IT IS NOT THE WEAPON BUT THE MAN BEHIND THE WEAPON
WHO ENSURES VICTORY
SOURCE:
( ) https://barry-gander.medium.com/revisited-for-1st-anniversary-the-real-reason-russia-is-losing-5211d7db2531
Revisited For 1st Anniversary: The REAL
Reason Russia is Losing
We are coming up to the first anniversary of the day Putin sent some 200,000 Russian troops charging into Ukraine.
This is a good time to ask ourselves why there is an anniversary — a visitation of activities over a full year.
Because Ukraine was to be conquered in ten days.
Putin’s advance troops even had lists of Ukrainians to execute in their pants pockets. Walk in, round up, shoot. A simple plan.
Putin could have read the accounts about an earlier Russian invasion of a neighbouring country. Stalin lined up 11 million men to attack Germany.
Before they could get underway, Hitler’s panzers rolled across the border and attacked him instead.
Hitler earmarked three million German troops to invade Russia. Approximately one million attacked the Ukraine area. They had 19 panzer divisions with 3,000 tanks, plus 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces They captured it in two months, three weeks and five days.
It took 29-million Russian fighters to finally eject the German troops. That’s almost a ten-to-one ratio of Russians needed to eject Germans.
This is not a comment on Russian courage, merely on the lack of Russian skill. When your big tactic is attacking in waves across the open ground, you will bleed a lot.
So assume that you, as a Russian leader, know you need ten Russian soldiers to fight each single enemy soldier.
Fast forward to February 2022.
Putin used an invading army of 200,000. Ukraine had some 500,000 troops at that time, well trained after their humiliating loss of Crimea, and very highly motivated.
In fact, as soon as the Russians invaded, more than half the Ukrainian population volunteered for the army.
It now numbers more than a million service-people — substantially outnumbering the Russian forces
Ukrainian civilians now have huge social cohesion, with more than 90% of them trusting the President. They are self-organizing; 1500 NGOs have emerged in the crises.
And 98% of Ukrainians believe in Ukraine’s victory.
Back to basics: to beat 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers (before their numbers skyrocketed) Putin needed 4 million men.
Four. Million. Men.
Just to invade the place.
And that is the real reason Russia is losing.
His armies, at the start of the offensive, should have been so large that they formed a line of tanks, trucks, and armoured cars stretching back into Russia for 200 kilometres.
Even if this army wins, Putin then has to occupy Ukraine. Based on the occupation ratio of American troops in Germany after the victory over Hitler, of one soldier for every 40 civilians, Russia should have counted on one million soldiers to occupy Ukraine, which has roughly 40 million people.
So: four million to invade, and one million to occupy.
I had earlier estimated that three million Russians would be needed. I had to revise that when a restricted report titled “Conclusions of the war with NATO in Ukraine” came out. The military and political command of Russia stated that 5 million Russian troops must be deployed in order for Russia to win.
So I figure that my new number of 4 million is about right — it splits the difference.
As I put it eloquently in a previous article: I am surprised that few people out there seem to be pointing out the elementary, historical math that unveils the obvious: WTF were you thinking, you borsch-guzzling moron?
This is a regular Russian habit: they have no sense of judgement or capability.
Every war that Russia has won since Catherine the Great has been due to alliances with Western powers.
When Russia stands alone it loses. It lost the Crimean War of 1853–56, lost the 1905 war against Japan, lost WW1, and lost the Cold War. It only beat Napoleon because Russia was allied with England; all the Russians had to do was keep retreating until winter set in. It beat Hitler because the U.S. and England supplied their armies.
Russia has such a heritage of bad decision-making that there is a very good case to be made that Russia’s Tsar started World War One. While tensions were mounting between Austria and Serbia, it was a decision by Tsar Nicholas to go to full mobilization that triggered Germany to do the same and so on down the falling dominos… And Stalin might have caused World War Two by signing a pact with Hitler than allowed the Nazis to invade Poland.
Sheer Russian strategic dementia, in every case.
They do have a genius for unity, though — for other people. Now 143 nations across the globe have come together in defence of the UN Charter and in solidarity with Ukraine. NATO is stronger than ever. The world is switching to renewable energy. Of Russia’s 13 post-Soviet republics, the three Baltic states are already in NATO and the European Union, and the rest are sidling away from Russia. Russia’s agriculture, industry and population are crumbling.
Ukraine has now re-captured more than half (54%) of the land the Russians took in their invasion that started in February.
High-ranking Russians who could have opposed Putin are dropping out of high windows. A Russian colonel who played a role in President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization efforts has evidently committed suicide by shooting himself five times.
If the Russians now try to draft four or five million men, another 20 million will flee Russia.
It doesn’t really matter whether — as rumour has it — Putin is ill with cancer. Whoever replaces him will be in the same box.
The only ones who can’t see that are the oligarchs.
They are not on the front lines, freezing and hungry.
At least one Russian revolution started with soldiers on the front line, freezing and hungry.
Putin should ask Tsar Nicholas how that turned out.
Of course, he may find out very soon anyway…
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