Analyzing Russia’s Massive Failures in War Against Ukraine

If you cued up a generic video entitled “Epic
Russian Army Fails” before February 2022, you might have expected to find humorous compilations
of drunk Russian soldiers playing harmless pranks on one another, mishandling live grenades,
or marching comically out of lockstep.To tell the truth, it might not have been
all that different from your standard “Epic US Army Fails” compilation.

But times have changed, and since Russia’s
2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine its military has chalked up an impressive list of tactical,
operational, and strategic failures which have attrited their once-feared invasion force
beyond comprehension.

Cataloging a comprehensive list of these failures
is impossible.

The YouTube compilation video would rival
the length of any Greek tragedy…or comedy, depending on your perspective.

Still, we have tried to come up with a list
of major shortcomings which have had the most significant bearing on the conflict’s outcome.

Here are six major military failures committed
by Russia in the war against Ukraine since the 2022 invasion.

1.

The Failure to Capitalize on the Capture of
Hostomel Airport From the start of its unlawful invasion, Russia’s
hopes rested on the premise that its armed forces could rapidly encircle Kyiv, decapitate
its political leadership, install a pro-Russian regime, and place itself in a strong position
for negotiations.

The quicker this happened, the less time Russia
would afford the West to unite and intervene–and with hindsight, we know this mattered…a
lot.

Ultimately, speed, precision, and grit were
the difference between the conflict becoming Russia’s version of the Gulf War or Passchendaele
with Drones.

It’s no secret that Putin’s plan went spectacularly
awry.

The cornerstone of the invasion was, in fact,
the Hostomel Airport, a key military airfield and logistical hub with one of the longest
runways in eastern Europe just ten kilometers northwest of Kyiv.

The battle for Hostomel lasted less than 36
hours, was “the first major battle of the Russo-Ukrainian War…and a decisive event
in the war,” and was a perfect example of how a tactical setback can snowball into operational
stagnation.

The plan was simple, conceived as a traditional
airfield envelopment and seizure, followed by the insertion of elite airborne battalions
in transport planes.

Once on the ground, Russia’s airborne troops
would secure the city, overthrowing, assassinating, or forcing Zelensky’s cabinet into exile.

Putin truly believed Zelensky’s government
would capitulate in 3-4 days–the first of his many strategic blunders.

In this, he severely underestimated Ukrainian
resolve.

There was plenty of risk in the Hostomel plan.

It wasn’t a traditional combined arms operation
targeting Ukraine’s armed forces in the field; it was a political coup de main–a
surgical attack which sought to avoid a large, publicly shocking set-piece battle.

Ancillary thrusts elsewhere across the country
were designed, in part, to paralyze Ukraine’s armed forces and spread them thin, maximizing
Russia’s chances.

Russia had already tried a number of these
“high-risk, high-reward strategies” in the past–with mixed results.

It happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in
Afghanistan in 1979, in Kosovo in 1999, and in Crimea in 2014.

According to a group of Western Soviet experts,
“If anything, the attempt [on Hostomel] was stereotypical of prior regime change operations,”
equally reminiscent of their “failed attempt to secure Grozny in 1994, when a multiprong
assault into the heart of the city went badly during the first Chechen War.

” Russia likes shock-and-awe, and to achieve
regime change, it follows a somewhat predictable blueprint: Seize the capital’s biggest airport;
funnel in elite airborne forces; decapitate the political leadership and prime the broader
operational effort.

The crazy thing is that Russia had all sorts
of infiltrators in place across Kyiv prior to the attack.

For months, saboteurs and spies tasked with
enabling the Russian advance into the city went about funneling intelligence back to
Moscow, marking landing zones, securing infrastructure, and more.

Their efforts achieved little.

Incredibly, in the same way many Russian soldiers
were “surprised that their initial deployment along the border ‘on exercise’ had transitioned
to a complex scheme for a large-scale invasion involving tight timetables and numerous axes
of attack,” many of Russia’s saboteurs were likewise fuzzy on the details of Putin’s
plan.

