to be clear, it’s not just that the Russians are doing badly, it’s also that the Ukrainian military is doing very well, putting up a very, very stiff defense in several areas. And, of course, as we’ve now seen in the last 72 hours. Right, sort of a diminishing expectation of the enemy that they’re up against. It appears Putin has wildly miscalculated and had a, frankly, bad plan going into this of how quickly the Ukrainian military would collapse, and is still trying to avoid using these very damaging weapons of concentrated missiles and airstrikes to destroy Ukrainian defensive positions, to preserve his narrative of this not being a real war and not requiring that sort of use of firepower. And two, a lot of various forms of new weapons, either cruise missiles or new fighters, and strategic bombers that Russian doctrine - what they say they would do in this sort of war - we haven’t actually seen.Īnd I can delve a little bit why we think that is. One, electronic warfare, which we have not seen employed at scale. The main thing that the Russian military has emphasized as really improving is, strangely enough, capabilities that we haven’t really seen them use in the war so far. But on the whole, much of it due to just the sheer cost of replacing Russia’s old inventory of equipment and weaponry and munitions, even, means that they’re not that much different materially than they would have been in the beginning of the war in 2014. There’s some Russian units that have better equipment, newer tanks, that sort of thing. A lot of the Russian and Ukrainian forces are still fighting with roughly on-par equipment with each other. So, the short answer is that actually a lot of their equipment has not changed. The conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.Ĭan you walk me through some of the changes and upgrades that the Russian armed forces have been working on in the past decade or two? Mason Clark Ukraine’s country-wide mobilization adds an additional element, with many civilians picking up weapons, learning to make Molotov cocktails, or simply confronting tanks in the road.Ĭlark spoke with Vox on February 26 about his observations of the conflict so far, how it compares with other recent conflicts, and the resources Russia is still holding in reserve. Despite the disparities between Russian and Ukrainian forces, it’s still a war between two formal militaries, as opposed to a decentralized insurgency. The conflict is also markedly different than other recent conflicts, such as those in Syria or Afghanistan. “It’s been interesting to watch in the last 48 hours, and good to see in many ways, that the Kremlin has lost control of the narrative, internationally, around this war,” Mason Clark, the lead Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a nonpartisan DC-based think tank, told Vox.
COMMAND CONQUER GENERALS HIDDEN UNUSED PLUS
Nonetheless, on the information front, Russia seems to be losing the war the sheer volume of video and information coming from Ukraine in real time, plus a young, social media-savvy president and broad, transparent intelligence sharing, have proved to be a powerful antidote to the Kremlin’s disinformation spin. In recent years, much has been made of Russia’s developing hybrid warfare, fusing conventional tactics like ground troops and air campaigns alongside information manipulation and electronic warfare like signal jamming. Ukrainian forces, however, have mounted a strikingly successful resistance. According to Ukraine’s defense ministry, Russia has lost about 4,300 troops and nearly 150 tanks, and both Kyiv, the capital, and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, are still under Ukrainian control.Ĭasualty numbers are unverified and should be treated with some caution, but they’re still a sharp contrast to initial Russian expectations, which assumed the Russian armed forces’ greater numbers and access to more advanced weapons systems would result in a swift, relatively painless invasion. After four days of fighting in Ukraine, it’s not going especially well for Russian forces.
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