Honestly, I'm in the defence field, and I didn't expect this war to go that bad for Russia. I honestly thought that Russia would win pretty quick with minimal push back. I thought Ukrainian resistance or support from the world wouldn't be nearly as strong as it is. Its very impressive to see a country like Ukraine come together with the world behind it.
There are many︀ more weaknesses, but if you want to look into them yourself here is a good︁ start:
- Lack of air superiority and the importance of this in warfare. You can︂ compare how America took control of the skies of Iraq very quickly before even setting︃ a foot. Or how Israel took control of the skies during the first phase of︄ the six day war. This should have been a model for Russia's war (its against︅ their neighbour for a year - still no air superiority from either side).
Russia vastly︆ outnumbers Ukraine in terms of air power. They should have easily won the skies in︇ the first few days if they had any fighting ability.
- Allowing NCOs and lower︈ level officers more independence and decision making. This is HUGE. In most western countries post︉ WW2, they learned to give lower level troops and officers a lot of say in︊ how things go. This is different from how the Russians control things from the top︋ down. Most autocratic countries have a top down approach to prevent revolutions within. In most︌ democratic countries the lower level soldiers on the ground make decisions on the go. In︍ the Russian military the leaders just send them wherever and tell them to hold the︎ position or whatever. This is what the British and others did pre-WW2 before entire units️ were totally wiped out and they realized how poor this approach works.
"In the United States armed services, it is said that the Non-Commissioned Officers and the junior officers are the backbones."
- Modern logistics and supply of materials. They can't helicopter drop things like they should be able to, their logistics depends on railway lines (lol), no palettes to transport things in bulk meaning ammo depos are a mess and the most dangerous place in the world.
- Sending their military trainers to the front lines, meaning the Russian military will be permanently changed by this war, and it will further decrease their combat︀ effectiveness if they were to fight another war. Additionally, with the demographics of Russia (decreasing︁ population) it even further decreases their ability to fight in the next war.
- Use︂ of low quantity and expensive missiles to target civilians rather than military targets. Although the︃ plan of these attacks is to lower troop morale, it does the opposite. This effect︄ is proven from the WW2 bombings on London. The 'near miss' effect of surviving a︅ blast actually causes a net morale increase, meaning they are spending expensive weapons to INCREASE︆ the morale of Ukraine.
If you go through those conflicts and the lessons learned from︇ each, you will see how Russia's tactics are unchanged from over a hundred years ago.︈ What a joke.
Keep in mind, I'm not an American, and before the war I︉ was condo shopping in Russia. That doesn't change the fact that objectively, this war is︊ a complete mess for Russia.
