I heard an interesting analysis from a retired high level US military man with European experience. He said the Ukrainian soldiers were far better trained than the Russians, and it shows. He recommended not doing something rash that will trigger Putin to worse moves. He also suggested that Ukraine mine the seas off their coast to discourage the ships that are goint to try to land to take Odessa. There has been so much graft and corruption in the Russian military that Putin has probably been shocked at how badly the troops were trained, supplied and have performed. Where has the money gone? Already he has fired 8 top brass, and is mad at the FSB for lousy information. Some one or more will probably have to get rid of Putin just to keep from being found out and executed.
Regarding using drones. Did anyone see the photo of the housewife who clobbered a drone with a pickle jar full of pickles? Apparently it was snooping around her apartment building windows. Even woman have the warrior spirit.
In connection with my Comment #13 I forgot to include the following importment point made by the military man. He said the key to military success is sergeants, which includes in the Ukraine military, but not the Russian army. Sergeants keep the troops in line, they also make sure the troops get the supplies they need. How do you think they stay fat? They are generally in for multiple deployments or until retirement, and make sure that they and their men stay as comfortable as possible. This keeps morale high.
Missing in all discussions on this war is the role of U.S. military satellites, feeding high quality info to Ukrainians.
It is not mentioned but I would be surprised they didn’t.
Any army that could weaponize "not getting any for a month" would be invincible!
He said the Ukrainian soldiers were far better trained than the Russians
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The UA is Western trained - some joint military exercises with them, I read.
Meanwhile, the Russians use the standard Soviet tactics, but have fallen short of what their military grandfathers were capable of doing - communications security being on area they were once good at and are now terrible.
Putin’s now has sent in a crack Spetsnaz regiment. So they might start doing much better.
I just went looking for the interactive map of Russian forces and the site returns a blank page saying, “contact support” - same is true for the home page.