Fortunately, Ukrainian intelligence and police
officers uncovered and arrested most of these infiltrators before the invasion truly had
kicked off.

On the morning of February 24, the assault
commenced as an aerial convoy of around 34 Mi-8 Hip transport helicopters and dozens
of Ka-52 Alligator and older Mi-24 attack helicopters advanced along the infiltration
corridor into Kyiv’s airspace.

The 200-300 VDV paratroopers securing the
airport expected minimal resistance.

They were inserted at the southern tip of
the airfield while attack helicopters raked stationary defenses to the north.

Ukrainian Major Vitalii Rudenko, commander
of the small garrison of National Guard forces defending the site, was apparently “unaware
of the approaching helicopters until he heard the chopping of the helicopter’s rotor blades.

” His troops were ill-suited for the task–to
say the least.

Ukraine’s 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade, was
a newly-organized combined arms entity created along NATO standards–with infantry, tanks,
artillery, and surveillance drones working in tandem.

The problem for the Rudenko was that his superiors
had expected the weight of the attack to come in the Donbas, and deployed most of the 4th
Brigade’s heavy weapons out east.

The 200 men left to defend the airfield were
rear-echelon forces–most of them new conscripts wielding small arms, a few older Igla MANPADS,
and a towed AA gun.

According to one expert, they “were more
akin to finance officers than infantry officers.

” Still, they did their best,with twenty of
them defending the radar at the northern extreme of the airfield with the AA gun while the
rest called in reinforcements and dug-in to defend the airfield from the VDV in the south.

Moving large vehicles onto the tarmac to prevent
fixed-wing aircraft from landing, the defenders quickly shot down a Russian Ka-52 helicopter
with an Igla, which boosted their morale.

They would repeat this feat three more times
in the next two hours as ammunition ran low.

In the end they simply couldn’t hold the
airfield, conducting a controlled evacuation to the outskirts of Hostomel while massing
reinforcements.

The Russians had prepared 1,000 reinforcements
of their own they hoped to insert earlier in the day–but the helicopter losses, Ukrainian
artillery fires hitting the airfield, and inability of the Russian airborne to control
the surrounding vicinity forced them to abort the plan.

This was, by all measures, “a pivotal moment
in the then-nascent fight,” and to this day, nobody is certain why Russia’s reinforcement
plan was abandoned.

Russian hopes, then, rested on the set of
advancing mechanized columns coming in from Belarus.

They had only 79 miles to reach Kyiv, but
as they drove through the narrow corridor through Chernobyl and Ivankiv, they encountered
resistance of their own, leaving the Russian VDV isolated at Hostomel.

Ukraine’s military leadership recognized
the importance of the moment–and ordered an immediate counterattack to retake the airfield.

With a motley force of older veterans, civilian
volunteers, and brand new conscripts, they organized a combined arms attack which commenced
at sunset on February 24.

They were grateful to discover that “the
Russian airborne soldiers failed to occupy good defensive positions and found it fairly
easy to dislodge them.

Were Russia’s vaunted elite this tactically
inept? One Ukrainian soldier described engaging the
minimally protected Russian forces on the airfield as being like ‘playing a video
game, just shooting and knocking them down from our positions outside the airfield.

” By evening’s end, the Ukrainians had sent
the Russian airborne into retreat.

It would be recaptured the next day, but would
never serve as the airbridge Russia needed.

Thankfully, delays to the advancing Russian
mechanized column from Belarus removed the element of surprise and gave Ukraine breathing
space to mount a credible defense of Kyiv.

Russia’s haphazard attack on Hostomel seemed
to have no alternate or viable Plan B.

There were plenty of weaknesses to exploit “on
the city’s western side during the first week of the war,” but Russia was bent on
a direct “assault from Hostomel into the city center.

