It is really fascinating how frequently we see these posts about Russia being on the verge of losing its war.
Yet we are now nearly six months in to the fight, with every major Western nation having invested massively in the effort to repel Russian forces (which are always "on the verge" of losing, of course), and yet Russia keeps not losing. They keep claiming more territory, despite everything the West can do to repel them.
I don't know whether Russia will ultimately be repelled or not, but whatever this thing is they're doing, they're clearly not "losing"
Hold on. Russia went from invading a neighbouring country less then 5% its own size on 4 fronts, which we all deemed plausible and likely a success within weeks, if not days, to being relegated to engaging in artillery warfare like it's 1922 over a fraction of the initial front line and territory it was 5 months ago. Ukraine who has a fraction of the armed forces and materiel are receiving materiel, yes, but they are unfamiliar with it nor did they have had time training with it.
Russia went through its supply of modern materiel in the first weeks of the war and is fielding old tech and are only able to keep some momentum because of said artillery warfare, because it's both ruthless and destructive as well as low in technical requirements. They are in addition having to reconfigure their economy for total war over what is a fraction of a far smaller neighbouring country which was utterly unprepared and one of Europe's poorest.
The West sending some of it's military surplus is far from doing everything they can.
Russia having some minor gains recently is very much a matter of winning the battle but not the war. The only way they keep that up is total self destruction, which is not winning.
I think size is a poor differentiator of might. A better comparison could be population or GDP. Population wise, Russia is a small country with about the same population as Mexico and about a third of the US. GDP wise, it is even smaller. As a result, its yearly military budget is what the US and NATO spend in a week on defense. In fact, looking at raw dollar figures, the biggest spend in this was between Russia and Ukraine has been by US and NATO - which is surprising when we like to say it is not US or NATO's war.
Comparing military expenditures between east and west has always required a correction for general level of development: an hour of a soldiers or manufacturers time have vastly different costs.
Russia has the odd 100 million citizens more, so you'd think that'd make a difference too.
As sibling writes, were discovering the depths of Russias problems which seem to be far greater than most of us knew.
> It is really fascinating how frequently we see these posts about Russia being on the verge of losing its war.
Russia is "winning" because it is willing to turn contested area into barren wasteland. But is it really "winning" if what you're taking over is completely destroyed?
Here's how I would describe what is happening (very different from "theme" of this post).
1. Ukraine had an antiquated military at the start of the war - old Soviet technology with old Soviet ammunition.
2. Ukraine has used almost all of its ammunition compatible with these weapons, and lost a huge amount of manpower (30000+) including their best troops, and lost 50%+ of its fielded equipment.
3. Prior to the losses and exhaustion detailed in #2, European and NATO backers collected and distributed ammunition and equipment compatible with Ukraine's existing weapon stock.
4. Since exhausting existing equipment and possible sources of Soviet ammunition, Ukraine's backers have switched to supplying Western made weapons. This isn't because they are "better" but because they can be maintained and ammunition will be available for protracted war this is projected to be.
5. Ukraine right now is in a very challenging situation. It has limited equipment of either kind. Their soldiers do not know how to use and maintain the new equipment and don't have much time (due to manpower shortage) to get trained up on completely new equipment and standards.
6. Either way, switching to new weapons platforms is necessary since Russia isn't about to supply Ukraine with more compatible ammunition.
7. Because of the necessity, Ukraine's leadership is "hyping" Western weapons to its people. It's got to tell a story about how victory is around the corner so that morale isn't lost during this transitional period.
8. Western media is picking up on this "hype".
HIMARS aren't going to win the war. This isn't a war of tech superiority. This is a war of grinding attrition. Russia has Ukraine outmanned and outgunned. Western equipment is the only path forward so that Ukraine's force posture doesn't completely atrophy.
The course of the war will be dictated by how either side's logistical, supply, ability to direct and surge force, and the strains on these outlast the other.
> HIMARS aren't going to win the war. This isn't a war of tech superiority. This is a war of grinding attrition. Russia has Ukraine outmanned and outgunned. Western equipment is the only path forward so that Ukraine's force posture doesn't completely atrophy.
They won't win them alone but they will make a big difference. Theres a reason that the number of ammo depots hits in the past week have gone up drastically, HIMARS has allowed Ukraine to hit targets that would have otherwise been reserved for the few Tocha-U's that they have.
If Ukraine is successful in starving Russia of ammo then they win the war.
While I mostly agree with your overview, the OP pointed out that this article came from within Russia. Going back decades, Russians have felt some intimidation at the thought of superior Western arms technology. I read an interview with a Russian field officer who indicated that this technological edge is very much on their minds in Ukraine. So, it may be that Russians are also intended targets of this hype.
The sad truth, of course, is that the Russian ability to produce things that go boom in quantity and deliver it to the battlefield far outstrips the collective West's capacity.
And that goes back to the different approaches highlighted during the space race. While the US spent millions developing a pen that would work in space, the Russians just used a pencil.
