For decades, Russia has been the world's
second most powerful military. Today, it is the second most powerful
military inside Ukraine. How in the world did a nation with
such a significant military overmatch get into a quagmire against a much weaker power?
Just what is wrong with the Russian military? The numbers speak for themselves. As of 30 days
since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has lost a staggering 1,794
vehicles. Of these, 877 have been completely destroyed, 34 seriously damaged, 228 abandoned,
and 655 captured by the Ukrainians. Compare that with 536 vehicles that Ukraine has lost, of
which 205 were destroyed, 16 severely damaged, 37 abandoned, and 278 captured. And these are just
figures confirmed via international intelligence agencies and amateur sleuths using social media
and satellite photographs- the real casualties are bound to be much higher. When it comes to
personnel, the only official figure given by Russia's ministry of Defense is a few hundred
KIA, however the real figure is estimated at between ten to fifteen thousand dead with that
many- or more- wounded, missing in action, or deserting. US intelligence estimates
that Russia is suffering an incomprehensible 1,000 casualties a day. Simply put, this makes
victory in Ukraine impossible for Russia. So what in the world is going on with
an army every western analyst had touted as the second best in the world, and a
'near-peer' competitor to the United States? The problems are numerous, but like all great
tragedies, start out with the smallest things. Maintenance is something nobody likes
doing, it's a downright pain for all involved. But preventative maintenance is vital
for keeping the complex machinery of war working, and the United States military places a premium
on it. There are rules, regulations, and all sorts of detailed checklists for everything from
maintaining proper tire pressure in a vehicle to oil changes and probably even how to adjust
your seat properly- but in Ukraine, Russia has shown with startling clarity what happens when
you ignore even the most basic of maintenance. One of the most common images of this war
is abandoned Russian vehicles littering the Ukrainian countryside by the hundreds. And
while there's numerous reasons for this that we'll get into shortly, by far the dumbest is
a simple failure by the Russians to simply turn their vehicles around once a month while in
storage. Logistics and maintenance experts from western armies were quick to spot the
telltale signs of sun damage on many tires found flat on abandoned Russian vehicles,
which let them know exactly how those tires got flat. As the sun beats down on a vehicle kept
parked in storage, it weakens the rubber- which is why it's important to routinely rotate
a parked vehicle so that the sun doesn't have a chance to break down the rubber on the
sun-facing tires. The Russians didn't do this, and inevitably, their multi-million dollar
vehicles ended up as scrap for Ukrainian farmers when they were forced to run them at
low pressure through mud and their tires popped. There is ample evidence of a failure to conduct
even basic maintenance across hundreds of captured Russian vehicles, but tires once more are
betraying the Russian military for one reason: they're cheap. Russian vehicles appear to
be equipped with Chinese military tires- specifically Yellow Sea YS20 tires which
according to former quality auditor of US Army tactical vehicles Trent Telenko, is a
bad copy of the Michelin XZL military tire. The Chinese tires aren't rated to carry as heavy
loads as the vehicles they have been placed on, and are riddled with construction defects. While
western military tires are more expensive, they are also of much higher quality and even undergo
x-ray testing to ensure integrity. Chinese tires are not held to the same standards, and Russia has
bought them by the thousands, ironically making things like 40 million dollar air defense systems
completely useless thanks to a few cheap tires. That's far from the only cheap equipment
being fielded by the Russian military though, as it has become abundantly clear that
the world's second most powerful army is a paper tiger. Sometimes
so literally it's frightening. Recently, Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption
Prevention sent a thank you letter to the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, praising his
efforts in ensuring high levels of corruption in the Russian military. Ukraine's discoveries
have been nothing short of shocking. Tank explosive reactive armor is supposed to defend the
vulnerable vehicles from anti-tank weapons fire, something which has been absolutely
mauling Russia's armored forces. Yet upon capturing several Russian tanks,
the Ukrainians cut open the armor panels and discovered that instead of an armor package,
the tanks were protected by... egg cartons. But Russian soldiers haven’t fared much better.
