I am not going to cut up old jackpots, but in several recent articles I have posited things based on my knowledge as a tactical simulation nerd, and I think that later reporting and events show I have at least a passing knowledge of which I speak. And that can only lead me to one conclusion. I have never seen such an incompetent, inept, feckless major military operation in my life!
Ever since the end of World War II, and the news that Russia had in fact created its own nuclear weapons, the old Soviet Union has been thought of as a global nuclear superpower. What total, unutterable bullshit! Allow me to explain.
In World War I, the Germans invaded Russia, with whom they had a treaty. And you know what? They kicked their asses. They drove them back along every front. The one saving grace for the Russians was the size of their population, which allowed them to bring forward wave after wave of replacements, which the Germans couldn’t match. But even so, Germany weakened the Russian military so much that it made the Russian communist revolution possible.
In World War II, once again in the spring of 1941, the Germans attacked their alleged ally Russia. And once again kicked their ass. They drove the Russians back hundreds of miles, laying siege to Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Moscow, and even Stalingrad, hundreds of miles east of Moscow. Once again it was the size of the Russian population, along with the vicious Russian winter, that allowed them to turn the tide.
And yet, even since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the creation of the Russian Federation, the world has continued to believe that the Russians had a state of the art, modern military. What bullshit. Beloved Senator John McCain nailed it when he described Russia as a gas station with nukes. He was right. As I posted earlier, while Putin spent several billion upgrading the Russian military, he upgraded his nukes, while ignoring Russian tanks, fighters, bombers, armored personnel carriers, and trucks.
I have a challenge for you. Get up, go look through your house or apartment, and find me one item you own that was made in Russia. You can’t. For the simple reason that Russian products are for shit. The communist model sacrificed quality for quotas. The Russian military has never been famous for the quality of their armor, but for the mass of it that they could send forward.
And in the Ukraine, it turns out that they can’t even do that right! There are two inviolate axioms in the military, An army travels on its stomach, and A well fed army is a happy army. In World War I, as the German army advanced, in the middle columns there were horse drawn wagons, with pots over open braziers being stirred by cooks to provide the soldiers with a hot meal.
Things have advanced these days, Now, most majors supply their soldiers with MRE’s, Meals Ready to Eat. They come in a foil pouch, which the soldier put up against a heating pack he crushes with his hands, and dinner! MRE’s are commonly used by FEMA and the Red Cross to provide natural disaster victims with quick, easy to prepare meals. I’ve had MRE’s, and while they’re nothing to write home about, they’re better than an empty tummy.
As the Russian troops advance, they only have so many MRE’s that they can carry and so they need to be replaced. And they’re being replaced. Kinda. Basically, they’re being replaced by NRE’s so far past the stale date that the Russian troops won’t even bother ripping off the foil lids. What the fuck?!? This is not the way to make your troops feel valued, and make them ready for the fight ahead.
Now, let’s turn to the Russian advance. I wrote almost a week ago that the Russians had waited too long, and that the spring thaw was going to restrict them to the roads. But the Russian commanders made no adjustments, sent their heavy armor and armored military transport vehicles across the open fields, where they became totally bogged down. And when that happened, there are reports that Russian troops abandoned their vehicles, and either headed back, or dropped their arms and surrendered. There is no excuse for senior command to not take current conditions on the ground into account when planning an advance.
Now, let’s talk about that 40 mile convoy. It’s sitting stalled 10 miles out from Kiev, for more than 72 hours now, and it isn’t going anywhere. There are several reasons for this. First the low hanging fruit. The Russian military has been besieged by conscripts who are fleeing the fight at the first possible moment, and more importantly disabling their vehicles as they leave, making them immovable. This stalls progress.
But it gets even worse. While an army may travel on its stomach, their vehicles travel on gas. And if there’s one thing the Russians should have a shitload of, it’s gas. It’s their only export, along with natural gas. But the Russian military has had a miserable time getting the fuel trucks up to the vehicles that need them. My guess is that because they waited too long to move forward, the armored and personnel carriers are clogging the road, and the fuel trucks can’t get forward. This is inexcusable. If you don’t have motion lotion, you can’t get anywhere.
But I saved the worst for last, simply because it’s the most potentially dangerous. Earlier tonight, the Russian military in Ukraine physically attacked and bombarded the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, located in Ukraine. This is insane, simply because blowing up a nuclear power plant in Ukraine would likely have prevailing winds send the radioactive cloud over Russia itself.
