Do you think that the underperformance of the Russian military in Ukraine is mostly due to corruption or doctrinal deficiencies?

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

I think it's mostly due to doctrinal deficiencies but ones at the strategic/economic level versus the tactical/operational level. Many have pointed out factors like an overly rigid command structure that can't adjust to rapidly changing conditions on the battlefield. But in my opinion, it runs a lot deeper than that. I think that when Putin set out to "modernize" the Russian Army, the main objective was to bluff and make a fighting force that looked really good on paper; something that appeared to rival the US military for ~1/10th the cost. So, the main focus was to make a shit ton of tanks, planes and warships whose raw stats made them look comparable to anything that the US could field while neglecting some of the more difficult to quantify factors. But as we all learned, wars are not fought on a piece of paper and more difficult to quantify ≠ less important on the battlefield and shortcomings with things like communication, training and logistics have crippled the combat capability of the Russian military making it essentially a paper bear. Now instead of having comparable capability to a country with 10 times its' military budget, the Russian military can't conquer a country with 1/10th its' military budget. And had they invested more of their spending on what was needed to make the pieces of their military work together versus just the pieces themselves, their military capability would be at least comparable to a tier 2 NATO or non-NATO ally (i. e. Britain, France, Germany or Japan) versus a tier 3 (Canada, Spain, Italy, Israel, Poland or S. Korea).

[Soteris]

Nah, you got it wrong.

To start with you need to realize that Putin went into Ukraine to fight a completely different war. He was under the impression that the war was going to take days to win and from his point of view that at least made a certain kind of sense. There was not really even an expectation of heavy fighting, he was under the belief that the groundwork had already been prepared to allow his army simply to march in and claim victory before having a nice little military parade through the capital and reinstating his puppet president.

As such the military invasion was organized more like an airshow than an actual military operation with units and objectives selected to look good in front of the cameras rather than achieving victory. Everyone was given their own little role to play to impress and showoff the might of the Russian military to the rest of the world. If you consider the initial invasion more of a PR stunt then it suddenly makes a lot more sense.

This all makes sense if you thought that Ukraine would not and could not put up any serious resistance. Also why it failed so spectacularly when they did. But this is just the first layer of the failure onion that is the invasion, the foundation on which all other failures are built upon.

Since they misread the situation this badly they also failed to prepare adequately. Not enough troops, not enough equipment and too lax control allowing for too much corruption. But its important to recognize that even if Russia did not suffer problems with anything else, this failure in misreading the situation will always guarantee failure. They were simply never preparing for an actual invasion of this scale.

Built upon this foundation of failure you simply have more and more layers of failure and incompetence. Corruption and incompetence leading to the air force being unable to secure air superiority for example or how the mobile doctrine dictated a certain amount of vehicles in a unit but without filling them up with recruits to their designed size they instead were forced to have two or three people drive in each vehicle without infantry screens since they were not allowed to leave any vehicles they did not have crews for.

Layers upon layers.. Missing fuel sold by privates. Ballistic protection upgrades that was just cardboard. Soldiers selling optics and radios instead of using them. Trucks with rotten tires that were not maintained. Generals that are fighting with each other and more interested in personal advancement and achievement than military success. There are severe issues literally at every layer and one of the biggest problems is that the information of these problems are not transmitted to Putin. No one wants to be the person who tells Putin the bad news, especially if they are also the people benefiting from most of this shit.

Above all of these problems is just the fact that Putin lives in a separate reality from the rest of the world. He is told that everything was just perfect, of countless agents managing to prepare rebel groups ready to rise up and help the invasion, of a Ukrainian army that Russia rolled over just a few years ago with barely any effort, of perfect plans where Russia could just sweep in and be hailed as liberators by the population and welcomed with open arms. When you finally wake up you need to recognize the fact that Russia can't win this war with this few troops. It was doomed from the start.

[Wade12345]

Failure of Logistics first of all and failure of Contingency planning second of all.

Warfare is all about Logistics. It doesn't matter how good your strategy is if you can't keep executing and re-supplying your troops with food, munitions, and medical care.

The Russians opened this war with the worst display of Logistical failure in the history of Modern Warfare. One freaking U. S. bomber could have wiped out the entire Russian tank battalion and Supply Convoy on any given day of the week, and it went on like that for an entire week. I laughed when I saw how incompetent the Russians were. I had no idea they were that bad at this aspect of warfare.

That's the one thing the U. S really excels at in warfare is Logistics. It's why we usually wreck house on the conventional aspects of warfare. What gets the U. S. into trouble is the Guerilla Warfare aspect and politics gets us bogged down.

Alexander the Great was famous because of perfect Logistical planning and execution.

[Bee-Hatch]

You can't force an army to fight that doesn't want to fight.

[monorprise]

Its long been known an army moves on its stomach. Logistics is even more important than superiority of actual weapon.

I think it was fairly clear Russian economy the size of Italy, would have problems supplying a large scale operation. Their generals should have known this and only deployed the best troops in numbers they actually had the resources to support.

They made the rest sitting ducks for target practice. Putin figured this out early in the war, but not before the Ukraine figured out the weakness of the Russian force.

Not trusting his generals Putin then went too far in micromanaging his army as well, a issue our own presidents had in past wars such as Vietnam. Although the USA being one of the worlds greatest manufacturing and economic powers never had a problem with logistics.

[NathanDavis]

among many other things that are problematic...

there is a lack of conviction among the many ranks... especially the bulk of the invading army, they were lied to, manipulated or pretty much obligated to go into that mess

this conflict is not theirs... as simple as that

they even have trouble gathering gunners for hire

[cth96190]

I suspect that the Russian military is using Ukraine as a large live-fire training experience, in the way that the Germans used the Spanish Civil War to blood troops and test equipment and tactics.
The Russians have always had horrendous casualties, due largely to their tactical doctrine.

[driven159]

yes, the buddies of Putin have skimmed so much money from the defense buget along with Putin too how do you think they got those huge yachts and any country that invades another country will never have it easy if the people resist

[OddBeMe]

To my non-expert knowledge, like a sports team, psychology is big. I read about the Russo-Finnish war months before WW2. Finland wiped the floor with Russia. Like 58,000 casualties to Soviet’s 1 million. Because Finland was defending.

[maximumpower]

You think they're "underperforming?"

By all means - get your fat ass ou out of the chair, get over there and show them how its supposed to be done.

People like you really need a wakeup call.

[MangoBob]

With all the decades Ukraine spent in the Soviet union this “ war” is basically Russian vs Russian.

[RealDaveThomas]

Ineptitude. It really shows how badly Russia really couldn't survive

[Cubus]

Russia is actually winning this war.

[Ad_Quid_Orator]

I said "underperforming" not "losing".

[Guardian45]

AB-SO-LUTE-LY corruption!