” The failure to enact a complete encirclement
of the city saw Russian units bogged down in cramped suburbs and urban environments
where their advantage of mechanized mobility could be easily countered by marauding, lightly-equipped
squads of Ukrainian guerrillas.

Consequently, the failure at Hostomel ushered
in a whole host of compounding supply issues, strangled Russian lines of communication,
opened up bogged down Russian convoys to ambush, and vastly bolstered not only Ukraine’s
morale–but Western confidence in their ability to win.

More importantly, it disavowed the notion
of any inherent Russian military superiority on the basis of geopolitical reputation or
economic power alone.

By March 25, the Russians had withdrawn from
Kyiv.

By April 1, Hostomel was cleared–dissolving
any lingering Russian hopes of winning the war quickly.

2.

Snake Island: Losing the Information War There was a lot more happening on the first
day of the invasion than the seizure of Hostomel.

Out on a rocky outcropping in the Black Sea
known as Snake Island, a tiny garrison of thirteen Ukrainian defenders were busy gaining
international renown when asked by a Russian warship waiting offshore to “lay down [their]
weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary victims” or else suffer immediate
bombardment.

” In response, one of them, Roman Hrybov, issued
his famous retort to the Russian missile cruiser Moskva: “Russian Warship, Go F*** Yourself.

” The Snake Island defenders were all reported
killed-in-action by the Ukrainian government after the audio clip of their courageous last
stand went viral.

But as it turned out, most of its garrison
had actually lived, taken into captivity as prisoners.

Released one month later in a prisoner exchange
back in March of 2022, Hrybov was awarded a decoration of valor and, with his peers,
immortalized as a “hero of Ukraine.

” The struggle for Snake Island and the defender’s
unabashed defiance quickly became a slogan in the country’s fight for survival.

Commemorated just a few weeks later on a national
postage stamp, the episode epitomized the pluck, courage, and composure with which the
Ukrainian armed forces conducted themselves in the war thus far.

For many Westerners with ancestors who themselves
fought for independence against despotic tyranny, the rallying cry struck a familiar chord.

It was one of many instances where, almost
immediately, Ukraine demonstrated it was intent on winning the information war against their
enemy.

While Russia has shown little aptitude for
controlling–or caring about the message it sends to the world, Ukraine has not lost
ground in this domain ever since.

3.

The Inability to Prevent the Sinking of the
Moskva Maybe instead of targeting Snake Island, the
Moskva should have picked on someone its own size.

Fittingly, our next failure on the list was
Russia’s inability to prevent the Moskva’s sinking, which was, ironically, critically
damaged in an attack by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles just a few weeks after its Snake
Island run-in and sank the following day on April 14, 2022.

Having received intelligence and targeting
data on the Moskva’s whereabouts from American intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian navy
planned a strike on the flagship vessel of the Black Sea Fleet which had, since Soviet
times, intervened in conflicts from Georgia to Syria.

All it took were two R-360 Neptune anti-ship
missiles to start a fire large enough to cause the ship’s munitions to cook off and explode.

The cruiser reportedly sank in stormy seas
shortly thereafter, “the largest Russian warship to be sunk in wartime since the end
of World War II, and the first Russian flagship since Knyaz Suvorov in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese
War.

” Recognizing its dependence on Western support
early in the war against Russia, the Moskva incident revealed Ukraine’s penchant for
delivering high-profile–if isolated–successes to demonstrate their competence in utilizing
the inflow of military assistance.

Russia tried to cover up the incident at first,
claiming that the fire had been accidental, and that it had been contained by Russian
sailors.

When the Moskva literally failed to surface
on camera ever again–the Russian Ministry of Defence conceded it had sunk–this time
while being towed in stormy seas.

What is most eye-opening is that Moskva had
“a triple-tiered air defense that could have provided an adequate chance of intercepting
the incoming Neptune missiles, with 3-4 minutes of radar detection.

