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One year into the war in Ukraine and Russia is facing the greatest challenges it's faced
in over forty years.
But new developments might just doom its efforts to win in Ukraine.
When it comes to Russia's problems in Ukraine, the list is exhaustive.
But lately one problem has been hampering its efforts to launch the dreaded spring offensive
most western analysts had feared would come.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has done a good job of pumping out a steady stream of
propaganda fuel meant to paint a wildly inaccurate picture of the situation in Ukraine.
According to Russian MoD videos, put out on a nearly daily basis, Russian troops are on
the move across the east, steadily pushing back overwhelmed Ukrainian forces as they
break under the weight of Russian tanks and helicopters.
When not showing heavily edited videos of their troops engaged in glorious combat, the
Russian MoD shares videos of one of their fancy statues decapitating America’s Lady
Liberty in a one on one duel.
Russia has taken ‘internet tough guy’ to a completely different level.
But videos coming from the troops themselves paint a wildly different picture of the situation
on the ground for the Russian army.
Since last fall, a steady stream of videos made by troops requesting aid from various
government officials have hit the internet.
The format is always the same- a group of Russian soldiers stands together, typically
hiding their faces for fear of reprisal, and then record a video airing their grievances.
These grievances are typically the same, like in the previous video where mobilized soldiers
received specialized training, only to be thrown straight into the front lines upon
arriving in Ukraine.
It's a complaint that's increasingly common as the 300,000 conscripts mobilized by Russia
in response to Ukraine's stunningly successful counteroffensive have been joining the war
in force.
Initially, a group of these mobiks were simply thrown directly into the front with little
to no training.
This wasn't an accident though, it was the same type of sadistic tactical thinking that
has prevailed in Russia since the earliest days of the Soviet Union.
With the front line across the north of the country collapsing, Russia needed to throw
bodies at the problem until the lines stabilized, and it accomplished this- sacrificing as many
as an estimated 25,000 mobilized conscripts who had received at best a week of training.
In Russia, life is cheap, and sacrificing men for time is simple strategic doctrine
for Russian commanders.
As the war has progressed, a steady stream of videos from Russians complaining about
their situation has hit the internet.
The intent is typically a cry for help- men mobilized with little training, either complaining
about a lack of leadership, equipment, or about being trained in one specialty, only
to be used as cannon fodder.
Some Russian soldiers have even been transferred under the command of separatist units, and
inevitably being used as disposable cannon fodder to soften up Ukrainian positions.
The soldiers typically complain of lacking equipment or proper support, and in the previous
video of literally being called disposable by their new commanders.
The videos are almost always directed at President Vladimir Putin himself, or some other authority
from their home region.
What's especially pathetic is the belief by these troops that Vladimir Putin gives a single
damn about any of them, and would respond to these videos with anything but immediate
punishment.
In fact, we have multiple reports of Russian soldiers being imprisoned for refusing to
follow orders that would send them to their deaths or recording similar videos calling
for help.
No matter how hard Russia tries to hide the truth from its population though, news of
how bad things are going inevitably reach back home.
Soldiers are increasingly having their phones confiscated upon entering Ukraine, but many
of them simply hide them or write highly critical letters back home.
Others steal Ukrainian phones to dial home with.
The wounded also bring stories back to the home front of just how bad conditions are
in Ukraine, and this inevitably has led even Russian civilians into making these same style
of videos publicly asking for help.
More often than not, the videos are addressed to local politicians, such as in this one
recorded by the wives of men mobilized and sent to fight against armored vehicles and
even tanks with little heavy equipment to support them.
Unsurprisingly, some of these videos are addressed by concerned wives directly to the commander
in chief himself, like in this video where the women say that they have been ignored
by their local authorities.
They even complain of having been blocked on the popular Telegram app by both local
politicians and the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The women complain of a lack of training for their mobilized men, and of the extremely
unsanitary conditions on the Ukrainian front.
Men with chronic diseases are not receiving adequate care, and the women feel they have
no recourse but to appeal to Putin himself.
In another video, wives of men attached to DPR separatist forces complain of their men
purposefully being used as cannon fodder, while the DPR forces themselves don't commit
any of their men to such dangerous assaults.
The callous disregard for the lives of Russian soldiers is staggering- a western unit being
placed under the command of a foreign force and then used as cannon fodder would be enough
to start a riot back home.
Good thing democracy is fake in Russia, or else Putin would be in hot water come this
next election cycle.
The steady stream of videos from both men at the front and their wives and mothers back
home are all eating away at Russian civilian morale.
Just like their military, a civilian population's morale is critical to a successful campaign,
as a demoralized population will become increasingly harder to control- let alone mobilize and
order into combat.
But complaints from the front aren't the only bad news Russia is dealing with, as the military
itself is narrowly avoiding all out war against...
itself?
For months now the Wagner mercenary group- now officially labeled a terrorist organization
by the United States for their many human rights abuses- has been leading the charge
across the east.
What few successes Russia has had against determined Ukrainian defenders have largely
been thanks to Wagner.