Which leaves no good answers. Because it means that either Putin is so totally unhinged that he ordered a strike on a nuclear power power plant to deny Ukraine power, and the consequences be damned, or there is a rogue Russian military commander that ordered a strike against a nuclear facility with no authorization from above. Which means that the Russian high command has no control over their field troops.
For all of the reasons I listed above, and probably more, Putin deserves to lose this war. But not at the expense of the rest of us having to go through another Chernobyl to do it. The thing that disturbs me is the attack on the nuclear power station. The next 48 hours will be critical. If the Russians pull back, then it was a feisty commander overstepping his bounds. Then it was an out of control commander. But if the Russians move in tomorrow, then Putin is insane, and all bets are off.
Help Ukraine resist. Donate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it only takes a few seconds. They need food, ammo, guns, boots and much more each and every day they fight.
https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi
fwiw I have table and chairs that I bought from IKEA about 12 years ago. They were sourced in Ukraine.
as for the convoy it is doomed if they really decide to advance. defensive weapons and blockaids are already set up to defend kiev. They will be picked off by all the new stingers and jaguars brought in by all the outside sources. If I were a russian tank commander I would be very worried.
“In World War I, the Germans invaded Russia, with whom they had a treaty. And you know what? They kicked their asses.”
Murf, I’m COMPLETELY unfamiliar with any “treaty” between Germany and Russia BEFORE the onset of World War 1. The Kaiser and the Tsar were related by blood (they were third cousins) and they exchanged a lot of letters in the 20 years or so before the war but any formal treaty between the countries before the war doesn’t seem to exist.
Germany, Austria and Russia had formed a “League of Three Emperors” for roughly a decade in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War (which largely finished the creation of the German Empire) but that lapsed in the 1880s, mainly because of competition between Austria and Russia in the Balkans. Before Bismarck fell from grace in 1890, he’d tried to reestablish ties with Russia through a highly secretive “Reinsurance Treaty” (it was so secret that virtually no one outside the most upper of upper echelons in both Germany and Russia even knew about it). The major terms of the treaty were that Russia would stay neutral in a war between France and Germany and that Germany would let Russia have more or less free reign in modern Bulgaria and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits (between the Black Sea and the Aegean/Mediterranean Sea). Russia wanted Germany to promise neutrality if Russia and Austria went to war but the Germans absolutely refused. After Bismarck lost power in 1890, his successor pressed Wilhelm to drop the treaty and Bismarck got his revenge by revealing the existence of the treaty half a decade later but the damage was already done. But that treaty didn’t make any real difference in Russo-German relations.
After that, the only treaty between Germany and Russia was the Brest-Litovsk Treaty that got the Russians (under Bolshevik rule) out of WW1.
As for WW2, yes, Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact before the war (and part of the pact would split Poland between the two countries and recognize Soviet hegemony over the Baltic States) and that most certainly DID get violated when Hitler ordered Operation Barbarossa to go into effect.
As a follow-up, Germany never advanced that far into Russian territory during WW1 nor did the Austrians. Germany managed to occupy Russian Poland (which covered modern Eastern Poland and western areas of Belarus and Ukraine) and took Lithuania and the western part of Latvia which wasn’t remotely close to what Germany did during WW2 (when the Germans came within 10 miles of Moscow itself as well as besieging Leningrad/St Petersburg and Stalingrad/Volgograd). And once the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, Germany basically kept that territory as well as getting the Bolsheviks to recognize that Ukraine and the Baltic States were open for “self-determination.”
Sadly, given the Grozny-style shelling of Ukrainian cities and the general erratic course of this invasion, I can absolutely believe that Putin ordered that nuke plant attack. It was a disaster on so many levels that it may well be the true turning point of this conflict.
Before going to bed last night I saw some suggestion it was the admin building that had been shelled. This morning I’m seeing that Russian forces have taken over the facility. If that’s the case then I think you’re correct that this is on Putin. A risky as hell thing to have done but that’s a huge strategic asset for him to grab. The winter might have been a bit milder than usual and the ground might be more thawed that Putin had counted on (why those tanks are in that long convoy we keep seeing north of Kyiv) but it’s still cold. A helluva lot of people and not just in Ukraine rely on the power that plant produces. Putin needs every bargaining chip he can get and this one is significant.
Flipside of that coin: grabbing it is the easy part. It’ll be interesting to see if they can hold it.