” In a variation on a recurring theme, it appeared
that the ship’s crew failed to activate these systems, “including the S-300F and
9K33 Osa surface-to-air missiles, chaff or decoys, electronic jamming, or the last-ditch
AK-630 close-in weapon systems.

” One Turkish correspondent claimed the SNAFU
implied “a lack of crew training for such emergency scenarios.

” And that is what is so damning about the entire
incident.

Whether it was sheer incompetence or, as another
Danish military analyst surmised, “operator fatigue,” the fact remains that Russian
sailors transformed a situation where an expensive vessel which could have almost assuredly survived
several Neptune missile strikes–with some simulations even hinting that it would take
at least eleven to guarantee the vessel’s sinking–was sunk using only two.

The Moskva, according to retired US Navy
Captain and former Director of Operations at US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence
Center, was perhaps the largest warship ever disabled or destroyed by a missile.

Today, Russia lacks the economic or industrial
capacity to easily replace such a vessel.

Its loss was humiliating to Russian president
Vladimir Putin, a psychological strain which demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to “employ
sophisticated weaponry effectively,” forced the Russian navy to move much of its battlegroup
farther from the Ukrainian coastline, and further underpinned Russia’s “narrative
of incompetence” which has proliferated after the attack.

Hilariously, in April 2022 Ukraine began referring
to the sunken vessel as a world-class dive site with “underwater cultural heritage.

Just 130 km off the coast of Odesa, it “can
be admired without much diving” in water just 45-50 meters deep.

Online tour offices still promote the wreck
as the “most interesting spot for diving in the Black Sea,” with the best time to
visit listed as “after the Ukrainian victory over Russia.

” 4.

The Failure to Achieve Air Superiority From the depths of the Black Sea we travel
to the airspace over Ukraine, where, whichever way you cut it, you’ve probably been left
wondering the same thing as everyone else: What on earth has happened to Putin’s vaunted
Air Force? Try as they might, Russian combat aviators
have failed to establish any kind of air superiority over the battlefield thus far.

Part of their problem rests with technological
advances made in the 1970s, which made it possible to furnish vulnerable infantry with
their own portable handheld anti aircraft missiles too.

Man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS,
are simple and cost-effective shoulder-fired rockets that lock onto aircraft using infrared
homing.

They can be taught to new users in a matter
of a few minutes.

Knowing Russia’s numerically superior Air
Force would play a central role in the opening phases of its invasion of Ukraine back in
February of 2022, Western nations rushed thousands of MANPADS into Ukrainian hands to shore up
their air defenses.

These included American Stinger missiles,
surplus Soviet Iglas, and British laser-guided high-velocity Starstreak systems.

The gamble paid off.

Cheap MANPADS made it much harder for Russia’s
Air Force to establish aerial supremacy, imposing steep, asymmetrical costs on Russian pilots
who could no longer safely approach priority targets in Ukrainian airspace.

For the price of one $60-80,000 Igla, Ukrainian
soldiers can down a $36 million dollar Su-34 bomber, or an $85 million dollar Sukhoi Su-35S
fighter.

That’s real bang for your buck.

This has had real repercussions all over the
battlefield.

Modern combined arms warfare hinges on effective
cooperation between all service branches—air, armor, artillery, and infantry.

Because Russia has thus far been unable to
provide active, continuous air cover for its ground units, tanks, logistics convoys, artillery,
and infantry have been repeatedly caught out in the open and destroyed over the course
of the war—a spectacle played out almost daily in combat footage littering social media
for the entire world to see.

This isn’t to say Russian aircraft are not
present over the battlefield or that Ukraine enjoys its own air superiority.

Far from it.

Russian aircraft make overflights every single
day–but most last only a few seconds, with fighter-bombers flying in pairs or groups
of four “ingress to a target area at low altitude, maybe 50 meters or less, and then
lob the rockets and bank left or right and return back to base.

