Analyzing Russia’s Massive Failures in War Against Ukraine – COMPILATION

00:00:00 -Analyzing Russia’s Massive Failures in War Against Ukraine
00:35:07 – Why Putin’s Main Battle Tank Is A Joke
00:59:01 – Putin’s HUGE Tank Losses
01:19:17 – Putin’s Soldiers’ Morale At All Time Low
01:38:31 – How Ukraine HUMILIATED Putin’s Navy
01:57:36 – Why New Russian Body Armor is Completely Useless
02:16:59 – How Inferior Training is Killing Russian Pilots/
02:34:27 – Why Russian T-90 Tank Absolutely SUCKS
02:54:33 – Will Russia Run Out of Troops Before Ukraine

#themilitaryshow

If you queued up a generic video entitled epic Russian army fails before February 2022 you might have expected to find humorous compilations of drunk Russian soldiers playing harmless pranks on one another mishandling live grenades or marching comically out of lockstep to tell the truth it might not have been

All that different from your standard epic US Army fails compilation but times have changed and since Russia’s 2022 fullscale invasion of Ukraine it’s military has chalked up an impressive list of tactical operational and strategic failures which have attrited their once feared Invasion Force Beyond Comprehension cataloging a comprehensive

List of these failures is impossible the YouTube compilation video would rival the length of any Greek tragedy or comedy depending on your perspective still we have tried to come up with a list of major shortcomings which have had the most significant bearing on the conflict’s outcome here are six Ma major

Military failures committed by Russia in the war against Ukraine since the 2022 Invasion number one the failure to capitalize on the capture of hostel Airport from the start of its unlawful Invasion Russia’s hopes rested on the premise that its Armed Forces could rapidly encircle ke decapitate its political leadership install a

Pro-russian regime and place itself in a strong position for negotiations the quicker this happened the less time Russia would afford the West to unite and intervene and with hindsight we know this mattered a lot ultimately speed precision and grit were the difference between the conflict becoming Russia’s

Version of the Gulf War or passendale with drones it’s no secret that Putin’s plan went spectacularly arai the Cornerstone of the invasion was in fact the hostel airport a key military Airfield and logistical Hub with one of the longest runways in Eastern Europe just 10 km Northwest of keev the battle

For hostel lasted less than 30 6 hours was the first major battle of the Russo Ukrainian war and a decisive event in the war and was a perfect example of how a tactical setback can snowball into operational stagnation the plan was simple conceived as a traditional Airfield envelopment and seizure

Followed by the insertion of elite Airborne battalions in transport planes once on the ground Russia’s airborne troops would secure the city overthrowing assassinating or forcing zelinsky’s cabinet into Exile PU truly believed zelinsky’s government would capitulate in 3 to 4 days the first of his many strategic blunders in this he severely underestimated Ukrainian

Resolve there was plenty of risk in the hosel plan it wasn’t a traditional combined arms operation targeting Ukraine’s armed forces in the field it was a political cudar a surgical attack which sought to avoid a large publicly shocking setpiece battle ancillary thrusts elsewhere across the country were designed in part to paralyze ize

Ukraine’s armed forces and spread them thin maximizing Russia’s chances Russia had already tried a number of these high-risk High reward strategies in the past with mixed results it happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968 in Afghanistan in 1979 in Kosovo in 1999 and in Crimea in 2014 according to a group of Western

Soviet experts if anything the attempt on hosl was stereotypical of Prior regime change operations equally minent of their failed attempt to secure gry in 1994 when a multi-prong assault Into the Heart of the City went badly during the first Cen War Russia likes shock and awe and to achieve regime change it follows

A somewhat predictable blueprint sees the capitals biggest airport funnel in Elite Airborne forces decapitate the political leadership and prime the broader operational effort the crazy thing is that Russia had all sorts of infiltrators in place across keev prior to the attack for months sabot and spies tasked with enabling the Russian Advance

Into the city went about funneling intelligence back to Moscow marking Landing zones securing infrastructure and more their efforts achieved little incredibly in the same way many Russian soldiers were surprised that their initial deployment along the border on exercise had transitioned to a complex scheme for a large scale Invasion

Involving tight timetables and numerous axes of attack many of Russia’s sabur were likewise fuzzy on the details of Putin’s plan fortunately Ukrainian intelligence and police officers uncovered and arrested most of these infiltrators before The Invasion truly had kicked off on the morning of February 24th the assault

Commenced as an aerial Convoy of around 34 mi8 hip transport helicopters and dozens of Ka 52 alligator and older Mi 24 Attack Helicopters Advanced along the infiltration Corridor into ke’s airspace the 200 to 300 vdv paratroopers securing the airport expected minimal resistance they were inserted at the southern tip

Of the Airfield while Attack Helicopters raked stationary defenses to the north Ukrainian major Vitali rudenko commander of the small Garrison of National Guard forces defending the site was apparently unaware of the approaching helicopters until he heard the chopping of the helicopter’s rotor blades his troops

Were ill suited for the task to say the least Ukraine’s fourth rapid reaction Brigade was a newly organized combined arms entity created along NATO standards with infantry tanks artillery and surveillance drones working in tandem the problem for renko was that his superiors had expected the weight of the

Attack to come in the dbass and deployed most of the fourth’s Brigade heavy weapons out east the 200 men left to defend the Airfield were rear Echelon forces most of them knew conscripts wielding Small Arms a few older igler man pads and a towed AA gun according to

One expert they were more akin to finance officers than infantry officers still they did their best with 20 of them defending the radar at the northern extreme of the Airfield with the AA gun while the rest called in reinforcements and dug in to defend the Airfield from

The vdv in the South moving large Vehicles onto the tarmac to prevent fixed wi aircraft from Landing The Defenders quickly shut down a Russian k52 helicopter with an igler which boosted their morale they would repeat this feat three more times in the next 2 hours as ammunition ran low in the end

They simply couldn’t hold the Airfield conducting a controlled evacuation to the outskirts of host while massing reinforcements the Russians had prepared 1,000 reinforcements of their own they hoped to insert earlier in the day but the helicopter losses Ukrainian artillery fire hitting the Airfield and inability of the Russian Airborne to

Control the surrounding vicinity forced them to abort their plan this was by all measures a pivotal moment in the then nent fight and to this day nobody is certain why Russia’s reinforcement plan was abandoned Russian hopes then rested on the set of advancing mechanized columns coming in from from Belarus they

Had only 79 Mi to reach keev but as they drove through the narrow Corridor through Chernobyl and ivankiv they encountered resistance of their own leaving the Russian vdv isolated at hostel Ukraine’s military leadership recognized the importance of the moment and ordered an immediate Counterattack to retake the Airfield with a mly force

Of older veterans civilian volunteers and brand new conscripts they organized a combined arms attack which commenced at sunset on February 24th they were great full to discover that the Russian Airborne soldiers failed to occupy good defensive positions and found it fairly easy to dislodge them where Russia’s vaunted Elite this tactically inept one

Ukrainian Soldier described engaging the minimally protected Russian forces on the Airfield as being like playing a video game just shooting and knocking them down from our positions outside the Airfield by evening’s end the ukrainians had sent the Russians Airborne into Retreat it would be recaptured the next

Day but would never serve as the airbridge Russia needed did thankfully delays to the advancing Russian mechanized column from bellarus removed the element of surprise and gave Ukraine breathing space to mount a credible defense of keev Russia’s haphazard attack on hostel seemed to have no alternative or viable Plan B there were

Plenty of weaknesses to exploit on the city’s western side during the first week of that war but Russia was bent on a direct assault from hosel into the city center the failure to enact a complete encirclement of the city saw Russian units bogged down in cramped suburbs and urban environments where

Their advantage of mechanized Mobility could be easily countered by marauding lightly equipped squads of Ukrainian guerillas consequently the failure at hostel ushered in a whole host of compounding supply issues strangled Russian lines of communication opened up bog down Russian convoys to Ambush and vastly bolstered not only Ukraine’s

Morale but Western confidence in their ability to win more importantly it disavowed the notion of any inherent Russian military superiority on the basis of geopolitical reputation or economic power Alone by March 25th the Russians had withdrawn from keev by April 1st hostel was cleared dissolving any lingering Russian hopes of winning

The war quickly number two Snake Island losing the information War there was a lot more happening on the first day of the invasion than the seizure of hostel out on a rocky outcropping in the Black Sea known as Snake Island a tiny Garrison of 13 Ukrainian Defenders were busy gaining International Renown when

Asked by a Russian warship waiting offshore to lay down their weapons and surrender to avoid Bloodshed and unnecessary victims or else suffer immediate bombardment in response one of them Roman ROV issued his famous retort to the Russian missile Cruiser mosa Russian warship go f yourself the Snake Island Defenders were all reported

Killed in action by the Ukrainian Government after the AUD a clip of their courageous Last Stand went viral but as it turned out most of its Garrison had actually lived taken into captivity as prisoners released 1 month later in a prisoner exchange back in March of 2022

ROV was awarded a decoration of Valor and with his peers immortalized as a hero of Ukraine the struggle for snake island and the defender unabashed Defiance quickly became a slogan in the country’s fight for survival commemorated just a few weeks later on a national postage stamp the episode epitomized the pluck courage and

Composure with which the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted themselves in the war thus far for many westerners with ancestors who themselves fought for independence against despotic tyranny the rallying cry struck a familiar cord it was one of many instances where almost immediately Ukraine demonstrated it was intent on winning the information

War against their enemy while Russia has shown little aptitude for controlling or caring about the message it sends to the World Ukraine has not lost ground in this domain ever since number three the inability to prevent the sinking of the mosa maybe instead of targeting Snake Island the mosa should have picked on

Someone its own size fittingly our next failure on the list was Russia’s inability to prevent the mosa sinking which was ironically critically damaged in an attack by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles just a few weeks after its Snake Island run in and sank the following day on April 14th 2022 having

Received intelligence and targeting data on the Mosa’s whereabouts from American intelligence agencies the Ukrainian Navy planned a strike on the flagship vessel of the Black Sea Fleet which had since Soviet times intervened in conflicts from Georgia to Syria all it took were two r360 Neptune anti-ip missiles to

Start a fire large enough to cause the ship’s Munitions to cook off and explode the cruiser reportedly sank in stormy seas shortly thereafter the largest Russian warship to be sunk in war wartime since the end of World War II and the first Russian Flagship since kinas suverov in 1905 during the Russo

Japanese war recognizing its dependence on Western support early in the war against Russia revealed Ukraine’s ponant for delivering high-profile if isolated successes to demonstrate their competence in utilizing the inflow of military assistance Russia tried to cover up the incident at first claiming that the fire had been accidental and

That it had been contained by Russian Sailors when the mosa literally failed to surface on camera ever again the Russian Ministry of Defense conceded it had sunk this time while being towed in stormy seas what is most eye-opening is that the mosa had a triple tiered air defense that could have provided an

Adequate chance of intercepting the incoming Neptune missiles with 3 to 4 minutes of radar detection in a variation on a recurring theme it appeared that the ship’s crew failed to activate these systems including the s300 F and 9 k33 closer surface to air missiles chaff or decoys electronic

Jamming or the last ditch ak630 close in weapon systems one Turkish correspondent claimed the snafu implied a lack of crew training for such emergency scenarios and that is what is so damning about the entire incident whether it was sheer incompetence or as another Danish military analyst surmised operator

Fatigue the fact remains that Russian Sailors transformed a situation where an expensive vessel which could have almost assuredly survived several Neptune missile strikes with some simulations even hinting that it would take at least seven to guarantee the vessel sinking was sunk using only two the mosa according to retired US Navy captain and

Former director of operations at us Pacific commands joint Intelligence Center was perhaps the largest warship ever disabled or destroyed by a missile today Russia lacks the economic or industrial capacity to easily replace such a vessel its loss was humiliating to Russia ran President Vladimir Putin a psychological strain which demonstrated

Ukraine’s ability to employ sophisticated Weaponry effectively forced the Russian Navy to move much of its battle group farther from the Ukrainian Coastline and further underpinned Russia’s Narrative of incompetence which has proliferated after the attack hilariously in April 2022 Ukraine began referring to the sunken vessel as a worldclass dive site

With underwater cultural heritage just 130 km off the coast of Odessa it can be admired without much diving in water just 45 to 50 m deep online tour offices still promote the wreck as the most interesting spot for diving in the Black Sea with the best time to visit listed

As after the Ukrainian victory over Russia number four the failure to achieve air superiority from the depths of the Black Sea we travel to the airspace over Ukraine where whichever way you cut it you’ve probably been left wondering the same thing as everyone else what on Earth has happened to

Putin’s vaunted Air Force try as they might Russian combat aviators have failed to establish any kind of air superiority over the battlefield thus far part of their problem rests with technological advances made in the 1970s which made it possible to furnish vulnerable infantry with their own portable handheld anti-aircraft missiles

Too man portable air defense systems or man pads are simple and costeffective shoulder fired rockets that lock onto aircraft using infared homing they can be taught to new users in a matter of a few minutes knowing Russia’s numerically Superior Air Force would play a central role in the opening phases of its

Invasion of Ukraine back in February of 22 Western Nations rushed thousands of manpads into Ukrainian hands to shore up their air defenses these included American Stinger missiles Surplus Soviet iglas and British laser-guided High Velocity star streak systems the gamble paid off cheap man pads made made it

Much harder for Russia’s Air Force to establish aerial Supremacy imposing steep asymmetrical costs on Russian pilots who could no longer safely approach priority Targets in Ukrainian airspace for the price of 160 to 80,000 igler Ukrainian soldiers can down a $36 million s34 bomber or an $85 million

Shoy S35 s fighter that’s real bang for your buck this has had real repercussions all over the battlefield modern combined arms Warfare hinges on effective cooperation between all service branches air armor artillery and infantry because Russia has thus far been unable to provide active continuous air cover for its ground units tanks

