One of the links I posted a couple days ago the analyst didn’t buy this. Russia wants people to think it is strong. Losing thousands of troops as it has already done, its invasion massively slowed it looks weak. Its best interests are served with quick, brutal victories. It cannot achieve those. It still has not controlled the skies and apparently lost several aircraft just yesterday.
Each day Ukraine is being fed new troops. I’ve seen crazy estimates but it’s safe to say thousands of expats are arriving shortly. It is also being resupplied with ammo, and the Poland-supplied jets is not a dead issue; they are being negotiated now.
They may yet take more major cities but none of this is going to plan for putler.
I tend to disagree with some of that. Remember Russia doesn't view casualties the way we do. Western countries are extremely averse to casualties where Russia is viewing them more as pawns to achieve an objective.
I think Ukraine is putting up a better fight than was expected and Russian losses are far higher than being reported. (but so are Ukrainian losses)
Russia is seemingly trying to prevent wholesale destruction to infrastructure. They seem to want Ukraine as an asset not as a liability.
Russia isn't using their best equipment or best battalions.
As an example you may have still heard that the airspace is somewhat "contested" and it's not Russian dominated yet. Russia has an extensive array of missiles, stealth fighters (su57) , strategic bombers (tu160, tu95, tu22) and tactical strike bombers (su34 fullback). Now I don't think the SU57 is on the same level as western stealth fighters but it should be able to mop the floor with Ukrainian Soviet era planes. There should be constant su57s over Ukraine right now blasting anything that takes off. Russia should be cratering every airfield in Ukrainian control preventing anything from taking off.
Why haven't they?
Russia has an extremely extensive inventory of artillery, rockets, missiles and modern heavy armor. Why aren't they using it? Why are all the destroyed pieces of armor we see consist of mostly older models of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles?
Very confusing.
I don't proclaim to know what's going on but I certainly do not believe what's being reported. Ukraine is saying don't worry everything is fine but their actions seem to speak the opposite. Russia hasn't really said much at all either way. They are just steadily and incrementally advancing. Ukraine is winning the propoganda war but I think the true picture paints a different story.
I'm just trying to absorb information, ignore every talking head pundit and then myself try to analyze the most likely scenario of what makes sense for me.
I think Russia is still in control, they are still calm and confident. They are not desperate. They are still planning to occupy Ukraine. What their next move is, I'm not sure of yet but they're saving their best assets for that.
However I do find some things very befuddling that I just can't make sense out of that are not adding up.
Edit, for comparison here is the US war in Iraq timeline.
The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month,[26] including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. The capital city of Baghdad was captured by Coalition forces on April 9, 2003
2003 invasion of Iraq - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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