspace pretty regularly and that a lack of munitions and the West desiring them to limit attacks on Russian soil are the limiting factors. Not the impressive performance of the Russian Air Force or air defense systems.
The US has a lot more aircraft and missiles that are far more capable than what the Ukrainians have.
It’s a bad sign that Russia has to source drones from Iran.
Yes, being able to occassionally hit targets inside of Russia with small plastic drones or sometimes even an ultralight plane means "Russia isn't controlling its airspace".
LLM tier understanding on display from you, so bye.
My guy you seriously tried to argue Russian forces didn’t have a numerical advantage in the opening phase of the war and now you think I have the LLM-tier understanding here?
Ahahaha https://breakingdefense.com/2024/04/ukraines-strikes-deep-into-russia-have-a-new-tool-a-small-commercial-plane/?amp=1
You think that makes Russian air defense look better? During an ongoing war a little civ aircraft just makes it through?
That’s the literal definition of Russia not controlling its airspace!
Russia demonstrably sucks at war fighting and here you are trying to pretend that somehow things would go better against an adversary far more capable than Ukraine is.
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Yes, letting armed planes and drones in means that they do not fully control airspace.
(Yes, the same applies even more to Ukraine regularly hit by missile and drone attacks - and also NATO territory where occasional drone or missile was happily flying through, with no shot downs. Turns out that airspace control is hard.)
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