Neil, you’re peddling a long-discredited trope as if it were truth. Pencils are not used in spacecraft because of the risk of graphite (which conducts electricity) fragments getting into equipment and causing potentially deadly failures.
The evidence so far in Ukraine does not support your first statement either.
"pencils are not used in spacecraft because of the risk of graphite (which conducts electricity) fragments"
They used wax pencils, or crayons as we call them, until they got the space pen technology without spending on it.
"The evidence so far in Ukraine does not support your first statement either."
The evidence in the Ukraine is that Russia is making ground. Steadily, slowly at the speed of the replacement mechanisms within their production systems.
>...They used wax pencils, or crayons as we call them, until they got the space pen technology without spending on it.
It looks like both the Soviet Union and NASA got their pens from Fisher:
>...the Fisher pen was developed using private capital, not government funding. The development of the thixotropic ink cost Paul Fisher around $1 million (equivalent to $8.6 million in 2021).[4] NASA – and the Soviets[3][5][6] – eventually began purchasing such pens.
I've been following operational analyses of the war pretty closely. While everyone acknowledges the great value of the new surveillance capabilities, there is an emerging consensus that the "new shiny thing" weapons haven't had nearly as much effect as anticipated. Even Ukrainian officials have been emphasizing to the West that they really need more of good old fashioned artillery rather than more gadgetry. So, articles saying "We're winning because of tech." seem to be going against the message that the leadership is now trying to put out.
It's a Russian media outlet famous for investigations of high profile corruption (one of the many blocked by government for “unpatriotic” discourse).
I don't think this article is that much aligned with media spectacle about “good guys” vs “bad guys”. It's not even strictly focused on current war, many mentioned topics go further, and provide food for thought for people everywhere.
Also, there are other non-shallow articles on the website that are worth a read, in my opinion.
Ah, my mistake about nationality. Even if I don't agree with all the analysis, it's interesting to see what kind of conversation is going on inside Russia.
> there is an emerging consensus that the "new shiny thing" weapons haven't had nearly as much effect as anticipated
I don't think there's a consensus. The things are all different: some underperform, some others are awesome, and sometimes this even depends on the environment.
For instance, these high-tech anti-tank missiles (NLAW, Javelin, Stugna-P) were awesome around Kyiv (many places to hide in a forest or urban environment), less so in a prairie. South and East of Ukraine is a prairie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic%E2%80%93Caspian_steppe
Ie when the tanks were used in a zerg rush. As soon as they changed the tactics to a proper infantry support the usability dropped to your average not-so-high-tech AT levels.
Another thing may be that reactive armor works. I read a Russian report claiming that only 1 in 10 Javelin strikes resulted in a tank kill. That's a plausible claim if you consider that Javelins are a bit old technology and reactive armor was specifically developed to counter that type of attack.
Seen plenty of videos of Russian tanks popping off entirely from a side attack from a Stugna, let alone a top attack from a Javelin. I think pretty much all of Russias claims regarding their performance in the war should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Why would russia waste its more advanced weapons against ukraine and its mercenaries?
Actually the ones getting a beating are the people fighting against russia, otherwise russia wouldn't be able to penetrate further in ukraine and specially the donbas
Some weapons the West sent were already sold in the black market to russia, they now able to reverse engineer them, congrats!
Communication, economy, battlefield, russia so far is winning, boris johnson had to resign!
Russia had to fall back because they couldn't sustain supply lines further than 50km from their depots. They are reconfiguring their economy for total war, people are fleeing the draft while they can. A country with a historical problem of building factories to the extent that even now they rely on German machinery for stuff as simple as artillery shells, would have keep some supertech tucked away while it's taking their all to barely succeed to occupy a small strip of land right on their border?
These mythical advanced Russian weapons are so well hidden and only kept for alien invasions, only a fool falls for that Kremlin propaganda. Nobody else is buying their gear either, and deity knows they need the cash.
Then again, this line is literally in the troll factory guidelines, so that is almost certainly where it came from.
Why would they need the cash given that they have their own currency? Isn't that fixed exchange rate Gold standard thinking rather than the modern free floating currency approach?
Russia has no need of dollars or Euros because it can't buy anything with them. So it swaps them immediately for Rubles, so that oil companies can pay the wages of their staff, which then increases the exchange rate of Rubles against dollars and Euros.
And that's what is happening. Russians need Rubles because that's what they pay taxes in.
Russia is perfectly capable of driving its own output using its own internal monetary system.
The propaganda isn't coming solely from where you think it is coming from.
> These mythical advanced Russian weapons are so well hidden and only kept for alien invasions
That's what Reagan would say, in fact, that's exactly what he said to justify his satellites, looks like they found some aliens since the US kept advancing their troops, i mean their vassals
Yet we are now nearly six months in to the fight, with every major Western nation having invested massively in the effort to repel Russian forces (which are always "on the verge" of losing, of course), and yet Russia keeps not losing. They keep claiming more territory, despite everything the West can do to repel them.
I don't know whether Russia will ultimately be repelled or not, but whatever this thing is they're doing, they're clearly not "losing"