Logistics convoys artillery and infantry have been repeatedly caught out in the open and destroyed over the course of the war a spectacle played out almost daily in combat footage littering social media for the entire world to see this isn’t to say Russian aircraft are not present over the battlefield or that

Ukraine enjoys its own air superiority far from it Russian aircraft make overflights every single day but most last only a few seconds with fighter bombers flying in pairs or groups of four ingressed to a Target area at low altitude maybe 50 m or less and then lob

The rockets and Bank left or right and return back to base rather than hover over the front far slower helicopters tend to operate similarly as Airborne artillery platforms approaching the contact line firing their salvos of unguided rockets and departing as quickly as possible this has made it even harder for Ukrainian infantry to

Shoot down Russian aircraft constant vigilance is required since little warning is given since timing is everything concealed ukrainians tend to Target slower su20 fighter bombers and helicopters like the mi8 hefting an 18 kg eagler onto your shoulder while sprinting out into the open trying to

Hold it steady to get a lock while the target Zips overhead then launching the missile knowing you’re in Mortal danger all within a span of 15 seconds or less can you imagine how difficult that must be the decentralization of air defense made possible by man pads like the Stinger has helped limit the

Effectiveness of Russian air power but it hasn’t blunted it altogether according to former staff sergeant and Green Beret David bramlet a combat veteran who recently spent 11 months fighting the Russians in Ukraine Russia could still turn things around if Western support waivers Russian air superiority he argued would be the worst

Case scenario for Ukraine at this point if Russia can gain air superiority it’s going to be an entirely different Battlefield and the ukrainians are going to have a very very hard time of putting up a conventional resistance lucky for Ukraine Russia also has its own incompetence to thank in part for its

Lack of air superiority recently accidents have taken their toll on Russian aircraft with six crashes alone registered over the span of 2 months in late 22 the s of accidents reflects the toll the war has had on Russian Aviation RIT large reflecting on aerial crashes Michael bunnett an engineer and Analyst

At Rand Corporation noted that what’s interesting is that even aircraft not involved in the Russian invasion are crashing in an interview with Business Insider he said that while mechanical failures are expected in aircraft over time a rapid increase in fleetwide mechanical failures May indicate that something fundamental has changed so

What has changed the war has placed immeasurable strain on Russian Aviation colossal losses early in the conflict contributed to Russia’s tendency to adopt more risk averse tactics playing a subordinate role to Russia’s ground troops according to guy plopski an Israeli defense analyst and Russian expert in just 8 months Russian combat

Aviators flew an average 150 sorties a day for a total of 34,000 combat sorties but the number of sorties has greatly diminished from an early high of 300 per day Britain’s Ministry of Defense estimates that now Russia probably conducts tens of missions per day very few of those sties actually enter

Ukrainian airspace General wear and tear can be expected in any War but the immense toll has seriously impacted Russia’s pool of 7,500 relatively inexperienced pilots who are said to receive roughly 100 hours of flight time per year one third less than their NATO counterparts the lack of training limits their ability to

Conduct the type of massive air campaigns Western armies almost take for granted the lack of qualified Pilots is only one part of the problem Russia also lacks skilled mechanics or the proper tools to make and fix the parts needed to keep Russia’s modernized air fleet up to Snuff the fact that the pre-war

Stockpiles are dilapidated and rapidly diminishing only adds to the problem as the demand for specialized parts and repair tools grows Russia has tried to mobilize greater amounts of manpower to address the human part of the problem which which as you can imagine has its own issues just like training Pilots you

Have to train the repair Crews to diagnose and maintain extremely complex computer avionics and Technical Systems that is if you can get them here in lies another problem with Russia’s Air Force while mobilization certainly affected the small and medium-sized companies that make Aviation Parts the random crashes and accidents began happening

Prior to mobilization the shortage of manufacturing tools was already going on which means western sanctions may have had a role to play Russia has been left in an economic and Industrial Vice by the West squeezed out of many of its traditional import export markets where it has received the critical components

It needs to keep its planes airworthy ultimately there’s no out andout answer as to why Russia has failed to establish air superiority it’s likely that a combination of factors wear and tear stress on older airframes a lack of pilots and trained air Crews and Western sanctions have each played a significant

Role what we do know is that thanks in part to their own outstanding courage adaptability and resilience coupled with the material support they’ve received from the West Ukraine has managed to do a lot with a little in terms of its own air defense number five Russian armor

Failing in Ukraine it’s been said that the only thing getting more airtime than Russia’s alien Air Force these days are the Airborne turrets of its exploding tanks boy can those things fly Russia has l lost well over 2,300 tanks since it invaded Ukraine hundreds more have been abandoned or captured as its

Armored Force dwindles it’s had to pour older and older armor into the Ukrainian meat grinder the country once touting its next Generation T14 armata is now sending t-62s and t-54s into battle it’s a bad look there are many reasons for Russia’s armored failures thus far Western weapons have helped tip the

Scales with humble but deadly anti-tank guided missiles like the javelin enw and at4 becoming symbols of Ukraine’s stubborn resistance there’s other reasons too Russia’s tactical ineptitude deserves blame untrained conscripts rarely work in tandem with supporting armored units Logistics and the lack of fuel rations and ammunition at Ford

Supply dumps have rre havoc on Russian columns lastly Western sanctions make it harder for Russia to Source the specialized Parts it needs to repair and maintain newer tanks back in November 2022 the Pentagon announced that Russia had lost half of its main battle tanks in combat huge losses were inflicted

During the kiv counter offensive last Autumn the Russian army was reportedly losing 10 tanks per day while the ukrainians were losing just two jarring figures when you consider the Russians were defending rather than attacking the Russians are still building tanks to replace their losses but can they be introduced faster than current models

Are being destroyed the simple answer is no unless they can give the American American arsenal of democracy during World War II a run for its money and build dozens of Tanks trucks and other vehicles every single day the average rate they were being destroyed at the

End of last year no country on Earth has managed to replicate even a fraction of that type of industrial output in war time ever since so can we really assume Russia would be the first no I don’t think so Russia has thousands of old Soviet tanks in storage including

Versions of the newer t9s t880s and their time- tested predecessor that make up the backbone of the Ukrainian armored Force the t72 and the t64 but most of the footage we’ve seen depicts Russian t-62s being modernized at Russian armor repair plants and shipped to the front these tanks are

Nothing short of obsolete in the modern era and have been since they started to be replaced back in 1975 which begs the question why are they bothering with these Cold War relics at all a lot of it has to do with how hard it is to maintain newer tanks in storage

Since they operate using more sophisticated electronic components that as we all know are more and more difficult to Source it seems that Russia has tried to pull Bunches of t-72s t8s and t9s out of storage only to realize how expensive and difficult it might be to make them combat ready a fair portion

Of these were probably mothballed to begin with tanks left in storage without maintenance atrophy rubber Treads and wheels cracken chip mice chew through exposed wires armor rusts and corrodes it’s a real nightmare scenario for Russian mechanics The Humble t62 like the t-54 before it was mass-produced

With one idea in mind make it simple make it good and make a crap ton of them simple designs mean fewer Electronics greater ease of repair and interchangeability of Parts like that Old Reliable 1966 Chevy you have in your shed no matter how many years go by you

Can always throw it up on the blocks Tinker with the carburetors and get it to start right up that’s the type of tank the t62 was the fact Russia had something in the region of 20,000 of these in storage at the end of the Cold War means there are plenty of stocks to

Draw from the bigger question is whether or not it’s even worth it would Americans be happy if the US Army started dusting off old Vietnam vintage M60 patterns from Storage slapping on a Fresh coat of paint better coms and a pair of thermal sights and said go to

And prosper of course not but when has the Kremlin cared what its soldiers think repair plants across Russia are now churning out Oodles of Cold War antiques most of these museums on tracks cold from Deep storage have not seen combat in decades if at all and their maintenance records reflect that some

Are being fitted with new engines thermal imaging bulkier armor new coms better Optics and cope cages it probably won’t be enough to protect their Crews from certain destruction number six failure to adequately prepare new recruits for combat speaking of Putin’s indifference for his countrymen our next failure revolves around the inability of

The Russian government and Military to adequately train and outfit their recruits for combat in the war’s first year Ukraine reversed its dire position and engineered duel counter offensives which achieved success Beyond most people’s wildest imagination in just over 8 months Russia has lost somewhere in the region of 90,000 irrecoverably

Wounded lost or killed soldiers a number that has by now far eclipsed the total casualties the Soviet Union SU ained during 9 years of brutal combat in Afghanistan Between 1979 and 1989 notably Putin lost more soldiers in a week than the United States lost in 20 years in Afghanistan Putin reacted by

Announcing sweeping calls to mobilize new recruits for Frontline service this created chaos in a country which had until then been relatively insulated from the realities of the conflict many military age draes did everything in their power to avoid conscription fleeing on planes and trains and where that failed on bicycles scooters and on

Foot satellite imagery and social media posts revealed miles long traffic jams at Russia’s borders with Georgia Finland Mongolia and Kazakhstan among others thousands of cars and piles of abandoned bicycles attested to the scale of dissatisfaction in Russia itself images of forcibly repressed protesters some of whom were whisked into military service

Themselves littered social media as Russian officials around the country went door Todo delivering draft notices Draconian laws in place prevent anyone from criticizing Putin’s special military operation enlistment officers scoured the country for draft age males under Russian law men eligible for conscription must be handed a draft

Notice in person as you might expect evasion strategies revealed the Ingenuity of many Russian males some moving to Summer cabins or disappearing on indefinite camping excursions in the countryside others disabled their doorbell so they wouldn’t hear enlistment officers some even injured themselves as a way to gain a medical

Exemption not everyone had the luxury of leaving the lives they’d grown accustomed to tied to their homes by elderly parents mortgages or financial limitations The Unlucky were ushered into an uncertain military future draft ran the gamut from 17-year-olds with no combat experience to avowed criminals and middle-aged men with diabetes and

Brain conditions there was little regard for health expertise or background even though Putin’s draft specifically called for reservists with military skills naturally the cannon fodder label has been applied to these new recruits a common refrain among the men themselves if scores of anecdotal telegram videos are to be believed zinc coffins are

Already coming one jaded Russian military blogger complained as the mobilization unfolded you told us that there will be training that they would not be sent to the front line in a week were you lying again the bottom line is that the mobilization revealed Stark structural Manpower deficits which

According to Michael Koffman led to problems with recruitment retention and rotation units which couldn’t be rotated were quickly exhausted in combat which led to the hiring of short-term volunteers which further exacerbated the retention issues it was a deadly cycle one which saw Russian conscripts used up

Faster than a one ply roll of toilet paper Russian conscripts were eventually refuse the right to refuse deployment punishable by fine or a prison sentence others expecting to serve for only a few months saw their service in Ukraine extended indefinitely the bigger red flag was the way these recruits were

Being trained for combat in the past Russian law stipulated that conscripts could not go into battle unless they’d had at least 4 months of training Russia’s own defense Ministry website claims that an intensive 4-we combined arms training with a survival course is essential for anyone who signs a

Contract with the Russian army the program takes a total of 240 hours and includes shooting throwing grenades and a study of military tactics today these standards are not observed incredibly for such a vast mobilization in such a high stakes War there seems to be no uniform training regiment in place at

All in fact reports commonly surface of conscripts being sent to the front mere days after joining the Army raising red flags across the globe a week of training is nothing for a soldier it’s a direct path to a hospital or a body bag one independent military analyst told journalists another director of a

Russian human rights organization said that he’d been regularly approached by parents whose children signed a military contract and ended up in Ukraine just a week later another conscript was quoted as saying after all the medical checkups they asked me if I was ready to go to the military base the day after tomorrow

They trained us for 5 days we waited for another 5 days for a force rotation and then we went to combat positions of the informal training exercises his group conducted while waiting to deploy he would remark of course it was not enough there are grave Supply and housing

Issues there aren’t enough vehicles or Munitions to cycle to the rear to train on pulling Antiquated vehicles and equipment from Storage has been one temporary solution but much of it requires extensive maintenance as such reports revealed how conscript sent to the front had barely held a machine gun

Or seen a real tank let alone operate them asked about his shooting practice during his 11-day training period before deployment one conscript said he trained once with three magazines in total others practiced marching in street clothes no machine guns nothing no clothes no shoes half of them are hung

Over old at risk the ambulance should be on duty the man grimly continued there was a soldier in our company who didn’t know how a machine gun works so I taught that guy how to disassemble and assemble a machine gun I wouldn’t want to be next

To him in battle how how can you fight like that there were not enough beds or heated houses to accommodate the conscripts when they arrived for training Russian sources revealed men without sleeping bags or blankets sleeping on hard floors or in streets many of whom were barely fed others sick

Or starving consequently disorderly conduct was common shockingly within a short span hundreds of thousands of new draft were deployed to Ukraine their presence confirmed the observation that the Russian military currently prioritizes getting personel to the Frontline positions in Ukraine quickly and appears to view the quality of their

Training as an afterthought yes one could argue that history is in fact on Russia’s side they have thrown countless Millions into the meat grinder of War dating back to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 a trend that continued strong through both world wars and survives well into the 21st century all

Russian Battlefield success it seems comes only when unfeeling leaders are willing to pay an incredibly steep price expending men and material as cannon fodder until the enemy exhausts himself Putin should continue at his own Peril conclusion there are countless other tactical and systemic issues which in

The interest of time will have to table for a future episode These include Russia’s abject failure to implement a vile deception plan or achieve any form of surprise when it massed in Belarus prior to the invasion Putin’s more recent failure to control his own mercenary subordinates Russia’s inability to protect its own airspace

