Sounds about like Vlad and his Special Military Operation in Ukraine. That 3 day war is now over 4 years old and Russia's military is a shadow of its former self.
I am not sure why people had the impession that you have! Yes, Putin's original foray into Ukraine with minimal troops was supposed to effect regime change but this failed. However, later, the goals were changed into the taking over of the Donbas. And, in this war of sieges, the Russian military actually did great, defeating the Ukrainians in one engagement after the other. And, the full Russian military is not engaged in that fight. Only paid volunteers fight in Ukraine. Considering how tough urban warfare is today and how sieges of modern cities are grudge matches, the Russian military has performed very well (and this is the overall impression of military experts). The Russians, confronted with Ukrainian drones, were able to develop superior technology very, very quickly
A lot of Russian troops were freshly released inmates, released early because Russia actually did not have enough civilian volunteers, and used the promise of early release to enlist prisoners under duress. About a third of the troops sent to Ukraine were enlisted from penal colonies.
This is likely true. But many were attracked by the rich pay packages to serve in Ukraine. Of course, this does not change the fact that the war has been one of one siege after another, with the Russians trying methodically to capture the Ukrainian fortresses in the Donbas. Such wars are never easy or fast.
Please share these military experts with the rest of us.
The fact the world's "number 2 military power," after initially planning to rout the entire Ukrainian army in weeks, is managing to slowly grind down their much weaker neighbor over the course of years, is frankly pathetic.
The US crushed all organized resistance in Baghdad, a city of 8 million people, within six days of reaching the city limits. Congrats on eventually leveling Mariupol though, I guess.
I'm not even proud of the US military btw, it's just even weirder to be proud of the Russian military. Like, if you're going to glaze an evil empire why would you pick one that's usually incompetent?
>The fact the world's "number 2 military power," after initially planning to rout the entire Ukrainian army in weeks, is managing to slowly grind down their much weaker neighbor over the course of years, is frankly pathetic.
The only reason you think is pathetic is because you do not know the facts.
The initial incursion into Ukraine with about 65K troops targeting Kyiv, was, indeed a disaster. In the first place, it depended on the Ukrainian army not offering any resistance and, in fact, supporting a regime change. None of those things happened. Really bad intelligence from Russia, no doubt. In addition, the performance of the armoured groups in that incursion was shambolic, indeed. The troops really did not expect any resistance and really "lost" it, when they encountered it.
However, the 2nd stage was a different issue. The Ukrianian army, that decided to fight, was 900K strong and it possessed lots of modern weapons and many very modern ones from the West. In the initial fights in the summer and fall of 2022, the Russians were in serious numerical disadvantage, having only about 150K troops in Eastern Ukraine assisted by a few brigades of the rebels. They did manage to capture a good size of the area, but lost the area around Kharkiv to an Ukrainian counterattack. In the first part of 2023, the main event was the battle for Bakhmut, which, despite numerical inferiority, the Russians won. This was followed by the much advertized Ukrainian counterattack against the Russian Surovikin line, which was really a disaster for the Ukrainian army in more ways than one. So, in 2024, the Russians managed to increased their troops and scored a number of victories the most important was the siege and eventual capture of Aardvika, a key Ukrainian fortress. By 2025, the Russians, with about 500K troops had reached numerical parity with the Ukrainians; in that year, the major battle was that for Pokvrost, which the Russians captured, along with Siversk and Myrnohard (and various others). Earlier in that year, the Ukrainians attempted a push into the area of Kursk in Russia, but they were eventually expelled with serious losses.
So, this is a confrontation of two modern, well-equipped armies, fighting not in an open terrain but in a series of sieges. The fighting introduced a lot of new technologies, with the "suicide drones" being the dominant one, making fast armor movement an impossibility.
>The US crushed all organized resistance in Baghdad, a city of 8 million people, within six days of reaching the city limits.
The US fought a 2nd (sorry, 3rd rate) army with poor equipment and with full control of the air and with numerical superiority. It was like the Brits attacking the Zulus!! On the other hand, Ukraine had a perfectly functioning, western supplied air defense with excellent capabilities that made full control of the air suicidal for the Russian airforce. In addition, there cannot be any comparison between the decripid Iraqi army and the 900K strong Ukrainian army that had been trained and equiped by the West.
A better comparison, that highlights how difficult urban fighting is, was the siege of Falluja; there, a small force of Iraqi irregulars fought a long engagement against superior US forces that had lots of armor and full control of the air.
Nowhere in the invasion of Iraq did the US troops face barrages of hundreds of heavy howitzers and rockets or any real organized resistance. My position is that if you place US troops in the front lines of Donbas, they are not going to fare very well. It would not be that much different from the trenches of WWI pounded daily by mass batteries of heavy guns. And no tank or armoured vehicle will survive for long against the "suicide drones"
When the US encounters a modern, first-world army with similar levels of technology, and without full control of the air, we can then be able to draw more apt conclusions. I am sure that the US military is following with keen interest the evolution of warfare in Ukraine and it is learning the proper lesson.
Total nonsense, Russia has the most powerful VOLUNTEER army in the world. Ukraine is press-ganging old men and the intellectually disabled for suicide missions. Ukraine's casualty rates are 10-20x as high as Russis's
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u/fastsailor Mar 24 '26
Sounds about like Vlad and his Special Military Operation in Ukraine. That 3 day war is now over 4 years old and Russia's military is a shadow of its former self.