” Rather than hover over the front, far slower
helicopters tend to operate similarly as airborne artillery platforms, approaching the contact
line, firing their salvoes of unguided rockets, and departing as quickly as possible.

This has made it even harder for Ukrainian
infantry to shoot down Russian aircraft.

Constant vigilance is required since little
warning is given.

Since timing is everything, concealed Ukrainians
tend to target slower Su-20 Fighter Bombers and helicopters like the MI-8.

Hefting an 18kg Igla onto your shoulder while
sprinting out into the open, trying to hold it steady to get a lock while the target zips
overhead, then launching the missile knowing you’re in mortal danger all within a span
of 15 seconds or less—can you imagine how difficult that must be? The decentralization of air defense made possible
by MANPADS like the Stinger has helped limit the effectiveness of Russian Air Power, but
it hasn’t blunted it altogether.

According to former Staff Sergeant and Green
Beret David Bramlette, a combat veteran who recently spent eleven months fighting the
Russians in Ukraine, Russia could still turn things around if Western support wavers.

Russian air superiority, he argued, “would
be the worst case scenario for Ukraine at this point.

If Russia can gain air superiority, it’s
going to be an entirely different battlefield and the Ukrainians are going to have a very,
very hard time of putting up a conventional resistance.

” Lucky for Ukraine, Russia also has its own
incompetence to thank in part for its lack of air superiority.

Recently, accidents have taken their toll
on Russian aircraft, with six crashes alone registered over the span of two months in
late 2022.

The slew of accidents reflects the toll the
war has had on Russian aviation writ large.

Reflecting on the aerial crashes, Michael
Bohnert, an engineer and analyst at RAND corporation noted that “What’s interesting is that
even aircraft not involved in the Russian invasion are crashing.

” In an interview with Business Insider, he
said that “While mechanical failures are expected in aircraft over time, a rapid increase
in fleetwide mechanical failures may indicate that something fundamental has changed.

” So what has changed? The war has placed immeasurable strain on
Russian aviation.

Colossal losses early in the conflict contributed
to Russia’s tendency to “adopt more risk-averse tactics, playing a subordinate role to Russia’s
ground troops,” according to Guy Plopsky, an Israeli defense analyst and Russian expert.

In just eight months Russian combat aviators
flew on average 150 sorties a day for a total of 34,000 combat sorties.

But the number of sorties has greatly diminished.

From an early high of 300 per day, Britain’s
Ministry of Defence estimates that now Russia “probably conducts tens of missions per
day.

” Very few of those sorties actually enter Ukrainian
airspace.

General wear and tear can be expected in any
war, but the immense toll has seriously impacted Russia’s pool of 7,500 relatively inexperienced
pilots, who are [said] to receive “roughly 100 hours” of flight time “per year, one-third
less than their NATO counterparts.

” The lack of training limits their ability
to conduct the type of massive air campaigns Western armies almost take for granted.

The lack of qualified pilots is only one part
of the problem.

Russia also lacks skilled mechanics or the
proper tools to make and fix the parts needed to keep Russia’s modernized air fleet up
to snuff.

The fact that its prewar stockpiles are dilapidated
and rapidly diminishing only adds to the problem as the demand for specialized parts and repair
tools grows.

Russia has tried to mobilize greater amounts
of manpower to address the human-part of the problem, which, as you can imagine, has its
own issues.

Just like training pilots, you have to train
the repair crews to diagnose and maintain extremely complex computer avionics and technical
systems.

That is, if you can get them.

Herein lies another problem with Russia’s
Air Force.

While mobilization certainly affected the
small and medium sized companies that make aviation parts, the random crashes and accidents
began happening _prior_ to mobilization.

The shortage of manufacturing tools was already
going on, which means Western sanctions may have had a role to play.

Russia has been left in an economic and industrial
vice by the west, squeezed out of many of its traditional import-export markets where
it has received the critical components it needs to keep its airplanes airworthy.