But now it looks as if Wagner and the Russian military are on the splits, and it's causing
more drama than the Kanye-Kim K split.
Wagner leader and shoe in for Lurch in a Russian remake of Adams Family, Yevgeny Prigozhin,
has famously been beefing like a butcher with the entire Russian military establishment.
Claiming that it was his forces that stemmed the Ukrainian onslaught last autumn, Prigozhin,
who has a face for radio, has been clearly making a serious power play in the Kremlin.
Most analysts believe that he wishes to be appointed minister of defense, replacing resident
bad boy- and we mean bad as in he's terrible at his job- Sergei Shoigu.
Thus Prigozhin has been using his access to Putin and successes on the battlefield to
try to diminish and belittle Shoigu and the Russian military on the whole.
But Prigozhin bit off more borscht than he can chew, and now Shoigu seems to have all
but neutered Wagner inside of Ukraine.
The drama started to unfold with the taking of Soledar, a minor town that Russia hailed
as the military victory of the millenium- and to be fair, for the Russians taking a
small salt mining town successfully really was the victory of the millenium.
Wagner claimed responsibility for the victory, even posting a photo of themselves inside
one of the salt mines.
However, the Russian MoD announced that it had been the Russian military, and not Wagner,
who had accomplished this great feat of which military historians will speak about for centuries
to come.
Prigozhin's dreams of being compared to the likes of Alexander the Great for taking a
salt mine would crumble like... well, salt... as the MoD took all the credit.
Evidence strongly suggests that it had indeed been Wagner, using human wave attacks of recruited
prisoners, who had in fact been largely responsible for taking the town.
However, it's likely that the MoD badly needed a propaganda victory to prove to the population
back home that its military was not in fact, complete clown shoes (animator note, show
russian soldiers dressed in uniforms but with clown shoes, clown wigs, and painted faces
with red clown noses).
It's even more likely however that Shoigu was finally launching a counterattack against
Prighozin's political machinations.
To the surprise of everyone, but probably no one more than Prigozhin himself, Putin
seemed to back up Shoigu, and Wagner's contributions to the victory were quickly erased from Russian
media.
In fact, most mentions of Wagner began to disappear from Russian media, and it wasn't
long after that, that reports of Wagner being shunned on the battlefield began to surface.
According to Wagner officials, the Russian army has refused to share supplies with Wagner,
or even support their assaults with artillery.
It seems like Shoigu has set out to destroy his political rival, but that hasn't stopped
Prigozhin and his well funded Wagner PMC from continuing to claim victories- specially around
Bakhmut.
Recently Wagner announced it had captured several villages outside of Bakhmut itself,
which came as a great surprise to the Ukrainian soldiers currently sitting in those villages
and defending them.
Prigozhin, which has long enjoyed Putin's close support, has seemingly been put out
in the cold.
But did Prigozhin miscalculate the relationship between Shoigu and Putin, or were his constant
complaints about the Russian military even too much for Putin to take?
Having an insider criticize the military in a way that no propagandist on Russian tv would
dare to was likely too much for Putin to continue to allow- but it's also possible that Putin
doesn't truly favor Shoigu or Prigozhin over the other.
For a dictator the only thing more important than ensuring the loyalty of the men under
you, is ensuring that they hate each other even more.
That's the only way to prevent a palace coup, and given the increasing cost to Russia from
Putin's disastrous invasion, a coup is likely very high on his list of worries at the moment.
Complaining soldiers, citizens taking to the internet to publicly air their grievances,
and now the Russian military beefing with the most successful part of the Russian invasion-
with all the problems facing Putin, the West just added a 60 ton complication.
At the start of the war Ukraine immediately requested heavy equipment such as tanks.
The west was slow to respond, then gradually rounded up as many Soviet era tanks as they
could wrangle from NATO's eastern European counterparts.
It was clear that those would soon run out though, and despite many extremely generous
donations by the Russians themselves, Ukraine would need a continual and steady supply of
tanks.
This left only one option- modern western vehicles.
But many in the west immediately browned themselves at the thought of making Vlad Daddy angry
by giving Ukraine the tools it needed to defend itself and stop the slaughter of its civilians.
Slowly, gradually, and despite an incessant stream of threats about “escalation”,
the west at last decided to supply Ukraine with main battle tanks.
Now an estimated 100 Leopard 2s and American Abrams are on their way to Ukraine, and after
training, will be on the battlefield by the start of summer.
The US's Abrams will take longer to deliver and train on, but Leopard 1s and Leopard 2s
are already in the hands of Ukrainian tank crews training in Poland.
While the tanks being sent lack many of the most sophisticated- and classified- features
of those in use by western armies, they are still a considerable threat to Russia.
The US said that it would be stripping the secretive depleted uranium armor it uses in
its tanks and replacing it- likely with titanium composite.
However, even with downgraded armor, western tanks are in effect punching down versus Russia's
dwindling stockpile of armored vehicles.
Recent reports state that Russia has started fielding T-62s in large numbers, and while
Russia will continue to enjoy the numbers advantage, Ukraine will soon enjoy the quality
advantage.
