To leave behind Arty and SPG's smacks of overran and routed.

Spot on, those MRLS and artillery were'nt (or shouldnt have been) in the front line but in depth, so the fact that Ukraine got those intact speaks volumes of the mayhem amongst the Z-force.

In a week they lost more MBT's than Australia, Canada or Hungary has and 2/3 of what UK has.

That must make the Russians a bigger supplier of military equipment to the Ukraine than Germany :oh:

Thanks for the link, Beamer. Just shows what happens behind the scenes. Good for Germany.

1/ @ian_matveev, who's one of the smartest Russian-language commentators on the Ukraine war, has posted a very interesting and detailed thread discussing the reasons for Russia's defeat east of Kharkiv. An English translation, with his permission, follows (LONG thread ahead!). ⬇️…..

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...775291392.html

Have to disagree there. Scholz refusal goes way beyond Bundeswehr stocks. KMW and Rheinmetall have stocks of older Leo and Marder that Scholz refuses to release. The same applies to stocks of older Leo that Spain wishes to gift but Scholz says NYET

Nice work by Matveev … hope to see more of the same, if it doesn’t help the Russians too much. “Never prevent the enemy from making mistakes”, or something like that!

Yes but apart from the poor communication, the fragmented organisation, the woeful motivation, the non existent training, the patchy logistics, the corrupted spares and reserves provisions and the schoolboy tactics, what has Putin done for the feared Russian Army?......With apologies to the Life of Brian:)

"Brought peace?"

Excellent article from Matveev, but I too hope that it doesn't help the Russians. It rather smacks of the BBC helpfully telling the Argentinians that their bombs were not exploding because of wrong fuse settings. The next delivery had correctly fused bombs, and ...

Many of the failings Matveev proposes are systemic, the kind that take months, years and even decades to correct; they won't be changed overnight.

Analysis from Jack Watling echoing the training and structural issues: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...orming-ukraine

To be honest and comfort a bit, all the described issues of the Z-force are not solved overnight. The tools are bad (they can't build 2000 modern tanks, 4000 APCs or a thousand artillery pieces due to multitude of issues and not in the timeframe that would make any difference in years to come), the chain of command would require something that will not happen (taking rosguardia, army, wagner et al under same command, but whose command), they do not have the training (none of them in the aforementioned groups, and those who have it is different training without joint force experience), they don't have the motivation to fight (if the president gets billions as his cut, politbyro take millions, generals get a bit less and so on, what does regular Ivan? Takes his cut as washing machines. Thats his only motivation). The list goes on.

The issues lie so deep in the system itself that it will not be solved by just adjusting the fuse, so to say.
It will require a reform of the entire country, its culture and their thinking. It didn't happen during the 30 years after the Iron Curtain came down, it will not happen by christmas this year either. And definately not under the dictatorship of a Cold war era dinosaur who thinks he's the saviour of Russia and the modern day Peter the Great.

Which reminds of an anecdote I heard the other day:

This is Radio Yerevan, we are ready to answer our listeners questions
Q: Is it true that Vladimir Putin is as great of a leader as Peter the Great was?
A: well, all we can say is that they both successfully brought Russia to 18th century.

Russia is now entirely defenseless against NATO--by its own choice as it tries to fight in Ukraine. Putin showing how really unconcerned he is about a possible NATO threat--he is happy to leave Russia undefended.…

"Many of the failings" "All of the failings".

Russia is the embodiment of systemic corruption. Weeds might grow out of manure, but an effective force of arms, not so much.
The pet d' Putin can get his Wagner terrorists, Ukraine has motivated defenders who know exactly what they are flighting for, like the teacher who visits his class. Russia has shown they lack culture under Putin. They only have stockpiles of war crimes to play with, that further alienates their nation.
Algeria could defend itself from camels with Renault 4's or 2CV's as effectively as the junk arms that Putin has devolved the Russian arms industry to.

So it turns out Russia is the paper tiger.... IMHO all the defense dollars spent have now justified themselves. Except Star Wars and a few other boondoggles.....

I think we can safely assume that not much of Russia's anything actually works all that well. I note Putin is not banging the Nuclear drum anymore since he probably learned that all of his techs are in other countries seeking gainful employment and his arsenal hasn't been maintained for the last 22 years. He wouldn't want to attract global attention to that.

NICE low level

thread on Russia's rail supply lines to its occupying forces in Ukraine - how these have been affected by the recent Kharkiv offensive, and what's likely to happen next if, as I expect, Ukraine moves next to retake northern Luhansk oblast. 🧵

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...173541889.html

I consider the recent Biden warning to Russia to not use tactical nukes more concerning. Hopefully they just picked a what they feel is a "quiet moment" to communicate this and don't see actual indications of any real world preparations.

Mobile Russian recruiting office in Rostov, with promises of high wages.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...nteer-soldiers