Ultimately, there’s no out-and-out answer
as to why Russia has failed to establish air superiority.

It is likely that a combination of factors—wear
and tear, stress on older airframes, a lack of pilots and trained aircrews, and western
sanctions—have each played a significant role.

What we do know is that thanks in part to
their own outstanding courage, adaptability, and resilience coupled with the material support
they’ve received from the West, Ukraine has managed to do a lot with a little in terms
of its own air defense.

5.

Russian Armor Failing in Ukraine It’s been said that the only thing getting
more airtime than Russia’s ailing Air Force these days are the airborne turrets of its
exploded tanks.

Boy can those things fly! Russia has lost well over 2,300 tanks since
it invaded Ukraine.

Hundreds more have been abandoned or captured.

As its armored force dwindles, it has had
to pour older and older armor into the Ukrainian meat grinder.

The country once touting its next-generation
T-14 Armata is now sending T-62s and T-54s into battle.

It’s a bad look.

There are many reasons for Russia’s armored
failures thus far.

Western weapons have helped tip the scales,
with humble but deadly Anti-Tank Guided Missiles like the Javelin, NLAW, and AT4 becoming symbols
“of Ukraine’s stubborn resistance.

” There’s other reasons too.

Russia’s tactical ineptitude deserves blame.

Untrained conscripts rarely work in tandem
with supporting armored units.

Logistics and the lack of fuel, rations, and
ammunition at forward supply dumps have wreaked havoc on Russian columns.

Lastly, Western Sanctions make it harder for
Russia to source the specialized parts it needs to repair and maintain newer tanks.

Back in November 2022, the Pentagon announced
that Russia had lost half of its main battle tanks in combat.

Huge losses were inflicted during the Kharkiv
counteroffensive last autumn; the Russian army was reportedly losing 10 tanks per day
while the Ukrainians were losing just 2—jarring figures when you consider the Russians were
defending rather than attacking.

The Russians are still building tanks to replace
their losses, but can they be introduced faster than current models are being destroyed? The simple answer is no, unless they can give
the American arsenal of democracy during World War II a run for its money and build dozens
of tanks, trucks, and other vehicles every single day—the average rate they were being
destroyed at the end of last year.

No country on earth has managed to replicate
even a fraction of that type of industrial output in wartime ever since–so can we really
assume Russia would be the first? No.

I don’t think so.

Russia has thousands of old Soviet tanks in
storage, including versions of the newer T-90s, T-80s and their time-tested predecessors that
make up the backbone of the Ukrainian armored force, the T-72 and the T-64.

But most of the footage we’ve seen depicts
Russian T-62s being “modernized” at Russian armored repair plants and shipped to the front.

These tanks are nothing short of obsolete
in the modern era, and have been since they started to be replaced back in 1975.

Which begs the question: Why are they bothering
with these Cold War relics at all? A lot of it has to do with how hard it is
to maintain newer tanks in storage.

Since they operate using more sophisticated
electronic components that, as we well know, are more and more difficult to source, it
seems that Russia has tried to pull bunches of T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s out of storage
only to realize how expensive and difficult it might be to make them combat ready.

A fair portion of these were probably mothballed
to begin with.

Tanks left in storage without maintenance
atrophy.

Rubber treads and wheels crack and chip; mice
chew through exposed wires; armor rusts and corrodes—its a real nightmare scenario for
Russian mechanics.

The humble T-62 like the T-54 before it was
mass produced with one idea in mind: Make it simple, make it good, and make a crap ton
of them.

Simple designs mean fewer electronics, greater
ease of repair, and interchangeability of parts.

Like that old reliable 1966 Chevy you have
in your shed, no matter how many years go by you can always throw it up on the blocks,
tinker with the carburetors, and get it to start right up.

That’s the type of tank the T-62 was.

The fact Russia had something in the region
of 20,000 of these in storage at the end of the Cold War means there are plenty of stocks
to draw from.

