Napoleon quipped that God was always on the side with the best artillery
With the Russo-Ukrainian War now rolling on into its seventh month, I thought this might be as good a time as any to put together a more extensive analysis than the Twitter format allows. What follows will be my assessment of what exactly the Russian Armed Forces have achieved, why they made specific operational choices, and the general shape of the battlefield today.
But first, I will indulge in a brief paragraph about myself. Feel free to skip this and proceed to the first section heading below.
I am a luddite by nature and have never had any sort of social media presence. However, when the Russo-Ukrainian War began in February, I was alarmed by the amateurish, even clownish levels of analysis that were being amplified by the typical establishment channels. Public figures that contravened the collective wisdom, like Colonel Douglas MacGregor or Scott Ritter, were largely ignored. It seemed to me that the public was being memed into believing a story about cartoonish Russian incompetence, while what I saw was a lethal and locked-in Russian military waging an intelligent war. I will freely confess to having Russophilic tendencies, like many American Orthodox Christians. However, I will also bluntly say that when you've read as much military history as I have, you begin to see things a certain way - perhaps this is bragging, but I don't think so. I don't claim to be smarter than anybody else; I did spend the last fifteen years extensively reading in subjects that gave me a strong base of knowledge for the current moment, but it seems to me that I simply got lucky picking a hobby that would one day be so relevant.
So, I created a Twitter account hoping to contribute to the discussion however I could, as well as to capitalize on the current fascination with war to talk about military history. People seem to like it, so I'll try to keep doing it.
Now, let's talk about the war. A great deal has been said, and will be said, about the causes of the war and Russia's motives and aims in Ukraine, but I would like to skip this and proceed directly to discussing the operation itself.
Comment: The IAEA inspectors are expected to confirm the lack of Russian heavy military equipment at the plant