In February 2nd, Russia unveiled its futuristic new Sotnik full-body armor, allegedly capable of
stopping a .50 caliber round. That's impressive, but in the real world Russia's actual
soldiers are protected once more by... cardboard. Ukrainian forces
have found time and again that the plates inside of Russian body armor
are nothing more than stiff cardboard. The Ukrainian NACP thanked the
Russian defense minister for ensuring that Russian troops would be
so easy to defeat, and advised that they include training for their soldiers on how
to properly surrender to Ukrainian forces. So why are Russian soldiers going to war wearing cardboard body armor and
in tanks protected by egg crates? When Vladimir Putin inherited the Russian
military it could barely keep its own ships afloat and soldiers were wrapping their feet
in cloth instead of wearing socks. For two decades though Putin has channeled hundreds of
billions into modernizing the Russian military, prompting the New York Times in January 27th,
2022 to write the following headline: Russia's Military, Once Creaky, Is Modern and Lethal. But
they weren't the only ones to seriously misjudge the state of Russia's armed forces. In 2020 The
Economist ran the headline: Russian military forces dazzle after a decade of reform, followed
by the sub headline: NATO will need to step up. Over and over again western media and
defense publications have been awash with tales of a resurgent Russia investing
hundreds of billions into creating a modern, lethal force. But the truth has been laid bare-
much of that money has obviously been siphoned off by individuals across the length and breadth
of Russian leadership and acquisition chains. Corruption is nothing new in Russia- Putin
himself is likely the world's richest man thanks to all the wealth he's stolen from
national industries and oligarchs he disliked. What is new is just how jaw-droppingly
pervasive Russian corruption has been, stretching so far and gobbling up so much
funding that Russian soldiers are using egg crate tank armor and cardboard armor inserts. Cheap
Chinese tires show a further siphoning of funds, with untold millions pocketed by spending
well under allotted procurement budgets. It's all but a certainty then that Russia's
infamous maintenance problems aren't just a sign of bad leadership and poor standards, but
also a result of the corruption that has eaten up funds meant for maintenance of equipment
and procurement of quality replacement parts. We have evidence of this from the many
reports of Russian armored vehicle crews scrounging through Ukrainian junkyards for
replacement parts- which in at least one verified instance led to Ukrainians stealing
other parts from a broken down vehicle while its operators were themselves trying to steal
parts from the Ukrainians. When they returned, they installed the stolen part and
realized they were now missing other parts, and thus set off once more to raid the junkyard.
Ukrainian citizens took the opportunity to steal back the original part in question and disappear
with it. The vehicle was eventually abandoned, and Ukraine may have officially caused the first
combat casualty of warfare through trolling. Ineptitude is yet another of the staggering number
of problems affecting the Russian military. We have seen this at the highest levels, with the
Russian intelligence services completely failing to properly assess how Ukrainians would respond to
an invasion, or how well prepared its military was to defend its homeland. Russia expected an easy
victory- so easy in fact that on day one Russia launched multiple air assaults just outside of
Kyiv, expecting that it could simply create an air bridge by seizing runways and fly reinforcements
in, with the capital falling within three days. Instead the air assaults were almost all
destroyed, inflicting horrible casualties on Russia's much vaunted Airborne forces. In
Russia, its airborne forces are legendary and even enjoy an entire day dedicated to them called
Paratroopers' Day. However, when put to the test, Russia's paratroopers failed to achieve
even a one of their objectives in the opening days of the war, being thoroughly
defeated by Ukraine's rapid response forces. It would be unfair to place all the blame
on Russia's paratroopers though. Truthfully, they were let down by the massive
incompetence of Russian leadership, who believed lightly armed paratroopers could
hold airports long enough for heavy vehicles to simply be flown in. This underestimated
not just Ukrainian capabilities to respond to deep penetration air assaults, but also
Ukrainian air defenses, which were still mostly active even weeks into the war and
made reinforcing via air bridge impossible. The failure to shut down Ukraine's air defenses
is another casualty of Russian incompetence, though this time it stretches all the way to the
top. When the United States led a coalition in 1991 to end Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, it shut
down Iraq's air defenses within 48 hours through surgical and overwhelming strikes, while fighter
