Throughout history Russia has enjoyed the leadership of generals who graduated
from some of the world's top military academies. Fortunately for Ukraine,
the only school Russia's current military leaders graduated from was Clown College.
This is the dumbest reason why Russia is slowly losing the war for Ukraine.
Russia is by far the superior military power to Ukraine. In terms of numbers
of troops and equipment, it's amongst the top three- if not necessarily quality. Even
with poorly maintained equipment, bad doctrine, and poorly motivated troops
though it takes an extraordinarily dumb reason for Russia to be losing this war.
Opsec is a term that anyone who has served in the US or a closely aligned military has had
drilled into their heads for the entire term of their enlistment. Operational Security is
the concept of maintaining security of ongoing operations so as to deny the enemy information
which could be exploited for military or political use. Back when war was a relatively crude affair,
it was easy to maintain good opsec. As technology has evolved though so too have militaries
had to evolve to keep the prying eyes of their enemy away. Modern opsec is
a complicated affair which troops at every level are responsible for- and
Russia has failed completely in this regard... possibly to the point of costing them the war.
Before the war started the entire world was drinking the Russian kool-aid, believing it
to be a modern and very capable power. While this was a critical intelligence failure,
it was due in large part because of a wonderful bit of maskirovka by the Russian government,
who conducted regular, highly choreographed exercises with handpicked troops to prove
it was capable of modern combined arms operations. Contrary to what
we were previously led to believe, Russia isn’t capable of any of the things it used to display.
Strategic bombers are some of the most important assets in any military's arsenal,
which is why you want to make sure that your communications with these expensive and often
nuclear-capable tools are well encrypted. So imagine the west's surprise when Russian
strategic bombers crossed into Ukrainian airspace and started broadcasting communications via
unsecured frequencies- giving Ukraine great insight into their targets and procedures.
But it wasn't just Russia's most important air assets who were clearcasting their full
intentions- Russian ground units got in on the fun too. US intelligence gathering platforms
such as its fleet of Rivet Joint aircraft were fully prepared for the task of breaking
Russian encryption- so imagine their surprise when Russian units started broadcasting status reports,
attack plans, and troop movements via the equivalent of civilian walkie talkies.
Ukrainian civilians immediately took to the air waves and started trolling Russian units
in real time, broadcasting confusing reports, engaging in radio flame wars,
or just filling the airwaves with the Ukrainian national anthem or even the theme song for Barney
the dinosaur so that Russian units couldn't understand anything broadcasted to them.
Russian generals and senior officers were also frequently using unsecured
communications early in the war. The United States, which spent twenty years
sniffing out the electronic emissions of high value insurgent and terrorist VIPs,
was quick to locate these unsecured calls and pass along targeting data to Ukrainian forces.
One excalibur guided artillery shell later and Russia had one less senior
officer- a trend that only increased with the introduction of HIMARS with its longer reach.
At least this gross violation of OpSec wasn't entirely the fault of poor Russian military
doctrine. Rather, the problem that Russia quickly ran into was that during peace time,
Comrade Colonel Corruptavich had sold all the unit's fancy radio equipment for a tidy profit.
That left Private Conscriptavich scouring occupied Ukrainian towns and cities for any piece of radio
equipment they could find, which was naturally, not encrypted to military standards- or at all.
As a closely related side note, Russian also immediately ran into a problem coordinating its
forces due to a lack of communication. This time though it wasn't a lack of equipment,
in fact Russia's FSB agents, sent to coordinate military action directly
with the highest levels of government, were carrying some of the most advanced,
encrypted pieces of com gear on the planet. Years earlier when the Russians realized
that the US had cracked their encryption, they spent millions of dollars building a new highly
secure system that could ensure communication with the Kremlin from anywhere on the planet.
Well, anywhere on the planet that had cell reception, because Russia's very fancy gear
immediately failed when entering Ukraine because Comrade General Clown Shoes had
ordered air strikes against Ukraine's cellular communications towers. This was meant to make
it impossible for Ukrainian partisan forces to coordinate, and it probably worked- unfortunately
the FSB was then forced to use regular phones to send reports back to the Kremlin,
which the west greedily scooped up with its vast intelligence apparatus. These reports
helped Ukraine's defenders be exactly where they were needed the most, or could do the most damage.
Russia's biggest problem is that it's one of the world's best militaries- for killing civilians or
attacking lightly armed rebel forces in Syria. When Russian Federation troops entered Ukraine,
their leadership was completely unprepared to fight a modern electronic war- which is ironic
given the emphasis put by Russian on electronic warfare as a way to counter NATO capabilities.
In fact, Russian EW capabilities are formidable, and in recent years they have fielded some very
powerful battlefield EW platforms which would make NATO coordination difficult. That's why it
was really nice of their troops to retreat and leave one of these vehicles completely
intact for Ukrainian forces to capture and immediately send to the US for analysis.
On the offense, Russia honestly has some significant capabilities
to operate in the electromagnetic spectrum. But on the defense, well,
Russia has had to learn extremely painful lessons.
It's bad enough when your forces are broadcasting their plans via civilian radios, but Russian
troops were apparently completely unprepared for the speed of which western nations could
sniff out electronic emissions, pass word along to Ukraine, and put steel on target.