Against a growing Fleet of cheap Ukrainian drones the failure to instill operational security which led to the deaths of dozens of high-ranking generals and officers to artillery drone and high Mar attacks and Putin’s decision to let the war drag on indefinitely which has only given Ukraine time to iterate and innovate

Novel military killing techniques which continue to reain down impressive destructive power on Russian forces these only scratch the surface in the meantime let us know what we missed in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for more military analysis from military experts in Russia in the spring of 2015 flatbed train wagons were

Spotted carrying unfamiliar armored vehicles the turrets were carefully wrapped in a tarpine clearly intended to prevent a casual Observer from Gaining much information about the vehicles on the 9th of May 2015 at Russia’s annual Victory Day Parade celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945 the

Tarpine came off and a handful of these vehicles made their first public appearance it was a brand new tank system designated the T14 armata or weapon main battle tank it was not an impressive debut one of the tanks broke down on the Parade route and was stranded for 15 minutes until Hasty

Repairs could be made and it was again able to move off under its own power but the appearance of the tank caused suppressed ripples of excitement and concern in equal me measures amongst Western intelligence communities what details could be seen suggested a revolutionary new design the tank commander brace smartly as he delivered

A crisp salute to the watching Russian dignitaries was not in the turret but rather in the forward part of the hole the turret appeared to be uncrewed the Russian government announced that trials would soon start and then production would begin there was talk of producing 120 per year and that an ultimate

Production line of 2,300 tanks would replace and upgrade the entire active Russian tank Fleet a quote family of armata vehicles was to include an infantry fighting vehicle and armored recovery vehicle and a self-propelled artillery version this would be a very big deal but the best part of a decade

Later in the T14 still does not appear to have been produced in any significant numbers it has not seen any active service and indeed its entire future is shrouded in mystery after the initial Fanfare and attention the t14s become something of a laughing stock amongst military analysts in late 2023 many

Analysts were convinced that the T14 will never work as a fully produced operational combat vehicle so what is the T14 what happened to it and where is it now and is it any good let’s take a look at the T14 armata Russian tank design achieved legendary status during

The second world war you will almost certainly have heard of the t34 which is still judged to be one of the best tanks of World War II it sloped armor wide tracks and Powerful for the time 76 mm gun came as a great shock to the German Panzer formations that thrust into

Russia during the operation Barbarosa in June 1941 other Russian tank designs such as the kv1 the t3485 and the Joseph Stalin sent the Germans scrambling for their tank design drawing boards during the Cold War Russian tanks continued to evolve the t-54 55 series The t64 and 7

2 models and later the t80 and T90 Russian policy was to keep the tanks low to the ground hard-hitting with a powerful main Armament and available in large numbers they were rarely as technologically advanced as NATO tanks but they were largely respected by NATO and Western armies particularly given

The well understood principle that these tanks would generally be used in massed formations but it’s worth noting that scratching the surface the Russian tank industry has always been fractured by rivalries between tank factories competing designers corruption and struggles for attention and resources of the government some analysts have looked

At the t64 t72 and t80 and concluded that this was an illogical and highly uneconomic production of three versions of what was more or less the same tank what seems clear is that the Russian military never seems to have managed to settle on one tank type and one family

Of vehicles it also looked as if the Russian tank industry was still living off its Old Glory Days without the resources to invest in a new tank suitable for the 2020s and Beyond perhaps because of these deep-seated historical challenges Russian tank design has Preferred to focus on upgrading existing tank models with new

Technology armor and protective systems rather than develop a new tank and the Russians never like to throw any old tanks away they store them in huge tank Parks east of the eural mountains for a time when they might be needed a Time such as now you’ll see more or less

Every Cold War and postc Cold War variety of Russian tank on the battlefields of Ukraine when a prototype tank designed the t95 was canceled in 2010 the Russian tank producing industrial complex of Euro vagan zavod began working on a new model it was initially called object 148 this was to

Become the T14 Armada but it doesn’t seem to have been actually based on the previous t95 work but rather around a new engine type the a853 a Russian copy of a German model this engine was used instead of the classic Tank Engine that had kitted out

The t-72s and t9s the reason for that is unclear the a853 was smaller but more powerful but it also turned out to be more complex and less reliable and it had not even been originally designed for a tank after the T14 somewhat embarrassing debut at the 2015 Victory Day Parade the Western intelligence

Community started to put their heads together to see what this new development was all about the information that began to trickle in was from a western perspective very troubling given that there is little confirmed or confirmable information about the T14 we’ll have to rely a little heavily on the Russian defense

Industry brochures and state press statements this is obviously not ideal given the high likelihood of propaganda but let’s dive in anyway so at least we can get a sense of the sort of expectations hype and anticipation surrounding this new weapon system the concept certainly looked looked highly

Unique the turret was to be automated and remote controlled the three-man crew would sit side by side in a special protected and sealed crew compartment in the front hole of the vehicle there would even be a toilet provided for the crew a radical concession to comfort from the tank designers the Tank’s main

Armament was originally intended to have been a 152 mm weapon this was what the earlier t95 concept was supposed to have mounted but it was later identified as a 125 mm gun that would also be able to fire anti-tank missiles it would have a 57 mm grenade launcher and a 12.7 MM

Heavy machine gun automatically operated in the unmanned turret average speed on the road was given as 80 kmph the seven road wheels either side were connected to an active suspension system that would give a smoother ride and provide more effective Fire Control while on the move there was talk that the main gun

Would be able to shoot down low-flying helicopters a system of video cameras would be fitted on all sides and the commander ‘s Vision system would be mounted on the turret to allow 360° visibility the crew were supported by a highly responsive combat management computer system that could rapidly analyze the battlefield environment

Identify potential threats and targets and automatically take measures to protect the tank via an afghanite active protection system or APS they should be able to detect tank sized objects at over 7 km in the daytime and half that distance at night a radar would identify incoming Miss a new generation of Highly secretive

Malachit explosive reactive armor had also been promised this would surround the tank with Advanced protective layers of composite armor that exploded when struck deflecting any oncoming missile the aps deployed hard kill defensive measures such as systems that could attack incoming missiles and even actual tank rounds and softkill processes that

Could disrupt confused and deflect any incoming attack some analysts concluded that the Russian designers had based the tank defensive measures on the highly effective modern Israeli tank the mava the manufacturer claimed that special radar absorbing paint would render the t-14 more or less invisible a T15 infantry Fighting Vehicle variant was

Also spotted at the Victory Day parade and a photograph of a t16 tank recovery version equipped with a bulldozer blade and an automated 12.7 mm machine gun turret was issued by the manufacturers both variants seem to have the same armor defensive measures as the T4 14 Western intelligence analysts were quick

To express concern about the potential of this new vehicle system the unmanned turret design would afford the vehicle a lighter faster lower profile a leaked United Kingdom Ministry of Defense document showed very real worry about the capabilities of the T14 in November 2016 the British Daily Telegraph newspaper carried some dramatic quotes

From the assessment calling it a groundbreaking tank and the most revolutionary step change in tank design in the last last half century a stark question was posed are we on the cusp of a new technological arms race there was also grave concern that the West Was Not

Also developing any plans for a tank to rival the T14 at the time the British and Americans were focused on the challenges of counterinsurgency warfare in the mountains waterways and deserts of Afghanistan the defense industry design and development effort was being directed toward High Mobility vehicles and the challenges of defeating

Improvised explosive devices for the last 20 years Britain had no significant need for a new Fleet of main battle tanks the 2016 military balance report from The International Institute for strategic studies similarly described the T14 as quote revolutionary highlighting the tanks active Protection Systems as something that would greatly

Reduce the risk from rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank guided missiles after the initial announcements and Revelations of the new T14 concept there was an analytical backlash in the absence sense of any verifiable evidence Western analysts gradually adopted a more skeptical view of the T14 us analysis in 2015 was already pointing

Out that there had been no independent verification or public demonstrations of the claims and capabilities attributed to the T14 particularly how effective the defense systems would be the American national interest journal in late 2016 observed that us analysts felt that the capability claims of the T14 were greatly exaggerated

The practicalities of producing a new high-tech tank were pointed out starting with the fact that Russia simply did not have the money and resources to produce the tank in any significant numbers well the claims for the T14 were certainly impressive however a famous British Football manager once dryly observed we

Had a great team on paper unfortunately the match was played on grass so now having heard the hype let’s step back a bit and review some of the Practical problems that the T14 might have as its many manufacturers attempt to Move It from a theoretical drawing concept to an actual working Battlefield dominating

Weapon the production schedule and cryptic messages from the Russian government and Industry pointed to some of these problems the Russian Ministry of Defense declared in 2016 that a batch of 100 T14 tanks would be manufactured by 2020 as part of a project that would go on until 2025 but this served to set

The scene for confused announcements contradictions and delays to this original time frame in 2018 the Deputy Prime Minister for the defense and space industry reportedly said that there was actually no need for a new main battle tank system as the Russian army had more than enough of the older tanks the

Various modified variants of the t72 in particular to suffice this argument held that the existing Vehicles were still effective as tank platforms and they would be cheaper and more practical to Simply continue on with them upgrading them with offensive and defensive measures as appropriate this was probably a better and more realistic

Reflection of the harsh realities facing the Russian arms industry but it also gave some indication of the doubts already surrounding the long-term prospects for the T14 finances were strained and access to high-tech computer technology was hard given the sanctions imposed on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 but it went

In the direct contradiction of the defense industry in other parts of the government the month after this statement came out it was reported that a contract had been signed for 32 t-14 tanks and 100 t-15 infantry fighting Vehicles by early February 2019 the first dozen tanks were supposed to have

Been built but nothing had happened and a subsequent announcement in August said that 16 would not be delivered until the end of the year in November the deadline had slipped further into early 2020 when 2020 rolled around there was absolutely no evidence that anything like 100 tanks

Had been produced even though there was still talk of State trials taking place and even Bolder talk about unmanned versions of the T14 but in January the head of roste Russia’s largest state-owned Arms Company stated that no t14s had yet been produced and that the engine design had not yet been finalized

In August 2020 it was announced that production had started and that the tank would be given to the armed forces in 2021 but as the years drifted by these announcements were looking less and less convincing another statement in July 2021 said that production would begin in 2022 however the Russian defense

Minister s shyu had already slightly undermined this in March when he said the first group to be produced would only be for experimental purposes the gap between reality and actuality continued to stretch with announcements in December 2021 that the ammunition loader for the main Armament was being

Tried in 2022 and that full serial production would take place and that 40 t14s would be delivered after 2023 in the summer of 2022 the Russian army was several months into its invasion of Ukraine the invasion was not going well the war in Ukraine exposed many vulnerabilities of the Russian tank

Fleet YouTube was a wash with dozens of spectacular examples of Tanks erupting in brilliant orange balls of flame with the turrets hurtling Skyward this showed amongst other things that the automatic loading concept for the main Armament were flawed shells were not being adequately protected inside the turret with disastrous consequences the tank

Design scrambled to identify what lessons the current conflict might reveal for the T14 the defensive measures attributed to the T14 seem designed to protect all sides but not from above which is becoming a favorite angle of attack for drones based on early experiences of Russian armor in Ukraine ideas for modifications for the

T14 were drafted to extend the range of the active protection system to offer more protection against rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank guided missiles and to add better defense against electromagnetic and microwave weapons in addition it became clear that minefields were still popular with both sides requiring new ways of remotely dealing

With this threat this would point to more delays to production a weapon system that can prove itself effective and reliable on the battlefield can make it a highly attractive sales option for other countries the Russians have claimed that both the Indians and the Chinese had expressed interest and

Perhaps Egypt and bellarus but it’s one thing to be interested quite another to step up with a multi- ion Ruble contract norino China’s state-owned defense Corporation has claimed that their own tank the vt4 is superior to the T14 so here’s the big question given that the T14 has been evident at Victory parades

Since 2015 is there any evidence that it’s been tested in combat operations nearly a decade on well as of today there’s no credible evidence that the T14 has any real Combat experience to point to curiously in 2020 Russian government sources floated the idea a that the T14 had been tested in Syria

This seems highly unlikely even if we remembered that quote tested doesn’t necessarily mean quote combat tested but the big question mark now is whether the T14 has seen any service in Ukraine for propaganda purposes and perhaps even more importantly achieving the full overseas sales potential it would be

Ideal for the Russian army to be able to point to t-14 tanks advancing across the Ukraine step engaging in defeating the Western tanks such as the German Leopard 2 and the American Abrams with which the Ukrainian Army is being equipped a photograph of a T14 posing next to the

Shattered hole of a decadent Western main battle tank would be the icing on the cake for President Putin but so far we’ve seen very little credible evidence of any t14s in Ukraine in a serious combat role is it reasonable to expect that social media networks open- Source intelligence and drones would surely

Have picked up pictures of the T14 in action by now the Ukraine Ians would have reported engaging something as distinctive and interesting as a T14 surely in December 2022 Russian television showed clips of the T14 undergoing what was described as combat training and with a commentary that the

Tank had already been deployed to the combat zone the size and nature of the combat zone was never clear nor even if the tank was actually in Ukraine at all the state owned Russian press agency novosti reported in late April 2023 that the T14 had been used in an indirect

Fire roll against Ukrainian positions this implies the tank had been lined up behind a hill forest or built up area out of sight of the enemy and used as a form of artillery this is not exactly the type of tactic envisaged for a Frontline main battle tank if this

Reporting is accurate it suggests the Russians feel their T14 is not yet ready for a full test in combat or they’re worried it might break down and get captured or they’re simply trying to score propaganda Victory or all of of the above on the 9th of May 2023 no T14

Tanks appeared at the World War II Victory Parade in July 2023 the Russian state-owned news agency Tas briefly noted that the T14 was being used by Russian forces in southern Ukraine to test and assess the Tank’s performance in any case by the end of August 2023 the ukrainians had never reported

