Russian Military Doctrine and why Ukraine in the 21st Century is different.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
To understand the Russian incursion into Ukraine and their current dismal performance, one must look at history.
Let's start with one fact.
1) Russians rarely "out-fight" an enemy.
WW2 is packed full of stories of tactically superior German soldiers really "laying into" the Russians.
A few of my favorite examples, both places I've been to in person and soaked up the vibe...
In 1944 the Russians were on the move, pushing the Germans out of Russian lands into Estonia through the city of Narva, over the Narva River. Around 10 miles across the border were a series of hills called Sinimaed, a battleground from WW1 and earlier... serving as a natural barrier to the Western half of Estonia.
The Germans took up defensive positions in the Sinimaed and waited for the Russians. The Russians rolled in with 10x the soldiers, around 250,000 troops and a few hundred tanks... into an area not much larger than a sprawling city.
The Russians attacked and counter attacked the hills, they changed hands time after time. The Russians were pouring troops in as they'd fall. They had nearly unlimited artillery and ammo to pound the hills.
Eventually the Germans gave up the hills and fled the area. The Russians had lost 600k+ soldiers, 135k killed.
The Germans lost between 5-10k men.
Fast forward to the Battle of Berlin in 1945. There's a spot near Berlin Center called Neukolln. It's just your typical spot with a Rathaus, a "City Hall"...
It's located at the crossroads leading into Berlin Center and all the targets the Russians wanted to take. Less than 100 French Volunteers (SS Charlemagne) held up 10's of thousands of Russians and hundreds of Russian tanks for half a day.
The Russians kept pushing men and tanks into the teeth of the defense and the bodies piled up. Finally the surviving troops retreated back into Berlin Center.
And finally... you saw the movie Stalingrad from 1942?
It was accurate. Trains full of conscripts from the Far East arrived into the rail terminal and were sent straight to the front lines where the leaders told them to rush towards the German front lines and pick up the weapons dropped by the soldiers who fall in front of them and continue forward to "kill the fascists"...
Bottom line?
The Russians have NEVER been an elite fighting force. Russians win because of numbers. They drown the enemy in men and ammo.
Today? The Russians have a small fighting force, poorly trained, Defense contractors, oligarchs and corrupt Generals have been siphoning money away from the military for decades...
And the Russians don't have the political will to conscript the general population to form a large force.
In summary, Ukraine is exactly the kind of battle the Russians can NOT win at THIS TIME. The Ukranians are well equipped and motivated and the Russians don't have their usual "numbers" to score victories.
At this point, the only thing the Russians can do to keep the war raging is a combination of more war crimes and destroy infrastructure or shut off the power/heat during Winter.
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