When Chechnya sent troops to Ukraine they came with a fearsome reputation,
and to their credit there truly are no more fearsome TikTok warriors than the
Chechens. These guys used to upload a dozen videos a day showing off their equipment,
boasting of their battlefield prowess, and commenting on the cowardice of Ukrainian
defenders. They upload much fewer videos now mostly because a lot of them are dead.
However, one Chechen commander just couldn't wait to get back to the rear
area before uploading his latest TikTok, and after completing a military operation,
whipped out his phone to brag about the great defeat his forces had just delivered to the
Ukrainians. Apparently nobody told the Ukrainians they had been defeated, because halfway through
his live stream they raised a polite objection to his comments- in the form of a 105mm precision
guided artillery shell. By live streaming this soldier was effectively giving precise
targeting coordinates- to within a meter or two- to Ukrainian artillery, and they were more than
happy to respond. The incident was captured on livestream to the shock of his audience.
The Chechens aren't the only invading forces who are finding their love of social media
is getting them killed though. Early in the war as the Russians advanced on Kyiv,
many Russian soldiers began making cell phone calls or uploading social media
posts while on the move. This not only allowed Ukraine to track Russian forces in real time,
but in more than one instance helped home in missile and precision artillery fire
on Russian positions. According to Ukraine's intelligence chief,
these cell calls and social media posts helped a lot when they were targeting Russian forces.
It's not just Russian forces shooting themselves in the foot though, Russian journalists have been
happy to do their part to help Ukraine win as well. Famously, russian reporter Alexander Kots
did a live piece on a brand new mortar carrier being fielded by the Russian military. This
allowed Ukrainian forces to discern its exact location, and then later lure it out of hiding
only to destroy it with a precision attack. Kots would go on to deny that his report was to blame,
but it seems a strange coincidence how immediately after his reporting the
Ukrainians were able to locate this fancy piece of new gear and give it a very early retirement.
Russian war reporter Sergei Sreda though saw what Kots had done and said, “Hold my beer.”.
On tour of the occupied areas of Ukraine, Sreda was invited to the local headquarters of the
infamous Wagner private military company in Popasna. Better suited to killing civilians
in Syria than fighting a real war, Wagner was a good host for the Kremlin propagandist though,
who eagerly snapped a photo of himself shaking hands with one of their leaders. While he was
at it, he made sure to get a cool new pic for his Tinder profile alongside some of Wagner's
best and brightest. Unfortunately, nobody involved bother to think about the fact that
the photo included the exact address of the building housing Wagner's HQ.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, immediately upon uploading Wagner received a new visitor- this time though
it was Uncle HIMARS. The building was completely destroyed, along with an undetermined number of
Wagner mercenaries who honestly, probably saved themselves a lot of effort dying behind the front
lines rather than directly upon arriving at the front lines as is historically the case.
Russian tourists have gotten in on the effort to help Russia defeat itself, and back in August,
one Russian tourist was of great service to Ukraine's defenders. On holiday in the occupied
Crimean penninsula, this unnamed tourist snapped a cool photo of himself near some military vehicles.
Thoughtlessly uploading the photo online, Ukraine was able to identify the vehicle in the background
as an S-400 launcher, and using the photo's metadata get an exact location on the air defense
unit's location. While not immediately destroyed, being able to map out Russian air defenses would
later give it the ability to target them thanks to American high-speed anti-radiation missiles.
Russia has proven it’s stubbornly resistant to learning from its mistakes,
much to Ukraine's gratitude. Of all the operational security failures,
likely none takes the cake quite like the now infamous New Year Eve strike,
which might have killed as many as hundreds of brand new Russian conscripts.
At a minute after midnight on New Years Eve, Ukraine delivered a terrifying strike on Russian
troops. Utilizing several HIMARS rockets, Ukraine leveled the Professional Technical School No.19
in Makiivka, inside of the separatist enclave of Donestsk. The attack was carried out thanks
to the use of cell phones by the Russian troops, who were calling loved ones or exchanging text
messages. Rather than heart or grinning emojis, Ukraine responded with HIMARS rockets to the face.
The strike was deadly, with Ukraine claiming hundreds had died. Russian officials
reported only around 60 had been killed, later revising the figure to just over 80. However,
a significant number of pro-Russian bloggers with sources amongst the Russian military
all gave figures closer to Ukraine's claim than the official Russian one .
The strike was devastating, but it was helped along by the fact that Russia's
military leaders are a bunch of door stops. Some genius Comrade Colonel had decided that the best
place to store ammunition, including artillery shells, was in the same place housing a large
concentration of troops. The initial strike would have caused large damage to the building,
but the resulting secondary explosions sealed the fate of what is likely hundreds of Russians who
got to live for exactly 1 minute into 2023- all freshly arrived to Ukraine
Adding to the tragedy is the fact that such a large concentration of troops in range of
precision artillery should never have happened- especially not on top of an ammo dump. But then
again this hasn't been a video about why Russia's military leaders are the brightest on earth.
Now go watch how Ukraine prevented a Russia day 1 win, or click this other video instead.