aircraft swept from the skies any Iraqi fighters foolish enough to resist. By comparison, Putin
dedicated only a small portion of the vastly superior-in-number Russian air force to try to
shut down Ukraine's air defenses. What should have taken Russia a few days to accomplish
has yet to materialize, and incredibly a month into fighting the Ukrainian air force is still
largely intact and flying up to 5 sorties a day. It's believed that Putin did not want to dedicate
the number of aircraft necessary to the task as it would signal that his 'special military
operation' was in fact what it really is: a full-scale war. To maintain domestic
support, Putin must keep up the facade that Russian forces are still engaged
in only light fighting, and thanks to his massive control over Russian media he's still
somewhat succeeding at maintaining this narative. But this has allowed Ukraine's air defenses to
continue to take a heavy toll on Russian aircraft, with 39 planes and 40 helicopters lost in
just the first two weeks alone. The total number today after a month of fighting is
unknown, but believed to be well over 100. Incompetence in the Russian military however
extends all the way down the chain of command. Russian forces have to date shown little
competency in everything from convoy security to responding to ambushes. In this video we can see
Russian armor bunched up inside of a neighborhood, and subsequently they fall prey
to a well-coordinated ambush. Not only do the bunched up vehicles make easy
targets, but the destruction or damaging of one vehicle can cause traffic jams as
the panicked drivers try to get away. This is a failure of the proper way to use
armor in combination with infantry. In the West, armor is always closely supported by infantry
who's job it is to protect the tanks from enemy anti-tank teams. Not only should these
vehicles not have been bunched up so closely together- they're lucky they weren't also
under air or artillery attack- but if the convoy had to stop for some reason, they
should have been deploying infantry to screen the flanks against exactly this type
of ambush. Yet time and again we see Russian troops failing to grasp even this most basic
of combined arms concepts, and Russian armored vehicles are paying a staggering price
for it with nearly 2,000 combat losses. In yet another video we see how Russian
troops have been reacting to ambushes. In this video we see a column of Russian
vehicles wander into a Ukrainian ambush, with a vehicle taken out by an anti-tank team. The
US military teaches that the best way to survive an ambush is to assault it by turning armored
vehicles into the ambush so their thicker, frontal plates are presented to the enemy, and
deploying infantry to fire on and suppress the enemy. Forces outside of the kill zone can then
launch an assault against the ambush's flanks. Instead, the Russian forces scatter in panic,
with only two of the tanks turning to the ambush and returning fire. Forces outside
of the ambush simply come to a dead stop, and no Russian infantry dismounts
to assault the ambush and relieve pressure on their buddies in the kill zone. Tactical incompetence extends to pretty much
every aspect of Russian convoy security though, as their convoys have been observed coming
to full-stops at intersections- an absolute no-no for any convoy. Then, when they eventually
begin moving again, instead of deploying screening elements on either side of the intersection, the
convoy simply pulls ahead in single file, leaving themselves wide open to enemy attack. Perhaps most
baffling of all though is the destruction of air defense equipment via air strike within parked
convoys, with the operators not bothering to turn on their air defense radars for hours
while the convoy sat at a dead standstill. Russian troops are proving themselves to be
poorly trained to the point of gross incompetence, but we couldn't mention convoys without explaining
one of Russia's greatest failures to date. By now everyone has seen images of an incredible
forty kilometer convoy of armored vehicles, fuel trucks, and artillery all stuck on its way
to Kyiv, with similar scenes repeating themselves at a smaller scale throughout Ukraine. Just what
in the world is going on with Russia's convoys? Incredibly, the answer is simple:
they're out of gas. Even more incredibly, they still haven't solved the
problem even after three weeks. Initially Russia's forces went into Ukraine
with approximately 3-5 days of supplies, and relied on their logistics fleets to keep
them resupplied past that. The only problem is that Russia doesn't have enough trucks or
logistics personnel to properly resupply its armed forces. Instead the troops rely on
railroads to haul supplies to the front, a task helped by Russia’s very impressive rail
logistics corps capable of building new rails, maintaining rails, and repairing them. The
problem is Ukraine keeps blowing up the railways, and Russian troops can't seem to stop them.