The bigger question is whether or not it is
even worth it? Would Americans be happy if the US Army started
dusting off old Vietnam vintage M-60 Pattons from storage, slapping on a fresh coat of
paint, better comms, and a pair of thermal sights, and said, “Go to–and prosper!” Of course not! But when has the Kremlin cared what its soldiers
think? Repair plants across Russia are now churning
out oodles of Cold War antiques.

Most of these “museums on tracks” culled
from deep storage have not seen combat in decades—if at all—and their maintenance
records reflect that.

Some are being fitted with new engines, thermal
imaging, bulkier armor, new comms, better optics, and “cope cages.

” It probably won’t be enough to protect their
crews from certain destruction.

6.

Failure to Adequately Prepare New Recruits
for Combat Speaking of Putin’s indifference for his
countrymen, our next failure revolves around the inability of the Russian government and
military to adequately train and outfit their recruits for combat.

In the war’s first year, Ukraine reversed
its dire position and engineered dual counter offensives which achieved success beyond most
people’s wildest imagination.

In just over eight months Russia has lost
somewhere in the region of 90,000 “irrecoverably” wounded, lost, or killed soldiers—a number
that has by now far eclipsed the total casualties the Soviet Union sustained during nine years
of brutal combat in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.

Notably, Putin lost more soldiers in a week
than the United States lost in twenty years in Afghanistan.

Putin reacted by announcing sweeping calls
to mobilize new recruits for frontline service.

This created chaos in a country which had,
until then, been relatively insulated from the realities of the conflict.

Many military-age draftees did everything
in their power to avoid conscription, fleeing on planes, trains, and airplanes—and, where
that failed, on bicycles, scooters, and on foot.

Satellite imagery and social media posts revealed
miles-long traffic jams at Russia’s borders with Georgia, Finland, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan,
among others.

Thousands of cars and piles of abandoned bicycles
attested to the scale of dissatisfaction.

In Russia itself, images of forcibly repressed
protestors—some of whom were whisked into military service themselves—littered social
media as Russian officials around the country went door-to-door delivering draft notices.

Draconian laws in place prevent anyone from
criticizing Putin’s “special military operation.

” Enlistment officers scoured the country for
draft-age males.

Under Russian law, “men eligible for conscription
must be handed a draft notice in person.

” As you might expect, evasion strategies revealed
the ingenuity of many Russian males—some moving to summer cabins or disappearing on
“indefinite” camping excursions in the countryside.

Others disabled their doorbell “so they
wouldn’t hear enlistment officers.

” Some even injured themselves “as a way to
gain a medical exemption.

” Not everyone had the luxury of leaving the
lives they’d grown accustomed to; tied to their homes by elderly parents, mortgages,
or financial limitations, the unlucky were ushered into an uncertain military future.

Draftees ran the gamut from seventeen-year-old
teenagers with no combat experience to avowed criminals and middle-aged men with diabetes
and brain conditions.

There was little regard for health, expertise,
or background, even though Putin’s draft specifically called for reservists with military
skills.

Naturally, the “cannon fodder” label has
been applied to these new recruits—a common refrain among the men themselves, if scores
of anecdotal Telegram videos are to be believed.

“Zinc coffins are already coming,” one
jaded Russian military blogger complained as the mobilization unfolded.

“You told us that there would be training,
that they would not be sent to the front line in a week.

Were you lying again?” The bottom line is that the mobilization revealed
stark structural manpower deficits, which, according to Michael Kofman, led to “problems
with recruitment, retention, and rotation.

” Units which couldn’t be rotated were quickly
exhausted in combat, which led to the hiring of short-term volunteers, which further exacerbated
the retention issues.

It was a deadly cycle.

One which saw Russian conscripts used up faster
roll of one-ply toilet paper.

Russian conscripts were eventually refused
the right to refuse deployment, punishable by fine or a prison sentence.