And quality matters a lot here, because a Leopard 2 against a T-62 is like pitting a
bare knuckle boxing champion against a senile geriatric with hip issues.
Russia is thus trying to do its best to destroy these western tanks before they even get to
Ukraine- by targeting you.
Putin knows that he can't defeat large numbers of western tanks on the battlefield, so instead
has turned to feeding the west a steady diet of propaganda and fear mongering.
He knows that the west fears he will escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, and thus has
worked hard to make sure the word escalation has been on the lips of every western news
anchor.
At this point, if you turn the lights off and say the word “escalation” three times
into a mirror, a bloody apparition of Vlaidmir Putin will appear and threaten to nuke you.
Putin's only chance to defeat western weapons is to make sure they are never sent at all,
which is bad news as it appears that the west is slowly un-browning their collective panties
and starting to send Ukraine the weapons it needs to end the war.
With this first delivery of 100 tanks nations like the US have strongly hinted at ongoing
support- which Ukraine will need as battlefield losses mount.
Western tanks may be far more capable than what Russia is currently fielding, but inevitably
these tanks will be damaged or destroyed, which is why it's critical that the west continue
to deliver replacements for the duration of the war.
The tank that makes the most sense to send is the Leopard 2, but sadly most European
countries are reluctant to deplete their own stockpiles in case of war- to which we are
forced to ask the question: what war exactly?
Putin's forces are already heavily embroiled in Ukraine, and if his military is unable
to conquer even the east of Ukraine, we doubt that Russian T-72s are going to be rolling
past the Eiffel Tower and into Madrid anytime soon.
So maybe the western NATO states need to start asking themselves what war exactly do they
think they need tanks for when Ukraine is literally holding the line on the war they
fear.
Ironically, the NATO members most at risk of Russian aggression have been the ones to
be the most generous with their support.
The Baltic states and Poland have been pulling a great deal of their own equipment from active
service to send to Ukraine, with Poland threatening to send its Leopards to Ukraine even without
Germany's approval.
Poland has been so proactive that when at the start of the war, Europe said it would
make Putin sad if they supplied Ukraine with jets, Poland went ahead and sent Mig fighters
under the guise of 'spare parts'.
Slowly but surely the west is losing its fear of hurting Putin's feelings, and the announcement
of tanks for Ukraine was followed by another shipment of HIMARS from the US.
Included in new shipments are long range munitions capable of striking deep behind enemy lines,
exactly the type of weapons that Ukraine has been asking for since the war began.
An aid package announced at the start of February included the US's ground-launched small-diameter
bomb, or GLSDB.
This weapon has a range of up to 93 miles (150 km), and consists of a 250 pound bomb
attached to a rocket booster.
Boosted high up into the sky, the bomb detaches from the spent rocket and deploys wings which
it uses to glide to its target, resulting in a greatly extended range.
This will nearly double Ukraine's current HIMARS range, and can be fired from existing
HIMARS units or MLRS systems.
The bomb itself was a result of the US having entirely too many 250 pound bombs lying around.
At some point, someone- probably from Georgia or Alabama- got the idea to strap all these
spare bombs to a rocket and give them wings, and the results speak for themselves.
The bombs are precision guided with jam-resistant GPS technology and come in the high explosive
fragmentation or bunker-busting variety.
These weapons will allow Ukraine to push Russian logistics even further away from the front
lines, slowing down their ability to launch offensives even more.
By making resupply difficult, Ukraine can overwhelm Russian units on the front despite
their superior numbers.
Just as importantly, it'll force Russian air defenses to attempt to shoot these bombs down,
expending valuable air defense missiles.
With tanks on their way, Ukraine has taken to breaking down the remaining barriers to
giving Ukraine the fighter jets it has been asking for.
While Ukraine would never get top of the line western jets like the F-35, even F-16s would
be a significant threat to the Russian air force- and as one of the most successful aircraft
ever built, there's thousands of F-16s that could potentially be sent to Ukraine.
But Ukraine has asked for only 200 of them, and even that is a bold figure given how reluctant
the west has been to give anything but small arms.
Opposition to sending the F-16 to Ukraine is currently strong, but many countries have
signaled a willingness to send their jets.
As of February 22nd, the US was firmly rejecting the idea of sending any F-16s, but just like
tanks seemed an impossibility at one point, odds are that as the war drags on western
jets will make an appearance in the skies over Ukraine.
With western jets, Ukraine could challenge Russia's air forces and prevent at least some
of the attacks launched against its civilian population.
Trying to operate them on the front line would be foolhardy, but armed with stand-off weapons
of their own, F-16s or similar platforms could significantly increase the reach of Ukrainian
weapons.
It would also prevent Russia from operating close to the front itself, where it's enjoyed
greater use of air support than Ukraine.
Putin's problems are numerous, and seem to be growing by the day.
Sadly though, the longer the west hesitates to send the weapons Ukraine needs, the more
Ukrainian soldiers and civilians die at the hands of the Russian invaders.
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