The Russian #military is well-suited to short, high-intensity campaigns defined by a heavy use of #artillery. By contrast, it is poorly designed for a sustained #occupation, or a grinding war of attrition, that would require a large share of Russia’s ground forces, which is exactly the conflict it has found itself in. The Russian military doesn’t have the numbers available to easily adjust or to rotate forces if a substantial amount of combat power gets tied down in a war. Their big assumption was that in the event of a #crisis with #NATO, political leadership would authorize mobilization to raise manning levels and deploy staffed-up formations.
Enter Putin’s “special operation,” which meant launching a major war in #Europe, against the continent’s second largest country, with a force operating at peacetime manning levels. #Putin assumed that Ukraine would quickly surrender, and a regime change operation could be conducted without the need to plan and organize for a major #war. The resulting debacle, which will be studied for decades to come, proceeds from the intersection of terrible Russian political assumptions with those of the armed forces regarding the forces that would be made available for a war of this scale (as conceived in the design).

https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/ #ukraine #military #grozny #politics

Not Built for Purpose: The Russian Military’s Ill-Fated Force Design - War on the Rocks

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a deeply flawed military operation, from Moscow’s assumptions about an easy victory, to a lack of preparation, poor

Bohdan is an airfield service employee at #Hostomel Airport, which was the site of heavy fighting at the very start of the war. For three weeks, he and his family lived in the basement of their apartment building, right across from the occupied airport. The building, which came under heavy fire at times, was occupied first by Chechen riot #police, then by an airborne assault unit from #Omsk. In mid-March, all of the basement’s inhabitants were forcibly taken to #Belarus. Bohdan told Meduza his story.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/20/you-re-lucky-it-was-us-chechens-who-found-you #war #ukraine #chechnya #grozny #russia #military