Others expecting to serve for only a few months
saw their service in Ukraine extended indefinitely.

The bigger red flag was the way these recruits
were being trained for combat.

In the past, Russian law stipulated that conscripts
could not go into battle unless they’d had at least four months of training.

Russia’s own Defense Ministry website claims
that “an intensive four-week combined arms training with a ‘survival’ course is ‘essential’
for anyone who signs a contract with the Russian army.

The program takes a total of 240 hours and
includes shooting, throwing grenades and a study of military tactics.

” Today, these standards are not observed.

Incredibly, for such a vast mobilization in
such a high-stakes war, there seems to be no uniform training regimen in place at all.

In fact, reports commonly surface of conscripts
being sent to the front mere days after joining the army, raising red flags across the globe.

“A week of training is nothing—for a soldier,
it is a direct path to a hospital or a body bag,” one independent military analyst told
journalists.

Another director of a Russian human rights
organization said that he’d “been regularly approached by parents whose children signed
a military contract and ended up in Ukraine just a week later.

” Another conscript was quoted as saying, “After
all the medical check-ups they asked me if I was ready to go to the military base the
day after tomorrow.

They trained us for five days, we waited for
another five days for a force rotation and then we went to combat positions.

” Of the “informal training exercises” his
group conducted while waiting to deploy, he would [remark] “Of course, it was not enough.

” There are grave supply and housing issues.

There aren’t enough vehicles or munitions
to cycle to the rear to train on.

Pulling antiquated vehicles and equipment
from storage has been one temporary solution—but much of it requires extensive maintenance.

As such, reports revealed how conscripts sent
to the front had barely held a machine gun or seen a real tank—let alone operate them.

Asked about his shooting practice during his
eleven-day-training period before deployment, one conscript said he trained “once” with
“three magazines”—total.

Others practiced marching in street clothes.

“No machine guns, nothing, no clothes, no
shoes…half of them are hungover, old, at risk—the ambulance should be on duty,”
the man grimly continued.

“There was a soldier in our company who
didn’t know how a machine gun works.

So I taught that guy how to disassemble and
assemble a machine gun.

I wouldn’t want to be next to him in battle.

How can you fight like that?” There were not enough beds or heated houses
to accommodate the conscripts when they arrived for training; Russian sources revealed men
without sleeping bags or blankets sleeping on hard floors or in streets, many of whom
are barely fed, others sick or starving.

Consequently, disorderly conduct was common.

Shockingly, within a short span hundreds of
thousands of new draftees were deployed to Ukraine.

Their presence confirmed the observation that
“The Russian military currently prioritizes getting personnel to the frontline positions
in Ukraine quickly and appears to view the quality of their training as an afterthought.

” Yes, one could argue that history is in fact
on Russia’s side.

They have thrown countless millions into the
meat grinder of war dating back to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812—a trend that
continued strong through both world wars and survives well into the twenty-first century.

All Russian battlefield success, it seems,
comes only when unfeeling leaders are willing to pay an incredibly steep price—expending
men and materiél as cannon fodder until the enemy exhausts himself.

Putin should continue at his own peril.

Conclusion There are countless other tactical and systemic
issues which, in the interest of time, we’ll have to table for a future episode: These
include Russia’s abject failure to implement a viable deception plan or achieve any form
of surprise when it massed in Belarus prior to the invasion; Putin’s more recent failure
to control his own mercenary subordinates; Russia’s inability to protect its own airspace
against a growing fleet of cheap Ukrainian drones; the failure to instill operational
security which led to the deaths of dozens of high-ranking generals and officers to artillery,
drone, and HIMARS attacks; and Putin’s decision to let the war drag on indefinitely–which
has only given Ukraine time to iterate and innovate novel military killing techniques
which continue to rain down impressive destructive power on Russian forces.

These only scratch the surface.

In the meantime, let us know what we missed
in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for more military analysis from military experts.