Meeting it in battle and on September 4th the Russian press reported that the T14 had been withdrawn from Ukraine perhaps the manufacturer simply wanted an as used in Ukraine tag and a photo opportunity for the marketing brochure but interestingly the report also stated that additional side armor protection

Had been added to the tank to guard against anti-tank strikes clearly the conflict in Ukraine has been throwing up fundamental development challenges not least from drones anti-tank missiles and longrange artillery for all tanks in armored Warfare and let’s just pause a moment there are many other factors that

Impact a tank’s Effectiveness on the battlefield Beyond merely the size of the gun and the thickness of the armor morale motivation and training are crucial tactical Doctrine decides how best a tank should be used cooperation with artillery infantry and air power is also vital having a three-man crew does

Offer much spare capacity for routine maintenance cooking food mounting Sentry Duty and a host of other routine but tiring tasks in a combat zone the Russian Logistics system is in tatters reliant on men to Lug ammunition around rather than automated loading systems with pallets and machines to take the

Strain you could have the best tank in the world on paper but still see it abandoned because the crew is unwilling to move into the assault or the tank has shed a track or because they simply have run out of fuel but still the myths and hype persisted in some elements of the

Russian media there was still seemingly misplaced confidence that the T14 would be a world beater and August 2022 article breathlessly reported that by 2030 the T14 would be so Advanced that the crew would be operating their their own reconnaissance drones deploy a 152 mm gun a caliber which let’s not forget

Is normally the stuff of heavy artillery fire thermobaric fuel air explosives and supersonic rounds shoot fire and forget missiles and be able to identify enemy targets at ranges of over 6 km when largescale Russian land SE and Air Forces plunged into Ukraine in 2022 suddenly the world was witnessing a

Large- scale conflict that involved major tank actions the Russian army suffered and contined to suffer extremely high losses to its tank artillery airborne and infantry forces numbers of casualties of men and Equipment losses remain hard to pin down but there is a lot of credible reporting to suggest that Russia has lost a

Quarter of a million men and between 3 to 5,000 armored vehicles many analysts were shocked by the scale of Russia tank losses and the ease with which they catastrophically exploded when struck some analysts went as far as to predict that the tank was now an obsolete weapon

Of War and that drones and missiles would now rule the battlefield this analysis is probably premature but the rapid evolution of anti-tank technology in Ukraine is causing much pause for thought in terms of tank design it’s likely that Russian tank designers just like their Western counterparts will be taking a wholesale heads scratching

Review of just what it means to be a tank on the battlefields of the 2030s and 2040s but Russia still embedded deep in this brutal conflict inside Ukraine desperately needs tanks now and not 10 years in the future they’ve reportedly lost between, 1500 and 2,000 tanks in battle they have no significant

Manufacturing capability to crank out the current tank types let alone build test and mass-produce serious numbers of a brand new unproven and technologically complex piece of equipment each of the T14 tanks to date have been lovingly handmade there’s no factory production line standing by ready to roll out fresh

New modern armor in the way that the Stalingrad tank Works in 1942 were able to churn out t34 tanks and drive them directly to the front line and sanctions are greatly impeding the ability of Defense manufacturers to access the highquality complex electronics that are primarily available in the West in one

Crazy example from October 2022 the Swedish press began reporting the mysterious disappearance of traffic speed cameras all over the country crucial parts of the cameras were then smuggled into Russia where the electronic parts could be cannibalized for Russian drones we should write off the T14 entirely just yet the apparent

Failure failure is probably the best word here of the T14 development and procurement process could be used as a lesson for the Russian designers perhaps the T14 or aspects of its design might end up as a technology demonstrator for new ideas further Downstream but the current realities make it highly

Unlikely that the Russian tank industry suffering from corruption lack of resources and limited finances will be able to conceive design and mass produce a new tank system anytime soon they’ll probably have to stick with updates to older models the t72 and T90 types the t90m is probably the most modern Russian

Tank on the battlefield at present these upgrades are expensive and difficult enough and the rapidly changing Battlefield environment will make this even more complicated and who knows perhaps in 10 years or so in 2034 a new Russian tank system successor to the T14 will find itself acquiring the legendary designator of t34

While it’s certainly possible but think of it this way with all the long-term flaws in the Russian government and procurement system corruption lack of funds lack of assembly lines technology sanctions and so on perhaps this new t34 might turn out to be a real turkey oh but you’re welcome to buy the T14

Yourself at 135th scale paints and brushes included at least the plastic production lines seem to be working but what do you think in what way is the T14 radical or ridiculous let us know know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for more military analysis from military experts before Russia’s invasion of

Ukraine Western observers were wary of its tank force Russia had the largest tank Fleet in the world with 12, 556 units this number was more than its closest Rivals North Korea and the United States combined meanwhile Russia’s rival Ukraine had only about 1,900 tanks before the war again the

Numbers looked hopelessly bad for the ukrainians however numbers aren’t everything and the war in Ukraine proved it in this video we’ll look at how Russia has lost thousands of tanks in its special military operation how it deceived the world with its number of tanks and how its tank failures have

Been systematic in everything from Doctrine to design Russia started the war with disadvantages despite its formidable tank Fleet on paper only about 2,600 of Russia’s armored units were main battle tanks defined as a heavily armored tank that is designed to provide direct Firepower in head-on combat for example the M1 Abrams and its

Derivatives fit this role for the United States other armored vehicles like the M2 Bradley play important parts on the battlefield but they are not designed to get into direct combat with enemy tanks or heavily fortified positions so they are not called main battle tanks to make matters worse for Russia only about a

Quarter of its pre-war main battle tanks had modern sighting and Fire Control Systems these were the t72 B3 b3m the t80 BVM and the T90 am were still by November 2022 Colin Carl the United States under secretary for defense policy estimated that Russia had lost half of its pre-war main battle tanks in

Ukraine a year later the orx blog estimates that Russia has lost a total of 2,478 tanks with 1,621 destroyed 139 damaged 170 abandoned and 548 captured as a percentage about 65% of Russia’s total tank losses have come through the destruction of its armored units Ukraine meanwhile has lost 689 tanks with 462

Destroyed 56 damaged 37 abandoned and 134 captured this makes for a Russia to Ukraine casualty ratio of 3.5 to1 the ratio of Tanks lost to destruction between Russia and Ukraine is also 3.5 to1 however Ukraine is suffering as well as 67% of its total tank losses have been through outright destruction rather

Than damage or abandonment comparable to the Russian figure experts note that or’s estimates of the equipment losses on both sides are often a bare minimum and the real losses are likely higher even so the general picture would remain correct even though destruction percentages are similar Russia is losing

Tanks at a more rapid rate than Ukraine and many of the tanks that both sides are using have great flaws why have so many tanks on both sides been destroyed compared to being merely damaged or abandoned part of the reason is that Russian tanks are prone to catastrophic

Damage unlike Western tanks like the Abrams Challenger 2 and leopard 2 Russian tanks do not compartmentalize their ammunition instead some of the tanks shells are stored in the turret if the tank gets hit even indirectly it can start a chain reaction that results in the entire magazine exploding creating a

Jack in thebox effect so often seen in Ukraine some anti-tank weapons like the American Javelin are designed to send their projectiles on an arc that impacts the turret of an enemy tank which has weaker armor than the body the result is devastating Russian tanks suffering from

Jack In The Box explosions did not come as a surprise to Western military experts they had observed the same effect in the Gulf War when large numbers of Iraqi t72 tanks were total after their turrets got hit hit by anti-tank weapons Russia’s other supposedly modern tanks the t80 and T90

Have the same design floor the T90 entered service in the Russian military in 1992 but its designers did not learn anything from the Gulf War as of November 2023 the orx blog has estimated that of visually confirmed cases Russia has lost 1,270 t72 type tanks across multiple variants of these 815 have been

Destroyed a destruction rate of 64% meanwhile Russia has lost 669 t80 tanks across multiple variants with 419 of them being destroyed making for a destruction rate of 62% Russia has lost 92 of the different types of T90 of these 55 have been destroyed a rate of

About 60% Russia has also lost 285 other tanks that orx could not identify of these 241 were destroyed making for a staggering 84.5% destruction rate while Ukraine has gotten much media attention for its Newfound use of Western main battle tanks like the Abrams Challenger and leopard most of the units in its armored

Fleet are still Soviet and Russian designed tanks before the conflict it had about 900 Soviet made t64 t72 and t80 tanks most of these were of the t64 class of these tanks across multiple variants Ukraine has a total of 376 of these 37 6 241 were destroyed a

Rate of 64% Ukraine has also deployed different tanks of the t72 class and lost 186 of them with 132 of them being destroyed a destruction rate of 71% 56 Ukrainian t8s have been lost in combat 39 of them were destroyed outright a destruction rate of 69% in contrast

Ukraine has seen the destruction of just one of the 14 Challenger tanks is deployed in combat meanwhile of the 25 leopard tanks that have become casualties in Ukraine only nine have seen outright destruction a rate of 36% the others were damaged abandoned or both this discrepancy in the destruction

Rate between Soviet Russian and Western tank designs is because the latter’s militaries learned from the experience in Iraq the Abrams for example has its ammunition magazine in a sealed compartment one of the Tank’s four crew members retrieves rounds from this compartment unsealing and resealing the magazine with each shot this setup means

That if the tank is hit only one of its rounds is likely to be exposed in the turret this can damage the tank but the crew is relatively well protected from enemy fire and there is far less of a chance of a chain reaction that produces

The Jack in the Box effect Russia did seem to finally learn the lesson when it designed its latest tank the T14 armata unlike the earlier Soviet produced designs the T14 has an armored protected crew capsule which is completely separate from the ammunition magazine thanks to the tanks autoloader

Unfortunately for Russia only about 20 of these units have been produced far from the 100 that were supposedly in the works with a contract announcement in 2020 because of international sanctions Logistics and perennial corruption problems in the Russian military it’s unlikely that Russia will be able to

Produce many more T14 tanks anytime soon meanwhile the armata has never been definitively confirmed as participating in a combat operation in Ukraine claims that it has been deployed to the battlefield are likely based on Russian propaganda trying to save face and prevent their country’s tank reputation from falling

Any further it is likely that the Russian military fears losing the few armata tanks it’s been able to produce for Russia the lack of the T14 armata also means that it lacks a truly modern main battle tank even Russia’s supposedly most advanced tank that it can produce in large enough numbers the

T90 is still based on the t72 a model which saw its Genesis in the late 1960s aside from their Superior survivability designs one of the reasons that relatively few of the western main battle tanks deployed in Ukraine have been destroyed is because their Russian opponents lack the Firepower to threaten

Them the t-14 armata was developed with an improved 282 IM 125 mm Cannon which Western military experts conceded was a significant improvement over the guns on the t72 t80 and T90 despite the Armata’s other problems however this weapon is not not Backward Compatible with Russia’s traditional tanks because the

Breach block does not fit meaning that the Kremlin cannot deploy it to Ukraine if the Russians could find a way to fill this weapon the casualty ratio between Ukrainian and Russian tanks might not be so lopsided but like in many other matters Russia’s poor preparedness for the conflict meant that this problem was

Overlooked additionally Russia’s tank guns have limited Mobility the T90 for example can only raise its gun to an arc of 14° or lower it to an Arc of six in contrast the Abrahams can raise its gun by 20° or lower it by 9 this gives the Abrahams greater range than its Russian

Competitor the lack of Mobility for Russian tank guns also makes them vulnerable in urban combat contributing to Russian tank losses in Ukraine just as it did in cnia so Russia began the war in Ukraine with a largely outdated series of tanks with design problems that made them prone to catastrophic

Destruction and ensured that they would lack range and Firepower because Ukraine started the war with the same kind of outdated tanks it suffered an armor destruction ratio comparable to its Russian adversary however as Ukraine received thousands of modern portable anti-tank weapons like the javelin it was able to pile up the damage on

Russian tanks in other ways Russia’s staggering losses of its more modern tanks like the t72 t80 and T90 have forced it to dig deeper into its tank Fleet and break older models out of storage the older tanks include the t64 models that that Ukraine has been using

Which were designed in the early 1960s Russia has also used the t62 tank the t-64’s predecessor which saw its origins in the 1950s and even in some cases the t-54 55 which had its Genesis in the 1940s as a successor to the legendary World War II era t34 these old tanks

Have been deployed in Ukraine without any visible upgrades such as bricks of explosive reactive armor to better protect them from anti-tank rounds perhaps it’s for this reason that Russian sources indicate that the t-54 55 tanks in particular have been deployed more as mobile armored artillery Vehicles designed for indirect

Fire assistance this role seems corroborated by orx as only two t54 55 type tanks have been reported as visually confirmed casualties despite their lack of protective armor against modern weapons one of the tanks was destroyed and the other damaged Russian sources reported in May 2023 that the

T545 has been deployed to Ukraine at the company level like other tanks in Ukraine t-54 55 models have been spotted with cope cages as an ad hoc method to protect against drones and anti-tank missiles Russia originally wanted the t62 and its variance in the indirect role that the t-54 55 has been deployed

In but the huge losses of t72 Tanks have forced it to usher in this old tank and the t64 into front line direct combat in larger numbers putting it in the same position as its enemy Ukraine was at the start of the war according to orx Russia

Has lost 85 t62 tanks across its multiple variants 35 of which have been destroyed a rate of about 41% meanwhile Russia has lost 78 t64 tanks 60 of which have been destroyed making for a much higher destruction rate of about 77% the destruction of so many Russian

Tanks in Ukraine has led to a pecul UL phenomenon as Russia is breaking its cold war relics out of storage its Ukrainian enemy is getting a steady supply of Western tanks which are much more highly survivable and come with more Firepower for example as damaged leopard tanks get repaired more could be

