By ISAAC SERRATO
Staff Writer
Russia is getting embarrassed in Ukraine. Everyone thought the war in Ukraine would be brief with Russia blitzing Ukraine, Zelenskyy going to be thrown out of power with a pro-Russian president installed as the replacement of Zelenskyy. But instead, Ukraine held on with Russia failing to achieve its objectives, taking massive losses, low supplies, losing massive amounts of their equipment, generals being killed, navy along with air force failing to maintain air superiority. Russian troops are losing morale, starving, under-equipped, losing morale, and the will to fight is breaking with defecting Russians revealing that apparently “Russia will lose the war”.
Ukraine held on because of the defense they had been building for years with troops highly motivated to defend their homeland. Who knew that having NATO backing of weapons, and training, with an advanced western arsenal that has been used in highly layered, structured complex positions would lead to a stiff defense for invading armies.
Russia’s objectives were to conquer Ukraine, fight back against Nato, and assert Russian power. Well…none of them were achieved, instead, all of them backfired. Ukraine has been bolded with its support from the West. Nato has been scared of Russia, proving its fears of the Russian invasion of Europe. Now Nato is sending support to Ukraine, along with European countries preparing its defenses to fight Russia, with more countries wanting to join Nato. Russia had just poked the bear, actually uniting Nato on accident. Russia wanted to assert power but instead, Russia lost influence with sanctions, with allies not supporting Russia much, and military, and political power taking a huge blow during the invasion. Putin’s plan to take over Ukraine, and establish power has blown up in his face.
Russia has taken massive losses, losing a lot of its equipment in battle. Russia has repeatedly lost more than 650 tanks along with more than 3,000 armored vehicles. This has been due to bad military intelligence leaving the Russian military command in the dark, poorly trained conscripts (draftees)abandoning equipment due to bad training. With the Russian troops marching into Ukraine thinking they would be welcomed with open arms, instead civilians have fought back, with Russia facing massive damage to its military in weeks. This has caused the troops who are mostly drafted, and poorly trained to quickly lose morale, and abandon their positions along with equipment.
The losses Russia is taking are absolutely staggering with the Russian military losing 1,200-15,000 men in a couple of months. Ukraine boasts that Russia has lost 25,000 due to its stiff defenses. If that figure is true, that means Russia has lost more men than America has lost men in the war on terror in the past 20 years. There is also the fact Russia is losing its generals in action. They have lost 9-10 generals so far, with estimates of 25 generals lost in action according to one report including lower-ranked generals. Meanwhile, America hasn’t lost a general since 2014 when an American general was shot by an Afghan soldier. But however, the mistake Russia is making is placing generals on the front lines. Which is a grave mistake. Since communications are breaking down on the frontlines, Russian brass (slang for top generals) go to the frontlines to communicate better, with hopes to raise morale for the troops there. But instead, they are easy targets for sharpshooters, artillery, or in one case when a Russian troop ran over his own commander during a case of frustration.
There is also the fact that Russian troops are starving, and lacking equipment, and supplies. Due to bad logistics, supply lines, terrible maintenance, and few troops. Many resources can’t reach the frontline, food, bullets, equipment, and medicine, can’t reach the frontline along with horrible communication. Supplies can’t get through, affecting morale as soldiers are saying that they can’t fight without food or bullets. If they can’t get basic needs how can they win the war? While leaders are frustrated that they are given poorly-trained young men who are starving, and lacking the will to fight.
There is also the fact that Russia is losing naval superiority with their flagship being sunk. The Russian Air Force still not being able to establish air dominance despite having advanced jets with power in numbers. The Air Force uses unguided missiles, low-level combat missions, forced to obey the Army instead of being independent, using doctrine that forces jets to be artillery instead of assault units forcing the advance to grind to halt, exposing their jets to anti-air attacks as they are told to do low-level attacks.
The once-feared Russian army is now getting whipped, embarrassed in Ukraine. The mighty Euroasia brown bear is defeated by the nightingale bird.