What did the Russians reasonably believe they could achieve — and how did their plan go so wrong so quickly?

Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe. There is so much happening at the same time. One of the biggest risks that the Russians took was coming across seven different fronts. In the beginning, they had one objective, and that was to take Kyiv. All other Russian military operations were in support of that objective. In order to take Kyiv, they needed to use speed.

Step one of invading a country is to take out the air defenses. The Russians failed there too, and that was a massive blunder. The airspace is contested to this day, in fact. Without that air superiority, their audacious plan to take the capital — which included special forces and other elite troops attacking the airport — did not go as planned. The Russians were also going to drive their most lethal mechanized unit down from Belarus, which is the fastest route. The plan was basically sound, but because the air defenses were not taken out the Russians got slowed down.

And if you get slower in this audacious plan of using surprise, audacity and speed, then everything starts to fall apart. That is part of war, of course, but you have to have the capability to respond. Because the Russians couldn't adapt to the loss of their momentum, they slowed down and stalled out. And of course, there is the truism, and wisdom, that it is not fighting that wins war, but logistics.

Amateurs talk tactics; professionals talk logistics. Once Russia pushed their units fast — we saw units just driving through towns, trying to get where they were going — they extended their operational reach. That is an operational risk. Such a move is not unheard of, but the Russians couldn't hold the lines to support everything they were pushing in at once. Those logistical lines are the lifeline. Once again, what wins wars, or loses them, are questions of logistics.

The Russian military's senior leaders are obviously professionals, very serious people. How did they make such basic and fundamental errors in the execution of their war plan?

Throughout the Russian chain of command, they thought they had a force that they did not. The war in Ukraine has been the biggest test of the Russian military since World War II, and how much it has changed. The Russians tried a Western-style invasion. The plan was to topple the Ukrainian government and then put in their own. It was supposed to be a Western, modern, Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom-style "shock and awe" invasion. Russian military leaders believed they could accomplish this, based on what they believed they had.

The Russians tried to fight like a modern Western military with a greatly weakened Soviet-style force. They have been exposed as suffering from years of graft, decay and delusion.

But the training and preparation of the conscripts was poor, and the Russian military lacks professional enlisted soldiers. They were trying to fight like a modern Western military with a Soviet-style force that even wasn't as strong as it was during the USSR. They failed, and have now been exposed as suffering from years of graft, decay and belief in a method of warfare that does not fit the strengths of their military.

What is going on other regions of Ukraine, such as the east and south? Some observers suggest that the Russians are in fact enjoying great success in those regions but that is being underreported by the Western media.

Kherson is an example where they've had success. They moved in and were able to secure it with a minimum number of forces. But as for Odessa, personally, I do not think they could ever take it. Mariupol, of course, the Russians had to take at great cost. The fact that the Russians had to fly in their top military officer, an adviser to Putin himself, to get control of the situation in Ukraine is the biggest sign one could ever have that things are not going the way the Russians want them to.

The fact that 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers held off 15,000 or more Russian troops in Mariupol is incredible. They didn't just do that by the way — those Ukrainians kept those Russian forces engaged. That means they couldn't go somewhere else for two months. I woudn't even call Mariupol a win for Russia, to be honest.

We know a great deal more about Russian losses. As for Ukrainian losses, there hasn't been public information about that, and we know a lot less. Clearly, the Ukrainians have lost a lot, and the fight is costing them greatly. As a military analyst, I see Russia making gains in some locations, but then I see them losing gains in other critical locations.

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What do you think happens next in Ukraine?

You have to look for the "culmination points" when a military force takes so many losses that they will not be able to meet their goals. This is what we saw in Kyiv. They start to break down in their actual formation as an organized group.

This conflict, in a larger sense, won't end for years. Russia will always contest the borders of Ukraine as a sovereign nation. But this war, the battle for Ukraine, will end within weeks or months. That is my opinion. We will see the Russian military in Ukraine reach its culmination point soon.



----- > yup, kini pasukan rusian empire telah kehilangan tujuan utama berperang di daratan timur-selatan ukraina..... pasokan logistik dan personel militer tuk memenuhi pergerakan maju pasukan nya di wilayah2 tsb, kini alami banyak hambatan dan tantangan yg masih gajes bngt solusinya.....

tgl 9 mei 2022 sudah lewat, tiada kemenangan besar staupun yg bs tsar putrin soldier raih slama 3 bulan terakhir invasi nya di ukraina, selain hny bs menduduki sebagian wilayah timur-selatan nya ukraina saja, yg kini serba stagnan....

kanan kiri nya kremlin di ukraina telah gatot, maju mundur nya pun jg gatot semuanya......