Coming from Europe in 2024 Germany has pledged that an additional 14 leopard tanks will be delivered in early 2024 to replace the ones ukra has lost meanwhile in November 2023 Germany and Switzerland made a deal to send evil more leopard tanks to Ukraine adding to the latter’s

Fleet according to a report by David ax in Forbes in the late 1980s Switzerland bought 380 pz87 tanks which are variants of the leopard 24 while Switzerland upgraded some of these tanks in the 2010s it put 96 unmodified tanks in storage Ukraine has long desired these but Switzerland has centuries of

Tradition of being a neutral country then on November 22nd 202 3 The Swiss agreed to export 25 of these tanks to the German Rin metal company which manufactures Automobiles and arms technically the condition the Swiss demanded is that these tanks must remain in NATO or EU territory to meet existing

Shortfalls however there is a loophole that the Swiss gave a wink and a nod to Rin metal is empowered to sell these tanks to a country that already operates leopard 2a4s perhaps with German government financing and that country could then donate Ukraine its own leopard 2a4s so Rin metal could sell

These tanks to Germany for example Germany would then be able to donate them to Ukraine if these 25 tanks were to arrive in conjunction with the 14 Germany has already pledged it would make up for the destroyed leopards and then some amounting to a new Battalion of Tanks as Ukraine’s tank force gets

Steadily more modern Russia is finding it more and more difficult to replace its best tanks and as a result its tank force is getting older and more vulnerable to mod weapons these older tanks are often not even able to fight at night unlike the newer Western tanks

That are coming into the service of Ukraine this reality paints a grim picture for Russia as the war continues into its third year it will need to rely more and more on throwing sheer numbers at the problems facing it however Russia’s tank problems in Ukraine go far

Beyond old models and design flaws while many tanks have been destroyed many others have been lost due to capture or abandonment Russian Doctrine heavily emphasizes tanks and artillery in comparison Western Doctrine emphasizes a combined arms approach to Warfare Urban fighting in Iraq helped to flesh this Doctrine out tanks proved vulnerable

Without proper infantry support especially in tighter environments like cities as a result dismounted infantry proved critical to supporting the tanks Russia on the other hand learned nothing from its bitter experiences in the cin Wars of the 1990s where gorillas armed with anti-tank weapons would wreak havoc on the Russian armor from rooftops High

Windows or when emerging from basements when Russia deployed its vast tank Fleet to Ukraine it again failed to provide its tanks with proper infantry support learning nothing from its experiences in cnia Long Columns of Russian tanks without proper infantry support often in urban settings proved vulnerable to the

Ambushes of Ukrainian anti-tank Crews as we’ve seen because of their tanks design problems many of Russia’s best tank Crews became casualties in the earliest phases of the war when Russia’s attacks stalled outside of keev and every other axis except in the southern one that emerged from Crimea Russian tanks

Typically come in Crews of three the commander driver and Gunner if we take the visually confirmed loss estimates by orx and multiply the 1,621 tanks destroyed by three it would yield a number of 4,863 tank Crews becoming casualties in Ukraine because Russian tanks tend to blow up in catastrophic destruction

Thanks to their design flaws most of these can be assumed to be Kia these numbers are only rough estimates they may be higher or lower Ukrainian sources claimed in the summer of 2023 that Russia has lost over 4,000 tanks in the war although because this information is

Coming from a Waring party it must be treated with skepticism it is noteworthy though that foreign experts have often roughly agreed with Ukraine’s figures for example Frederick Martins of the hag Center for strategic studies said they were probable in an interview with Newsweek regardless the loss of Russian

Tank Crews has been high because of the thousands of Tanks destroyed since Russia almost certainly lost thousands of its best trained tank operators in the early stages of the war it’s had to replace them with poorly trained and motivated new recruits much like their mobilized infantry counterparts in

Places like B mut Russia’s modus operandi has simply been to throw these amateurish Crews and outdated tanks into the teeth of the enemy Russia’s problems go further according to orx at least 176 tanks have been abandoned and a further 548 captured the real number is probably higher in contrast only 37 Ukrainian

Tanks have been abandoned and 133 captured ratios of 4.75 to1 and 4.1 to1 in favor of Ukraine why have the Russians lost so many tanks to abandonment one of the reasons is that Russia has had problems deploying retrieval Vehicles into Ukraine these vehicles are design designed to recover immobilized or damaged armored equipment

The comparative lack of these recovery vehicles in the Russian military is nothing new and date backs to the Soviet era according to orx Russia has lost a total of 88 armored recovery Vehicles 39 of them have been destroyed and the rest damaged or abandoned Ukrainian forces have often been seen targeting Russian

Recovery vehicles with drones each loss adds even greater stress to Russia’s Armed Forces meanwhile Ukraine is converting some of its older t 62 tanks into armored recovery vehicles to assist its newer Western tanks Russian problems go deeper still many tanks have needed to be abandoned because of a lack of

Spare parts or proper mechanics to service them a comparison with the US military might bring things into perspective the US Army deploys about 10 support soldiers for every combat Soldier to maintain smooth Logistics the Russian army in Ukraine has had far fewer support Soldiers with only about 150 in a typical Battalion Tactical

Group being in that category each btg has about 700 to 900 soldiers Russia despite being one of the world’s leading energy producers has also suffered fuel shortages in Ukraine lack of access to rail hubs that it needs to move equipment and clogged roads have made it

Hard for Russia to keep its tanks fueled Ukraine’s High Mars Attacks on Russian Fuel depos and other important logistical centers have only added greater stress to Russia’s tank problems especially with their constant lack of proper infantry support in some Russia’s tank failure in Ukraine is the result of all things coming together outdated

Soviet era designs make Russian tanks prone to complete destruction especially against modern anti-tank weapons poor Doctrine ensures that these tanks often lack adequate infantry support to prevent ambushes a fact which is shown over and over again at the hands of Ukrainian soldiers armed with portable anti-tank equipment and drones finally

Poor Russian Logistics ensures that tanks often can be recovered repaired or fueled which is why so many of them have been abandoned or captured Russia may have had the world’s largest tank force before the war but it’s lost its best tanks at a staggering rate with events

Proving that they were not so great after all tanks still may be a formidable force on the modern battlefield but without proper infantry support they are vulnerable and without logistical support they are for all practical purposes immobile Russia is therefore left with a rapidly aging tank force which it’s throwing on mass into

An attritional meat grinder hoping to bleed Ukraine out so it becomes too exhausted to fight any further the traditional Russian way of War what else do you think is responsible for Russia’s huge tank failures in Ukraine don’t forget to let us know in the comments also remember to hit the like button and

Subscribe for more military analysis from military experts ever since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine low morale has proven to be a big problem for Vladimir Putin’s armies it’s such a problem that the commander of Russia’s 58th combined arms Army Major General Ivan Ivanovic Popov was dismissed from his post for

Pointing it out in July 2023 poor Logistics command structure insufficient troop rotation and a war seemingly Without End have plagued Russia’s armies since the War Began and given Russian soldiers little relief from the stressful demands of the battlefield the morale problem has gotten so bad that there are now reports of Russia’s

Soldiers suffering from a widespread Mental Health crisis however Ukrainian troops despite their higher morale are also suffering from severe mental stress in this video we will look at the contributors to the low morale of Russian forces in Ukraine how Ukrainian forces are also suffering and what it

Could mean for the war as it moves into its third year since ancient times morale has been one of the most important components of warfare in The Art of War sunu mentioned that the moral law causes the people to be in complete Accord with their ruler so that they

Will follow him regardless of their lives undismayed by any danger it was the first of seven factors by which he claimed he could predict Victory or defeat Napoleon also famously mentioned morals importance in Warfare noting that it was much more important in determining the outcome of a conflict

Than the physical factors on the battlefield perhaps the most famous example of the importance of morale occurred in the Hundred Years War between England and France in 1429 the French cause looked lost and the Victory of the English inevitable but the sudden arrival of Joon of Arc who lifted the

Siege of orans in a few weeks completely reversed the situation French forces believed in themselves again and within months had gained an advantage in the war that they would not lose from that point forward such is the power of morale in Warfare it’s proven to be no different in Ukraine from the start

Ukrainian forces have had better morale than their Russian adversaries this was another major shock that experts did not expect when The Invasion began if Russia was good at one thing before the war it was propaganda many International observers feared its large and supposedly modern military by consensus the Russian armed forces were considered

The world’s second most capable this supposed modernity extended much further than weapons or tactics but in Recruitment and quality of personnel just before its collapse in 1991 the Soviet Union had an active Army of about 3.5 million men however while this fighting Force may have had Mass it was

Also unwieldy it was largely composed of conscripted soldiers and lacked experienced non-commission officers the end of the Soviet Union brought changes to the Russian military it shrank to about 35% of the size of the former Soviet Armed Forces however the reduction in size supposedly came with an upgrade in quality the Russian army

Moved away from conscript forces and toward regular professional soldiers Russia’s forces were also organized into more compact units with f in Ukraine in 2014 and Syria from 2015 being done mostly at the company level the reorganization and professionalization of the post Soviet Army should have produced units of Veteran troops with

Experience fighting together increasing their morale this supposedly fearsome fighting force was bearing down on Ukraine a country which was already divided along ethnic and linguistic lines with many russian-speaking people in its eastern oblasts in some ways it is understandable why Vladimir Putin bought into his own hype and believed

His troops would be greeted as liberators by many people in Ukraine instead almost the entirety of Ukraine minus the long-standing separatist areas in donet and luhansk United in the face of the Russian invasion Ukrainian soldiers were fighting in the knowledge that they would be defending their homes their families and their fellow citizens

Meanwhile Russia’s troops despite a higher level of company experience lacked experienced soldiers operating at the division or po level needed to conduct something like the invasion of Ukraine to further complicate matters Russia’s armed forces are a polylock grouping and different units are set up to confront different threats Russia is

The world’s largest country by land area and spans 11 time zones troops in the west are trained to guard against NATO while troops in the East guard a vast Wilderness and the Chinese border integrating these diverse forces into a cohesive hole has proven challenging further complicating matters has been

The integration of forces from Russia’s national guard the separatist donet and luhansk areas and until the summer of 2023 Vagner mercenaries even Riot police which are not trained for combat have been deployed to the front in Ukraine these diverse units have often been trained on different equipment as well

Making integration even more difficult these problems are not unlike those faced by many vast empires in history which have tried to invade a smaller neighbor in these conflicts the large heterogeneous Empire can struggle to cohesively manage its forces with soldiers that struggle to figure out their reason for being deployed to the

War meanwhile the smaller state with more Compact and cohesive forces often see its troops fight with more determination we’ve seen this play out in Ukraine however this age old Dynamic is far from the only reason why Russia has experienced widespread morale problems inadequate training and Equipment also play a big part Russia

Has even had a problem supplying its troops with food early in the war the new New York Times reported that Russian troops were carrying rations that had expired in 2002 Russian troops were often short of fuel as well which was one of the reasons why a 64 km long

Convoy stalled at the key front in March 2022 Russian forces often sabotaged their own Vehicles so that they would not need to fight Ukrainian soldiers took advantage of this and inflicted heavy casualties on the Invaders reducing morale even further Russian soldiers have had difficulty communicating with their families back

Home which puts added stress on the home front’s morale in those early days reports swirled of grandmothers mothers sisters wives and girlfriends not even realizing that their loved ones were in Ukraine until the war started once the War Began the Kremlin began a new wave of censorship making Communications

Between home and the front lines even more difficult new laws passed since the War Began have been increasingly repressive and almost 20,000 people were detained for demonstrating against the war by the end of 2022 too 45% of the detainees were women seeking answers about the fate of their loved ones in

The early days of the war morale problems extended to some of the units that had fought in Ukraine and rotated out a report for the guardian covered one unit once stationed in the Russian Far East prior to the war which had seen action in the Battle of keev soldiers

From this unit refused to be deployed back into Ukraine from their base in belgorod these soldiers had a loophole to exploit because the war in Ukraine is not classified as a war in Russia but rather a special military operation these soldiers on Russian territory could not be punished with prison time

Loopholes also extended to compensation for wounded soldiers according to the Guardians report one wounded Junior Sergeant was supposed to be given a pension of about $3,100 his superiors argued that because he was injured in a Ukrainian attack on Russian border territory and not in Ukraine itself he was not entitled to

The pension these administrative issues have taken their toll on Russian Mar morale since the start of the war Russian morale problems in Ukraine magnified in the Summer and Autumn of 2022 at this time Ukrainian forces were beating the Invaders back in their successful offensives in kiv and Kon oblasts Ukrainian units were making

Rapid gains and Russian forces were routed across thousands of square kmers of territory as early as July of that year British defense officials were reporting cases of entire Russian units refusing to fight with armed standoffs between soldiers and their offices heavy casualties were reported as one of the

Contributors to the morale problem a contributor which intensified in the face of Ukraine’s successful northern and southern campaigns British officials noted at the time that many of the Russian soldiers did not understand their reason for being in Ukraine to cope with the collapsing morale at the front and to mitigate the shortage of

Manpower in Ukraine Vladimir Putin announced a wave of mobilization in October 2022 300,000 troops were called to the ranks the first result that this order had was to prompt a mass Exodus hundreds of thousands of Russian men often among the countries more Highly Educated fled the country to avoid

Military service it Specialists and artists were among those who left Russia in disproportionately high numbers the men avoiding conscription fled to border countries even including Mongolia in response Putin presented a bold face to the public saying that it was a good thing that traitors were leaving the country he described the phenomenon as

Self cleansing Putin also allowed thousands of prisoners to be recruited into the Vagner group and later Russia’s regular army from Russian prisons as a way to make up for the Manpower shortfall however the arrival of both these new types of soldier only made Russia’s morale problem worse these

