No longer are the abysmal deficiencies of Russia's army an astonishing revelation. Putin's armed forces are in their third month of mishaps, self-inflicted misfortunes and near ruin in Ukraine. By now, what is astonishing is that the Russian Army has performed as well as it has. It's no stretch to imagine that given the proper military equipment early on, the Ukrainians would have defeated the Russians before this war ever saw a third month.
Just how bad have Vladimir Putin's armed forces been? The New Yorker interviewed retired U.S. Army Colonel Joel Rayburn, who served as a special envoy for Syria and is currently with New America, a think tank. The magazine was seeking an analytical overview of Russia's mistakes and mismanagement of the war, and Col. Rayburn did not disappoint. What follows is his synopsis of virtually everything the Russian Army has done wrong.
Its strategy was botched from the get-go. Russia's forces lacked unity of command, competent officers and the necessary coordination of air and ground forces, all of which was especially disastrous since Putin approved the fragmentation of what was too small of an invasion force to begin with. Four separate armies ventured too far into enemy territory with insufficient supply lines. Once they advanced significant distances into Ukraine, leadership was unable to feed its troops or replace injured or fallen soldiers. Without a paddle, so to speak, the armies found themselves not only "widely" but perilously "geographically dispersed," said Rayburn.
What supplies the armies did have were put on trucks because of inadequate rail lines. Yet the number of trucks used was also inadequate; plus the trucks were old, subject to breakdowns and manned by personnel who knew not how to repair the creaky things. As if all that wasn't treacherous enough, the Ukrainians kept blowing up or otherwise disabling the invader's trucks. And so the troops that had penetrated rather deep into enemy territory were stripped of not only supplies, but reliable transport, too.
As for what the Russians had once boasted of, those spiffy new T-90 and Armata tanks? The aggressors were without them. Instead of deploying them into battle, Putin chose to export them to eager buyers around the globe. On the battlefield, then, the tanks were of the Cold War era and lagging in modernization. Russia had been reaping the cash from new tank sales rather than equipping its army with the latest in tank technology.
Rayburn also speculated that what modernized equipment Russia did claim to have in the field was more "smoke and mirrors" than actual, updated matériel. He was skeptical that 15 years and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on innovation and renovation would not have upgraded, for example, Russia's T-72 tanks. Rayburn's "logical conclusion" is impossible to refute — much of the money spent "evaporated in corruption." No capable equipment for Russian soldiers, but a billion-dollar palace for Putin and obscenely extravagant yachts for his oligarchs.
The American colonel was skeptical as well of Russia's generals. How could they have possibly conceived of splitting their forces in the beginning of operations? Only an ill-trained and inexperienced general staff could have done so. This, as Rayburn understated, "raises some red flags." He evaluated the new supreme commander, Gen. Aleksandr Dvornikov, in only the briefest of words, since the general's abilities remain something of an unknown. But we must remember that his troops in eastern Ukraine are largely the troops that Russia had in northern Ukraine. The prevailing assumption is that unless Dvornikov is a miracle worker, he'll have the same problems in the Donbas that his predecessors had around Kyiv.
But ... Dvornikov's biggest problem? What fresh hell now haunts the entirety of Russia's forces? What will soon dwarf all of Putin's mismanagement and his army's spectacular blunders? Ukraine's President Zelensky said Friday that his country is finally receiving the heavy armaments it has needed all along — the very kind of weaponry that would have likely kicked the Russians back to Belarus before mid-March.
Yesterday I assessed that throughout the next week, the advantage is weighted toward Russia. I see no reason to reevaluate; it will be a while before its foe is properly armed up. For the long term, though: advantage, Ukraine.