At this point, any hope of supplying forces inside Ukraine via the shared railways
between the two nations are a pipe dream. But you still need to be able to get supplies
from a railhead to where combat is actually taking place, and Russia's lack of supply trucks
makes this impossible in a meaningful way once an offensive has moved a few dozen miles out of
friendly territory. Each Russian combined army is assigned a material-technical support brigade
consisting of two truck battalions with a total of 150 general cargo trucks with 50 trailers and 260
specialized trucks per brigade. This gives Russia enough logistical capacity to resupply forces
no further than 90 miles from a supply dump, as increasing distance lowers the number of trips
each truck can make and adds further delay to full resupply. With forces now inside Ukraine's borders
and far outside the range of supply depots safe behind enemy lines, resupply has become slow-
but adding to Russia's problems is the fact that Ukrainian forces are very good at finding
Russian trucks and destroying them. In fact, Ukrainians have shown a preference for
destroying trucks over armored vehicles, and have a saying- “tanks
can't fight without resupply”. With each lost truck, resupply takes even longer, leading to stalled out offensives and an
incredible 40 kilometer long train of parked vehicles. But the general ineptitude of Russian
leadership makes orderly resupply difficult, causing massive traffic snarls of their own
creation and further miring Russian troops down. This lack of leadership highlights yet another
of Russia's massive deficiencies- the complete lack of a trained and disciplined
non-commissioned officer corps. In the US military, non-commissioned officers, or
NCOs, make up the backbone of its armed forces. These are the men and women responsible for
the everyday running and maintenance of the American military- and Russia lacks any similar
capability. Thanks to its hierarchical nature, the Russian military has placed little emphasis
on properly training a professional NCO corps and now that it is facing its first modern
foe, its military is suffering for it. While America places an emphasis on empowering
its NCOs to make on-the-fly decisions and seize the initiative, the Russian military has no
such leadership cadre, which inevitably leads to a need for senior officers to 'lead from the
front'. But senior officers are few in number, and simply can't be as omnipresent as a wide cadre
of NCOs can be- and even more importantly, are far too valuable to risk dying on the front lines,
which is exactly what's been happening to Russia's Majors, Colonels, and even Generals. As of this
writing, 7 senior Russian generals are believed to have been killed in one month. By comparison, the
United States lost 2 generals in twenty years of fighting the global war on terror- one was killed
in the September 11th attack at the Pentagon, and the other was killed on August 5th, 2014
during an insider attack in Afghanistan. Zero of America's general officers
have been killed on the front lines. Russian generals claim to simply 'lead from the
front', and take inspiration from Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration who was fatally wounded at
the battle of Borodino in 1812, or Generalissimo Alexander Suyorov who always fought on the most
exposed part of the front. However, the truth is that Russian generals are having to fight at the
front because they don't trust their subordinates to follow orders, and because of the complete
breakdown of their communications abilities. Communications though is yet another of
Russia's mind-boggling failures in its execution of this invasion. Once more, likely
due to corruption, the world has learned that a significant amount of Russia's armed
forces are operating on civilian-quality unsecured radios. Radio broadcasts between
Russian units have been recorded by civilian observers using basic equipment, with some
civilians taking the opportunity to jam Russian frequencies or simply troll
them with the Ukrainian national anthem, the popular American 'yankee doodle'
song, or other random audio. Incredibly, even Russia's strategic bombers have been recorded
operating on completely open and un-secure radios. Not only has Ukrainian interruption of
these unsecured communications caused massive problems for Russia's military, but it's
even led to strategic defeats of its forces. At least one Russian general has been
killed after his position was pinpointed by listening in to these un-secured broadcasts.