Soldiers were often mistreated used as cannon fodder and not given proper care when speaking to CNN one of the convict soldiers mentioned that he and his comrades had injuries which were not being operated on the convict Soldier said that things were so bad add that people were walking around the hospital

With shrapnel stuck in their legs one convict soldier who recorded an audio message released by CNN claimed that the Russian military wanted him and his comrades to Die the soldiers in the regular Russian army have often mistreated the convicts and mobilized soldiers in other ways stealing their

Belongings and forcing them to fight at the front of the line so they will be the ones to become casualties first the treatment of the mobilized and prisoner Soldiers dovetailed with the contribution of logistical problems to poor morale corrupt Russian Logistics officers have long had a habit of

Acquiring and selling military gear for their private profit this culture of corruption has contributed to the equipment and morale problems seen in the Russian ranks for example Russian Logistics officers have often sold off whole or partial body armor sets often leaving the soldiers in Ukraine without proper body armor once the ill-prepared

Conscripts were called up toward the end of 22 the situation at the front got so bad that soldiers were complaining that they had been issued the air aoft version of the ratnik body armor insufficient body armor is one of the reasons why Russia has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties in Ukraine

Morale in the Russian high command also started to deteriorate in late 2022 and early 2023 this was the time when yvi progin the leader of the Vagner group intensified his criticism of Seri Shu Russia’s defense minister and Valerie gasimov the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces the

Criticisms eventually resulted in the Varner Rebellion at the end of June 2023 which saw the mutinous mercenary group take the city of rosov on Dawn and get to within 120 Mi of Moscow pran’s complaints included accusations that his men were suffering from poor supplies and even attacks from Russia’s regular

Army because shyu and gasimov had it in for him the institute for the study of War could not independently verify the more sensationalist claims but Vagner did suffer a shortage of artillery shells during the long battle for bakut which was one of the reasons why it took

Such heavy casualties there one of the biggest reasons for Russia’s morale problems one which affects all of its troops in Ukraine is poor unit rotation Russian troops have been posted at the front lines seemingly Without End in June 2023 a Rand Corporation report suggested that the mobilized soldiers

From the Autumn of 2022 had not been allowed to leave the military since they were drafted into it to make matters worse none would be allowed to leave service until the period of part mobilization is ended by another decree from Putin according to the Rand report the only ways out of the Russian

Military for these mobilized soldiers aside from Death in combat are reaching the mandatory retirement age imprisonment or medical discharge the Rand report anticipated comments made in September from the Russian State Doomer defense committee chairman Andre kapov he stated that the mobilized soldiers would stay in combat zones in Ukraine

Until the special military operation was compl complete in recent campaigning in zapia oblast Ukrainian sources reported that Russian troops fighting near robotin were doing so without rotation or reinforcements many of these troops had been on the front lines since Ukraine started its offensive operations in zapia in June Russian military

Bloggers frequently complained about Extended stays on the front line and the institute for the study of War also assessed that troops in the area had been fighting without rotation or reinforcement since the start of the campaign the lack of rotation in the war is not new Ukrainian troops have suffered too

In late 2022 reports of Ukraine’s difficulties in rotating its units from the front began to circulate Ukrainian troops have often been forced to stay in combat for weeks with no relief despite the high motivation of Ukraine’s troops psychologists pointed out that combat capability could only be maintained for

40 days from then on the ability to make decisions will decrease due to combat fatigue according to these experts however Ukrainian troops pointed out that they had spent over 90 days on the front line without rotation the BBC reported that Ukrainian troops in one unit the 24th mechanized Brigade in

Dbass had only 10 days leave during the entirety of 2022 the war has also done significant damage to the mental health of the entire country according to a February 2023 report by the World Health Organization nearly 10 million ukrainians are suffering from mental health issues such as depression or

Anxiety and the government of Ukraine admitted that 60% of its soldiers were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder nevertheless Russia’s forces have had it worse when it comes to unit rotation the lack of unit rotation is one of the reasons that Russia has been unable to implement its military recommendations on the employment of

Equipment and application of formations this assessment by the Royal United Services Institute may explain why Russia has taken disproportionate casualties in zapia in July the Institute for the study of War mentioned that Russian defenses in that area despite being extensive were also brittle isw concluded partially as a

Result of General popov’s comments and dismissal the Russian forces lacked the amount of Reserve units required to keep their Frontline units in proper rotation the result was that all of the units Manning the fortifications had inadequate rest these reports were strengthened by the later fighting at robertin where exhausted Russian forces

Struggled to Halt the advance of Ukrainian units which have now breached the first and second lines of their enemy’s formidable defensive Network in zapia the reports suggest that if Russia’s defensive lines had not been as extensive Ukrainian forces would have made even more rapid gains Ukraine’s troops have taken some psychological

Blows as a result of their unrelenting deployment but Russian forces have reportedly been suffering from a full-blown widespread Mental Health crisis in commentary on the times radio retired Major General clip Chapman not noted that historically a person can fight for a maximum between 70 and 100

Days at a time before they wind up in a catatonic State such mental exhaustion is why rotating units and allowing soldiers to rest is critical for the ability of a fighting force to remain effective through the conflict Chapman said that this has been a problem particularly for the Russians he was

Commenting on British intelligence reports about the mental state of Russian forces in October 2023 the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense released intelligence from December 2022 showing that 100,000 Russian military personnel were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder according to that country’s own psychologists the failure to provide adequate rotation and

Rest from Battle contributed greatly to this problem the UK Mod’s report also mentioned that Russian doctors are looking the other way sending soldiers who are unfit to fight back to the front these reports would dovetail with the lack of adequate Medical Care given to the soldiers recruited from Russian

Prisons but the UK Mod’s report assessed that Mental Health Services were just as bad as the physical ones these circumstances suggest that medical discharges of any kind in the Russian military are rare substance abuse problems have been reported among Russian troops drug rated cases have been increasing in Russia’s military

Courts this phenomenon came partially because of the wave of mobilization which did not properly screen those called to the colors for drug addiction sources in the Russian military have reported that soldiers who have had the fortune of leaving the front line for rest have found it easy to buy drugs in

City like donet which has long been under the control of Russia or pro-russian Separatists soldiers who have managed to return to the Russian Homeland have also been reportedly using drugs at elevated rates according to official Russian statistics the use of synthetic amphetamines like methodrone called salt in Russia has been on the

Rise criminal cases related to this drug have also been on the rise in multiple regions in Russia including Moscow most of the cases are trafficking related the report on the subject from Radio free Europe cautioned that it would take a year or two before a drug crisis in the

Russian ranks can be confirmed but Public Health Specialists who spoke with the organization anonymously were concerned about what they were seeing one doctor in the rosov area said in the report the defense Ministry has a whole department for psychological Rehabilitation but no real work for the large scale treatment of post-traumatic

Stress disorder is being done when a person sees all the horrors and filth of War limbs ripped off open wounds death a lot of them will try to mute them with drink and drugs otherwise they would just go mad Russia’s lack of adequate unit rotation poor supplies censorship of communication and corrupt officers

Might be forcing soldiers to deal with their mental health problems in another way Mental Health crisis in armies is a phenomenon as old as War itself but Russia’s command structure and lack of clear reasons for fighting in Ukraine have exacerbated this issue even as its Ukrainian enemy is also suffering

Severely as the war drags on into its third year with still no end in sight Russian morale problems may prove an X Factor that grows in importance as Ukraine seeks Victory albeit on a slow and painful Road it would not be the first time in Russian history that to

Collapse in Morale on the battlefield or the home front proves a decisive factor in one of its conflicts but will history repeat itself what do you think about the state of morale in both the Russian and Ukrainian armies don’t forget to let us know in the comment section also

Remember to hit the like button and subscribe for more military analysis from military experts how incompetent can Putin get since the war in Ukraine started he’s been losing tanks by the dozens on a daily level his military has been unable to deliver powerful air and artillery strikes or apply modern

Military tactics and strategies and the list doesn’t stop there when Russia launched its fullscale invasion of Ukraine the world’s attention was naturally riveted on the land War there Russia’s poor command structure and logistical incompetence became apparent within the first week with the attack on keev stalling since then Russia has been

Forced to take hundreds of thousands of casualties in a war of attrition that has raged for 20 months and Counting however Russia’s incompetence has extended to the Seas as well in the buildup to the conflict and early stages of the war military observers feared that Russia would quickly take control

Of the Seas and Stage an amphibious attack on Odessa Ukraine’s third largest city if Russia took Odessa it would essentially cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea entirely and leave it a poor landlocked rump State such fears proved unfounded a landing near Odessa never came instead the biggest stories

Involving Russia’s Navy in this war have been of its numerous humiliations what happened today Russia has essentially seeded control of the West Black Sea and is increasingly not even safe within its Haven in Crimea but why has the Russian Navy proven so ineffective in the war to

Be as Fair as we can to Russia it is and always has been in a bad geostrategic position with regards to the Sea ever since the days of Peter the Great Russia has aspired to be a sea power however geography makes this difficult to do as its ports are either contained within

Choke points freeze over in the winter or both the Quest for improved access to the has been a vital objective for Russia’s foreign policy since the early 18th century and Russia has never quite been able to achieve this goal even at the height of its power during the

Soviet Union unrestricted access to the sea was an objective that still eluded Moscow in this light it is understandable why Russia places such a high strategic importance on Crimea and why it was willing to use military force to secure it it is one of Russia’s few warm water ports unfortunately for the

Russians there’s a problem the Turks command the transit points between the black and Mediterranean Seas through their control of the bosporus and dardel this control was formalized through the 1936 montro convention regarding the regime of The Straits the convention allows complete freedom of transit for the commercial vessels of any country

Through these Straits during peacetime in times of War however turkey if it is not a party to the conflict can close the Straits to transiting ships unless they are returning to their bases 3 days after Russia invaded Ukraine turkey invoked the montro convention’s wartime Provisions for the first time refusing

Russian naval vessels in the Mediterranean access to the Black Sea for example at the end of November 2022 two Russian warships left the Mediterranean through the seiz canal after 9 months of idling after turkey forbid them from transiting through the dardel and bosporus to the Black Sea the

Effect of the montro convention has been to cut off Russia’s ability to reinforce its Black Sea Fleet for Ukraine this would was a significant piece of diplomatic Aid it immediately made Russian naval officers more cautious knowing that every ship in the fleet was precious even so it seemed far-fetched

That Ukraine would be able to significantly impede the operations of the Russian Black Sea Fleet that opinion quickly started to change however Ukraine proved its ability to strike at the Russian Navy early in the War 3 days after it invaded Ukraine and on the same day the Turks invoked the montro

Convention Russia captured the strategically important Port of bans the Ukrainian military and Western observers were understandably concerned that the Russian ships that piled into bans could either land troops in the rear of Ukraine’s Southern lines or attack Odessa then at about 7:45 a.m. on March 24th exactly a month after the invasion

The landing craft Saratov mysteriously exploded and sank in Port at bans ships of The Saratov class the alligator class tank Landing ship can land up to 400 125 soldiers or Marines with armored support of either 40 infantry fighting vehicles or 20 tanks the loss of this vessel was

Thus a significant blow to Russia’s ability to conduct amphibious operations how did this happen from the beginning of the conflict NATO has provided Ukraine with excellent intelligence and Ukraine’s intelligence units got the word that The Saratov was loaded with Munitions at the time of the attack Ukraine used this intelligence and a

Cold War era T cou Scarab short short range ballistic missile to carry out the deed the tokou has a range of about 120 km we do not know how many of these missiles Ukraine used in the attack but what is known is that Russia’s modern air defense systems should have easily

Been able to intercept these Soviet weapons Russian media at the time reported that its forces had done just that although the real story came in July when The Saratov was raised from the depths of the sea Russia’s supposedly modern air defense network failed to act against against a much

Older weapon system meanwhile two other ships the cesak kunov and Nova chakas were seen on video departing from the Flaming Saratov they also suffered damage in the attack and were forced to retreat to Crimea 11 Sailors on board The Saratov died in the incident Ukraine’s next assault on the Russian

Navy would become the most famous of the war this was the sinking of the cruiser mosa the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in April 2022 this incident was apparent so humiliating for Russia that its Ministry of Defense still offers no details about what happened and avoids

Talking about it in public to the point that the families of the sailors on board are still left in the dark about the fates of their loved ones how exactly this incident unfolded is still unclear after the successful attack American sources reported that the ukrainians had used liquid fueled

Neptune anti- ship cruise missiles sending them to coordinates provided by us intelligence by way of a p8 Poseidon Maritime surveillance aircraft that flew out of Italy and looked around the Black Sea Ukraine denied this report however according to the ukrainians April 13th 2022 was the worst day to sink the

Cruiser because the weather was so bad for such a precise premeditated attack the coastline was covered with low dark rainclouds on that day the Ukrainian Radars in the area had a limited 18 kilm range because of the bad weather knowing this the Mosa’s crew got a wee bit careless according to Ukrainian sources

At the time of the invasion we had no Over the Horizon Radars and Russia knew it but since the clouds were very low and a signal in this Corridor between the water and the clouds had nowhere to go the radar suddenly reached and identified mosa the ship’s crew seemingly ignored this potentially

Deadly situation and were so LAX about their security that the air defense systems were inactive they had not noticed that they had just sailed to within the Neptune’s 200 km range UK Ukraine may have at this point used a Turkish bayaar tb2 drone to distract the

Mosa and then launch the missiles for a while after the attack Ukrainian Crews did not know what happened but radar soon revealed that four Russian ships were rushing to the mosa from different directions later the ukrainians realized that a tugboat had also been dispatched from Crimea hoping to save the alien

