Free Republic

The Russian air force had deployed three times as many fighters and attack planes as the Ukrainian air force had in its entire inventory. Ukraine’s air defenses were disorganized and, in the case of certain key long-range radars, sitting out in the open where the Russians easily could target them. The Russians had a firepower advantage. The Ukrainians had the same advantages every defender possesses over an invader: motivation, simpler logistics, familiar terrain. Either side might’ve prevailed—the Russians by dominating the air, the Ukrainians by preventing the Russians from dominating the air. We know how it turned out. The Russian...

Six years ago, the Russian navy formed a new army corps whose job it would be to defend Kaliningrad, Russia’s geographically separate outpost on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. This year, when the war in Ukraine began to go badly for Russia, the Kremlin yanked the 11th Army Corps from Kaliningrad and sent it into Ukraine. Where the Ukrainian army quickly destroyed it. The formation, deployment and destruction of the 11th Army Corps tell a story that’s bigger than the tragic tale of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The corps, sandwiched between two NATO countries along a strategic sea,...

The Russian army is losing at least a battalion’s worth of vehicles and men daily as twin Ukrainian counteroffensives roll back Russian territorial gains in eastern and southern Ukraine. That’s hundreds of casualties and scores of vehicle write-offs every day. These losses catastrophic for Russia. Russian army barely was sustaining a little over 100 under-strength battalions in Ukraine before Kyiv’s forces counterattacked in south on Aug. 30 and in the east eight days later. In under two weeks of brutal fighting, the Ukrainians have destroyed, badly damaged or captured 1,200 Russian tanks, fighting vehicles, trucks, helicopters, warplanes and drones, according...