Hump day is done

Ukraine was supposed to lose in three days. We all knew they would. I knew they would. They didn’t. Ukraine was supposed to lose to the might of Russia. Many asserted it was inevitable. Russia is too big, too strong, has too many soldiers, too much equipment. Well, they don’t anymore. They treated their men as if they were an unlimited resource and now they are looking at limitations. They have gone through so much of their Soviet weaponry build-up that they lost more than they could replace. British intelligence says Russia has lost more than 3,600 tanks. When they run out of old T-90As to upgrade they’ll only be able to make 28 T-20Ms a year. They will have other armored fighting vehicles, but they’ll have to change tactics. They do have more people to sacrifice, but they are already sacrificing them faster than they can train or equip them and they are already suffering labor shortages at home. Russia had two major advantages: massive number of men, massive amount of equipment, and they are losing those two advantages. 

Ukrainian snipers can end a lot of fighting by taking out commanding officers. The remaining soldiers never wanted to fight. They haven’t been trained to take command. They don’t have authority. Russia is very top down. A Ukrainian sniper takes out the commanding officers and everyone else can be captured. In August 2023 a sniper team took 20 Russian soldiers prisoner without a single shot! (The news report did not say how.) In November 2023 a sniper set a record by shooting someone from 2.5 miles away. The bullet took nine seconds to travel. There is video confirmation. 

Putin’s battlefield failures are encouraging other dictators and warlords to lose respect for him. Chechnya’s leader is challenging Russia for arresting a Chechnyan teen who was committing violence in Moscow, as if he’s saying Chechnyans are above the law in Russia. (The kid says he was defending his friends.) Kadyrov is intervening publicly, which is a …. Bold thing to do. Kadyrov is also publicly challenging two senior officials close to Putin. I don’t know what will happen, but it isn’t good news for Putin that a warlord is getting so uppity.