Ship at this point the weather cooperated again too when a storm began at Sea and made rescue operations much harder it became impossible to save the mosa then and it sank beneath the waves hundreds of Russian Sailors reportedly saw their Flagship get hit by two Neptune missiles the mosa incident is

More baffling because the ship was an air defense Cruiser if running properly the mosa should have gotten as much as 4 minutes of warning that the Ukrainian Crews missiles were on their way the Russian Cruiser also had a triple layer of protection against such air attacks its defenses included the s300 F surface

To air missiles 9 k33 Osa air defense missiles AK 360 closin 30mm cannons chaff decoys and electronic defense systems however no one recorded the mosa using any of these systems against the Ukrainian cruise missiles the ship just sat there why were none of these systems active was the ship’s radar system

Defective we might never know the answer whatever the reason the mosa was the largest Russian vessel sunk since World War II and the first loss of a Russian Flagship since the Russo Japanese war Russia says that 18 crew members died other sources say it was as many as 600

Either way the incident shocked the Kremlin with Ukraine’s demonstrated anti-ship capabilities and no way for it to bring Replacements thanks to the Turks invocation of the montro convention Russia became even more cautious about how it would use its Naval assets since this incident the Black Sea fleet has been bottled up

Around its base in sasto Crimea with this knowledge know Ukrainian troops confidently strowed forward with their K on counter offensive between August and November of 2022 safe in the knowledge that the Russian Navy would not be bothering them with missile attacks from the Black Sea let alone amphibious

Operations behind their lines even with the Russian Navy’s Retreat to the relatively safe Crimea Ukraine wasn’t done showing off its prowess in sinking ships next up was the rescue tug for silly Beck while far less spectacular a Target than the mosa these tugs are important to the maintenance of a naval

Fleet this role is especially important in the Black Sea due to Russia’s inability to reinforce its Fleet this ship was new to being launched in 2016 and commissioned in 2017 on June 17th 2022 Ukrainian forces attacked the vasili Beck when it was on its way to resupply Russian soldiers stationed on

Snake Island a place already made famous from the start of the war when the Garrison there used colorful language in response to Russia’s demands for surrender the ukrainians hit the vasil Beck with two Harpoon anti- ship cruise missiles the ship stood no chance and went down with about 10 Russian Kia in

The incident and a $25 million T air defense system on board that was supposed to be placed on the island on June 30th Russia evacuated its Garrison from Snake Island Moscow claimed that this move was an act of Goodwill in recognition of a humanitarian Corridor that was part of its grain export deal

With Ukraine in reality Russia evacuated its troops from Snake Island because the attack on the vasili Beck made its military brass realize that it’s too risky to reinforce and resupply The Outpost it was a tacit admission that Russia had seeded the Black Sea West of Crimea to Ukraine but the ukrainians

Weren’t done yet the oori giac a raputa class Landing ship was Ukraine’s next Target on August 4th 2023 Ukraine used drone boats to swarm the ship and its neighbors when it was docked in the Black Sea port of noasis not all the drones made it through Russian defenses

But the attack on the olori giac succeeded the ship did not sink but it needed to be put in a dry dock to repair the heavy damage it’s unlikely that the ship will return to action anytime soon the water drone Ukraine used in the attack was a new low visibility gray

Boat that can be operated via remote control the Drone boat has a high payload able to carry a 300 kg Warhead up to a range of 800 km the boat also features a satellite communications array at its rear a Ukrainian operator of these drones explained their low profile was designed to exploit

Weaknesses in Russian ship defenses it was an adaptation from their earlier attacks where Russian ships spotted drone boats and sank them with artillery and Small Arms fire once they got to within visual range the attack on the olori gornak reveals that Ukraine has absorbed these lessons and is adapting

With its newer drone boats Russia claims that it foiled a similar attack on an oil facility after this incident but as always these claims should be treated with skepticism most recently Ukraine attacked Targets in sasto the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and other Targets in Crimea on September

13th Ukrainian forces struck the Sergo or Zonik kidy Shipyard in sevastopol a major repair base Ukraine reportedly used 10 Franco British Storm Shadow cruise missiles in the attack Russia’s Ministry of Defense claims that air defense systems in the area shot seven of these missiles down but that effort

Was clearly not enough the Russian kilo class diesel electric submarine rosov on Don and the large Landing ship Minsk were struck and destroyed by the storm Shadows key infrastructure on the base was also damaged in this incident however the missile attack was only the climax of the operation other units were

Essential for shaping it prior to the attack Ukrainian special operators seemed to have destroyed one of Russ’s nearby S400 air defense systems and took control of an oil facility that housed a local radar unit by Downing these systems the ukrainians set the stage for the strike on sevastopol it would only

Be the first of several attacks on Crimean Targets in the weeks ahead on September 14th Ukraine again struck at the Russian Navy on the Seas its general staff said it had targeted two ships in the western Black Sea and released a video showing a Russian Patrol ship

Appearing to come under attack by drone boats the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that one of its ships the sery kotov had been attacked but repelled hel the assault meanwhile that same day Ukrainian forces used Crews missiles and drones to destroy a Russian air defense network in the Crimean city of yev ptor

Then on September 22nd Ukraine launched another attack on sevastopol Ukraine sent several Storm Shadow cruise missiles at Targets there Russia claims that it shot most of them down but one made it through hitting the Black Sea fleet’s headquarters the attacks at the main building of Blaze and Russian

Officials said at least one service member went missing in the the aftermath Ukraine alleges that the strike was Ed to coincide with a meeting of highlevel Russian officials cillo budanov Ukraine’s intelligence Chief says that two Russian commanders were badly injured in the attack later Ukraine’s Special Operations forces said the

Strike had killed Victor sakov the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet along with 33 others no independent Source verified this claim however sov reportedly attended a soccer awards ceremony to prove he was not dead on September 27th although there are claims that this was a duplicate as always we

Should know more in time what we do know is that the institute for the study of War confirmed an attack on the 744th communications center of the command of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea and the problems are only piling on for Russia in late September the Biden Administration seemingly finally gave

Ukraine what it has wanted for so long although it was not officially announced it’s likely that Ukraine will be getting ATM’s missiles in the near future these weapons can hit targets up to 300 km away 50 km further than the Storm Shadow and unlike the Storm Shadow which

Requires a riskier launch from a fighter jet atacms can be fired from Ukraine’s highas platforms on the ground atacms would be ideal for launching attacks on sasap pole meanwhile if Ukraine gets ATMs it’s also possible that Germany will agree to supply ukrainians with Taurus air launched cruise missiles that

Have even greater range than ATM’s this weapon system would be ideal for targeting the Kirch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian Mainland a drone attack already damaged the Kirch Bridge a year ago this scenario would be far more threatening Ukraine has renewed its attacks on Crimea for a few reasons

First Russia has allowed the grain export deal that turkey and the UN broker in July 2022 to expire Russia’s Black Sea fleet has resumed its blockade of such exports making it a more important Target for Ukraine to destroy Crimea is also the Lynch pin of Russia’s Logistics in Ukraine being able to

Resupply its troops from Crimea is vital to the Russian war effort Ukrainian disruption of Russian Navy Logistics from Crimea is one of the reasons why Moscow now considers it too dangerous to send ships to the west of the peninsula an attack on Russia’s ports in Crimea would disrupt the supply chain to all

The branches of Russia’s military and it appears that the Black Sea Fleet is helpless in stopping such attacks Crimea is also a highly political Target with Ukrainian president lensy saying that this war started in Crimea and will end in Crimea the recapture of Crimea would be the greatest victory for the

Ukrainian military a highly symbolic measure of its Triumph the stakes are just as high or even higher for Putin prior to the invasion of Ukraine he sold his occupation and annexation of Crimea to the Russian public as his crowning foreign policy achievement if Russian occupation of Crimea becomes untenable

Through missile and drone attacks and supplying the Russian forces in other parts of Ukraine from Crimea also becomes untenable Putin’s political position at home erodes and the entire Russian war effort risks breaking down the war has already put Russia through isolation economic hardship and hundreds of thousands of casualties if Russia

Cannot gain anything from the hostilities and winds up losing Crimea too or if it at least cannot use the peninsula for strategic purposes it’s difficult to see how Putin would be able to remain in power which he plans to do until at least 2036 in this scenario Russian Elites may

Decide that the time is right for their country to finally get a new leader there is a presidential election in Russia in 2024 although elections in Russia are only formalities the 2024 election could serve as a pretext to OU Putin from Power if the war goes too poorly between now and then it’s

Understandable why Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet would become an increasingly high priority for Ukraine all wars are first and foremost political even if things don’t turn out that way Ukraine’s effective neutralization of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is an astounding military achievement early in the war

Ukraine forced the Black Sea Fleet to retreat to what it believed was the safety of Crimea now through the actions of its intelligence units special operators and missile and air units it’s showing that not even Crimea is safe if ATM and Taurus missiles soon arrive that

Point will only be made clearer what do you think will come next in the War at Sea will Ukraine soon use ATM’s missiles to destroy Russian ships and docks in sasap pole is the Kirch Bridge safe for Russia let us know what you think in the comments also don’t forget to hit the

Like button and subscribe for more military analysis from military experts imagine that it’s the year 2030 NATO forces operating somewhere near the Baltic Coastline have come across a truly frightening sight the Russian forces on the opposite end of No Man’s Land are outfitted in body AR armor

Which makes them look like a unit of Robocop their faces are covered with an intimidating helmet and visor that gives them an edge in the information domain their chests and all of their extremities are protected by overlapping bullet resistant plates to make matters worse their armor also has an integrated

Exoskeleton that increases their strength speed and endurance the protective power of their armor is also unparalleled even 50 caliber Browning machine gun rounds don’t have enough stopping power to put these guys down what’s a NATO unit to do in the face of such fearsome enemies well not much

Because this scenario is likely to be as imaginary as anything that Hollywood can produce meet the snik Russia’s Next Generation body armor that worried defense officials and Military experts when it was unveiled if it works as advertised there is reason indeed to be worried but it probably won’t and there

Is a long history of Russian body armor failures to believe that it won’t before Russia invaded Ukraine defend defense and foreign policy analysts regarded its military as the second most capable fighting force in the world it had demonstrated its post Soviet prowess with experience in cnia in the 1990s and

2000s Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 when it rapidly secured control of Crimea it was also a fearsome military experts remembered the devastation the Russian Air Force and artillery units had brought to the Cen city of gry during multiple battles in the 1990s aside from the Kremlin building a

Formidable artillery based land force that would be resilient against air attacks experts also touted Russia’s new technologically advanced weapon systems these platforms included the new fifth generation su-57 fighter jet and the T14 armata main battle tank which was supposedly more advanced than any other tank in foreign arsenals however when

Russia launched The Invasion these theories quickly got tossed to the winds the supposedly fearsome Russ Russian war machine proved hard pressed to supply itself over even short distances the T14 and s57 were almost nowhere to be seen and Russian soldiers found themselves bogged down in a costly War of Attrition

Suffering from poor command Doctrine and Western weapons like the javelin and himars which proved so devastating to their supposedly latest and greatest gear even the venerable Patriot air defense system which first came online in the 1980s was able to knock one of Russia’s ultramodern kinal Hypersonic missiles which Vladimir Putin had once

Touted as Invincible out of the sky now the Russian military is boasting about its next Generation body armor the snik if it delivers as promised it will protect its wearer better than any other body armor system in the world but like most Russian boasting there’s a lot of

Hype about the sonnik and not a whole lot of facts since 2016 Russian troops have worn the ratnik 2 body armor system accompanied by the 6 b45 helmet the ratnik vest has an effective area protection that is larger than most other body comparable armor systems based on a material similar to Kevlar

The ratnik covers 90% of a soldier’s body and its Granite ceramic plates can withstand 10 sniper rifle shots from a distance of only 10 m it is a good system to protect against shrapnel and explosive fragments too the ratnik overalls protect the entire body from these flying pieces of metal and other

Debris ratnik who takes care to protect the groin and extremities like the hands the 6 b45 helmet meanwhile covers an area of 30 square decim with effective protection despite this the helmet remains light at only 1 kg which means that Russian military personnel can attach various instruments to it without

Adding undue strain on their necks such equipment includes thermal and night vision monoculars flashlights and a communication system with specialized headphones perhaps most impressively the ratnik 2 body armor has an electromagnetic camouflage system that Shields its wearer from infrared sensors the armor weighs between 40 and 50 lb

But some of the weight is relieved by a passive carbon fiber exoskeleton the exoskeleton also protects its wearer spine and joints from the gradual wear and tear that lugging around such heavy weight will do to a person over time this exoskeleton does not need an external power source to function ratnik

Is supposed to be getting an upgrade too in 2020 Russia announced it would be developing its rat Nic 3 body armor system this version would include an integrated exoskeleton a helmet visor mounted Target designation system stealth fabric anti-mine boots a vision system via electric goggles that would

Allow soldiers to link up with the camera views of small drones and see tactical orders or maps of the broader area and an anti-thermal and anti- radar camouflage suit the integrated EXO skeleton for the ratnik 3 was getting an upgrade as well it was reportedly designed to comfortably haul weights of up to

132b during combat operations in 2021 American Military planners were nervous about these developments there was the feeling that the United States was lagging behind on body armor and exoskeleton systems for its soldiers and Marines the revelation of snik made American defense officials and think tanks even more nervous now they know

Better unfortunately for Russia much of the hype about the ratnik was a bunch of boasts as we’ve come to expect by now in 2017 the Russian army said it had received 200,000 sets of ratnik 2 body armor the following year the Russian Ministry of Defense said it expected

That all of its military personnel would be equipped with the ratnik 2 by 2020 but 2020 came and went and the Russian military failed in its goal the invasion of Ukraine proved as such instead of getting standard issue gear Russian troops fighting in Ukraine even those in