Ukrainian artillery has also been very successful in using these broadcasts to pinpoint
Russian units and saturate them with fire. Perhaps most baffling of all though is the failure
of Russia's highly secure cryptophone system. Introduced in 2021, ERA was touted as the most
secure communications system in the world, capable of secure conversations from almost
anywhere on the face of the planet. However, Russian generals and intelligence agents have
been unable to use it inside of Ukraine. The reason? It relies on cell towers
and uses 3G and 4G to communicate, and the Russians have destroyed most of the
cell towers in the areas they've occupied. Hundreds of millions of dollars in research,
development, and procurement costs all wasted on a system that can't work when the Russians
need it the most simply because somebody didn't tell the troops not to destroy cell towers.
Now, Russians are forced to use unencrypted landlines for highly sensitive conversations,
which inevitably have been intercepted by Ukraine and western intelligence
agencies to great strategic effect. By now, you're no doubt fully aware
of the extent of Russia's war crimes against Ukraine's civilians, and this
is yet because of another failure of the Russian military. Russia has a
very low supply of smart weapons, both because it simply can't afford them due to
2014's sanctions, and because Russia has always placed a low priority on precision weapons.
Most of its aircraft also lack targeting pods. Inevitably it was feared that as Russia's
stockpile of smart munitions dried up, it would resort to much more indiscriminate
'dumb bombs', resulting in high amounts of collateral damage and very little
actual destruction of intended targets: ukrainian military positions. This turned out
to be the case within a week of the invasion, but the scale of assault on civilians has
only increased exponentially since then. Why? Simply put, because the Russian military is really
bad at war. They're so bad that they rely on the mass slaughter of civilians to force a peace on
their terms. They did this in Georgia, they did it in Chechnya, and they did it in Aleppo, killing
thousands of civilians with indiscriminate bombing and artillery fire. Now they're doing
it in Ukraine as their offensive bogs down due to stiff Ukrainian resistance. Putin's
strategy is simple: kill so many civilians that Zelensky is forced to accept a peace on Putin's
terms, even though Putin is the one losing. This is the reason why Russia bombed a
maternity hospital, killing pregnant women and their unborn children. It's the reason why
they bombed a theater clearly marked with the world 'children' on both the front and back
yards. And it's the reason why their troops have been recorded opening fire on civilian
vehicles and civilians standing in bread lines, in videos too graphic for us to share with
you here. They have even routinely attacked convoys of civilians fleeing conflict areas
through humanitarian corridors they established themselves- only to close them hours later
and open fire on anyone stuck within them. Russia's strategy is to cause a humanitarian
crisis so terrible, Zelensky will have to admit defeat, even though- and we can't stress
this enough- Russia is losing this war. But Ukrainians aren't giving up, and
Putin's terror campaign is backfiring, galvanizing an estimated 15,000 foreign volunteers
to come to Ukraine's defense in just one month. Many of these are amateurs with little more
than a willingness to help defend Ukraine, but many more of these are highly trained
professionals from militaries all across the West, who bring years of experience fighting in the
Middle East to bear on incompetent Russian forces. As this invasion progresses, we'll learn more
about the true vulnerabilities and deficiencies of the Russian war machine- but as of
right now it's clear that Russia is no longer the second most powerful
military in the world. In fact, they're only the second most
powerful military inside Ukraine. Now go check out What If Russia Invades
Ukraine, or click this other video instead!