The regular army at the start of the invasion have had to make doe with what body armor they could get most of the ratnik claims failed to materialize on the battlefield complaints about body armor and helmet malfunction have been frequent in the Russian ranks throughout

The course of the war instead of the new ratnik some of the luckier Russian troops have been seen wearing older 6b2 3 body armor in Ukraine this armor can be protective against indirect impacts like shrapnel or shell fragments but lacks the ability to adequately defend its wearer from direct ballistic hits

Even if the enemy gunshots fail to penetrate the 6 b23 the arm cannot easily disperse the energy the impacting bullets transfer to the human body broken bones and internal trauma were frequently reported among those who wore 6b2 3 body armor and suffered combat related injuries these shortcomings are

What prompted the Kremlin to replace the 6b2 3 with the ratnik family of armors in the first place however complete ratnik armors were few and far between on the battlefields of Ukraine what happened typical corruption within the Russian military’s ranks has proven part of its body armor failures in 2021 a

Russian captain and IGN were convicted of stealing 56 sets of body armor and selling them online the captain got a sentence of 6 years and the IGN got seven years both of them are currently serving time in a penal colony these two may have been made an example of but

They were hardly the only ones it’s common for officers in the Russian military to sell off top-of-the line gear to line their own pockets and then issue Cold War era equipment to the soldiers under their command instead the Russian military’s body armor problems got much worse When Vladimir Putin

Announced partial mobilization in the fall of 2022 as Ukraine was pushing his forces back in kiv and Kon and he desperately needed additional Manpower according to defense intelligence officials in the UK the conscripts Russia mobilized in late 2022 often had no choice but to buy their own body armor because Russian armories were

Short many of the armor kits that these people and their families wound up buying turned turned out to be fake too those lucky enough to get their hands on real ratnik armor often wound up becoming victims of theft as poorly equipped Russian regular troops at the front simply stole it from them the

Demand led to a boom in the price of any kind of body armor that even looked real on Russian e-commerce sites body armor and we use that term loosely in this context can now fetch up to $650 a piece online in Russia this is a price that

Most of the soldiers in Ukraine and their families cannot afford especially because a disproportionate amount of the people conscripted to fight in the Autumn of 2022 came from Russia’s poorer ethnic minority communities Ukrainian soldiers who have captured body armor worn by Russian soldiers on the battlefield have often found such gear

Fitted with cheap steel plates instead of the high-tech Ceramics which are now designed to slow the bullet down to reduce its impacting Force the ceramic plates in high quality body armor like the American Interceptor also fracture and deform the bullet itself as it impacts the vest this fracturing and

Deforming in turn distributes the bullets energy over a wider area to protect the wearer against blunt force trauma while some armies use steel instead of Ceramics in their body armor this steel is extremely tensile and specially manufactured to stand up to Small Arms ballistics the captured steel plates in Ukraine though have proven

Little match for small arms fire standard 9mm Parabellum rounds were shown to puncture the steel plates on videos posted to social media by Ukrainian soldiers rifle rounds easily did the job they are little more than steel sheets stolen from somewhere else and fitted into what was supposed to be

Body armor captured Russian body armor also seemed to be little more than a cloth covering to hold the 40 steel plates in place this is in contrast to Western body armor which is made from Kevlar and other Fabrics engineered to be resistant to Small Arms fire and shrapnel or explosive fragments the

Russian armor meanwhile seemed like it would only be good against against fragments or shrapnel in the area that the plates directly covered indeed Ukrainian troops have been seen on video bending the steel plates in captured Russian body armor with their hands feet and over their knees they laugh

Contemptuously as they do so this equipment is probably not official ratnik armor but rather knockoffs sold on Russian e-commerce sites however one Russian conscript even complained on video that he was given a vest that would only be effective against an airsoft gun it turns out that the

Russian Logistics brass opted to buy the toy replicas of ratnik armor for their mobilized soldiers and pocketed the rest of the money allocated to them even if Russian soldiers or conscripts are lucky enough to get their hands on legitimate ratnik armor it is often not a complete

Kit corruption is so widespread in the Russian military that the ceramic plates inside the ratnik vests are often missing either to cut costs or because they are valuable Commodities to sell off in their own right corrupt Russian Logistics officers instead sold off the Ceramics and replaced them with the

Cheap non-ballistic steel plates that Ukrainian Soldiers made fun of in the videos the lack of effective body armor in Ukraine has proven devastating for the Russian war effort at the end of August 2023 the Pentagon released estimates which painted a grim picture for the Russians according to the US

Military total Russian casualties over the 18month war were approaching the 300,000 mark this total included about 120 ,000 dead and 170 to 180,000 combat related injuries Ukraine meanwhile was suffering too with 70,000 Kia and between 100 and 120,000 wounded however the Russians outnumber the ukrainians by

Nearly 3 to one on the battlefields of Ukraine there are many reasons for this disparity in casualties despite Russia’s Manpower Advantage but the lack of proper body armor is a big one the Russian body armor industry is in such a poor state that the military is now

Turning to Chinese equipment to make up for its shortcomings China has been reluctant to provide military aid to Russia for fear of Western sanctions but some Chinese firms have been supplying their bleuer strategic partner with weapons and equipment through backdoor means such Aid includes body armor 12

Tons worth of Chinese body armor were rooted to Russia through turkey in late 20122 the body armor came from companies such as shing shing guangzu Import and Export companies Chinese companies have also sent component parts to Russian body armor manufacturers like class although it’s not currently understood how widespread

The class vests have been used in Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers have captured class vests on the Battlefield 2 although it’s also unclear if these contain Chinese component parts Ukrainian troops have been known to sell these captured materials online Chinese body armor has been tested by American defense officials this type of body

Armor uses aramid fibers which are the same kind of fibers found in the familiar Kevlar vests used in the United States and other Western militaries in the tests the Chinese body armor ceramic plates succeeded in stopping standard Small Arms fire such as the 7.62 mm round from penetrating however the

Plates showed significant deformation the deformation indicates that soldiers wearing this armor would suffer from blunt force trauma if struck by enemy fire because the energy would not be dispersed over a wide enough area if Russian troops are looking to this equipment to save them they will probably wind up being disappointed so

As with many other aspects of its military Russian body armor looks great on Parade grounds and in the kremlin’s information networks on the battlefield not so much and the results in Ukraine show it for Russia anything that can go wrong does seem to go wrong thanks to institutional incompetence on every

Conceivable level now Russia has plans for its next Generation body armor the sonnik system which the the Kremlin says will come online in 2025 replacing the ratnik family of armors the armor was unveiled in early 2021 about a year before the invasion of Ukraine the armor developed by Russia’s State rosc

Corporation would be the most advanced and protective body armor in the world if it works as advertised but what have we come to learn about Russia’s military’s claims by now according to rosc the snik armor would be capable of protecting its wearer against Small Arms

Fire and even a direct hit from the 50 caliber Browning machine gun round which can Pierce lightly armored vehicles at a range of 2 kilom to protect against the shock of incoming rounds like the 50 BMG which can transfer more than enough energy to kill even if the bullet does

Not penetrate the body the sonnic armor will be made from ultra high molecular weight polythene fibers these fibers will be designed to not restrict a solders movement even with the added protection this principle Works in theory because polye is a plastic and plastic is light but this raises a

Question how can a plastic protect you against gunfire let alone a 50 caliber round as you would expect Plastics melt at high enough temperatures including the heater bullet makes as it transfers its energy to a Target the melting fibers adhere to the bullet and slow it down allowing the other parts of the

Armor to stop it from penetrating and transfer its energy over a broader area because of its heavy use of plastics the total weight of a set of soic armor will will supposedly be reduced by 20 from the ratnik family of armors all in all a set of snik body armor will weigh around

44b according to rosc and as if all the Cutting Edge technology wasn’t enough rosc says it will develop an active titanium exoskeleton to integrate with the armor in the future rosc is researching power sources for how this feature would work as early as 20121 however there were some military and

Engineering experts who were skeptical about Russian claims since since ancient times armor has always been a compromise between protection and Mobility too much protection leaves a wearer immobile it’s why some units from then to now chose not to wear any body armor at all for them Mobility was their best protection

Other units preferred to fight with heavier armor because they did not expect to need a lot of Mobility the latest question in this age-old compromise is can poine armor capable of stopping a 50 caliber machine gun round be made lightweight enough for a soldier

To actually be a bble to wear it and not be immobile according to a 2021 analysis in Popular Mechanics the answer was not promising for comparison a standard 7.62 mm bullet transfers 1,878 lb of force on its Target a 50 caliber Browning machine gun round is over four times that at

11,070 to put that into perspective this weight would be the same as if a 5ton truck was sitting on your chest American military gear can stop standard rifle rounds like 7.62 mm with a total weight on the soldier at 22.6 lb this is a good compromise between protection and

Mobility stopping a 50 caliber round is a whole different story however that would take 1.25 in of AR 500 grade steel plate but this type of Steel is far too heavy to comfortably wear it would make a modern Soldier the equivalent of a caricatured version of a medieval Knight

Wearing armor that was too heavy to move around in the amount of Hine plastic that would be needed to stop a 50 caliber round even accounting for greater efficiency would almost certainly be impossible to wear on the battlefield and remain mobile Popular Mechanics mention that Russia could try

To compensate for this Reality by adding titanium plating to The Ensemble of a far more realistic amount of polyene since titanium is lighter and stronger than steel the idea seems feasible there is also precedent for it armorers in the Soviet Union made body armor with titanium components during the Cold War

However even with this modification stopping a 50 caliber round and leaving a soldier mobile enough to move around would be very difficult the verdict about the idea of body armor reliably stopping 50 caliber rounds feasible but don’t put your money on it it’s also worth mentioning that 50 caliber machine

Gun rounds can easily punch holes in cinder block walls even if the body armor does stop penetration dispersing over 11,000 lb of force safely around the human body would be difficult the blunt force trauma from the impact of a 50 caliber round would still likely be

Enough to kill so even if the logistics to outfit all of Russia’s Soldiers with snik body armor by 2025 work out and there is every reason as we’ve seen by now to believe that they won’t the snik still has a long way to go to prove the

Kremlin’s claims if we have not learned to doubt those by now we have not learned anything from the 18-month war in Ukraine but what do you think about Russia’s Next Generation snic body armor does it even have a chance of living up to the claims the Kremlin makes of it

Let us know in the comments also don’t forget to hit the like button and subscribe for more military analysis from military experts poor training is killing Russian pilots and it’s not looking good for Putin’s Ambitions in Ukraine despite having over 700 aircraft including as many as 400 modern multi-roll fighter jets and fighter

Bomber planes to its name the Russian Aerospace forces or vks has experienced dramatic losses over the Ukrainian Skies estimates vary though some suggest that the vks has lost around 130 planes and the pilots flying them since the beginning of the war why have these losses been so severe though equipment

Issues have certainly played a role the far bigger issue for Russia right now is the apparent lack of training many of its Pilots received prior to taking to the skies during the conflict and that inferior training which is already leading to many more than Russia anticipated not only suggests we’ll see

More of the country’s Pilots lose their lives in the current conflict but may lead to the complete breakdown of the vks as a powerful force in the future this is not what Putin expected when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began many assumed that Russia would have the advantage on almost all fronts

A historically great if somewhat slow moving military Nation the country was believed to have a stockpile of Weaponry that would allow it to overwhelm Ukrainian forces that would likely have to rely on Guerilla tactics while fighting on home soil and as mentioned the country has a huge stockpile of

Aircraft ready to fly along with the 400 modern Fighters discussed earlier it was believed the vks has over 300 Legacy planes that have been converted to handle Modern Combat capabilities Mig 31 BM and MiG 29 smts among them to create an impressive Air Force that would wreak

Havoc on Ukrainian defenses in fact the prevailing opinion was that Russia’s vks was so well trained that its Pilots could effectively use this blend between modern and repurposed planes as part of Kos composite air operations that could involve up to 100 aircraft many believe despite some of the country’s aircraft

Starting to show their age the modern fighter jets it has which include the s34 and S35 would make up for any Airborne deficiencies that could occur that hasn’t happened and looking at Russia’s recent history in Wartime situations the reasons why become clearer take its 2015 intervention in

The serious in Civil War as an example rather than using composite air operations or Kos most of Russia’s sorties in this conflict focused on sending single aircraft or paired fighters to either Patrol the skies or drop weapons unguided to ground troops though perhaps escaping attention at the

Time this lack of comeo use hinted at a larger problem in the vks that we’ve only seen come to fruition about half a decade later the vks may not have flown Kos because their pilots were simply incapable of the job the question is simple why why did the vks actively

Avoid employing Koo tactics in Syria despite koo’s being much more effective than single and paired pilot runs and why hasn’t the vks improved its approach during the Ukrainian conflict it appears the answer may come down to a combination of a variety of factors let’s start with inferior equipment

There’s an old saying that a good worker never blames their tools for failing to get the job done however that saying doesn’t apply in the world of Air Combat where even the slightest issue with equipment can make the difference between life and death in Russia’s case the tools they’re providing to their

Pilots don’t appear to be fit for purpose when it comes to succeeding in an extended conflict such as the one the war in Ukraine has become take the supposedly modernized Mig Fighters that make up a large proportion of the country’s air fleet as an example according to the Rand Corporation these

Soviet era aircraft which have been in operation since the 1980s were built to handle up to 3 and a half th000 hours of flight and they many of the craft have been upgraded to extend this maximum output the fact remains that much of moscow’s Fleet particularly its migs and

The earlier Su models are reaching the end of their service lives in fact Rand estimates that Russia may have lost up to 57 of its aircraft due to the extra hours asked of them beyond their capabilities with some being shot down due to a combination of reasons pilot

Inadequacy and the craft itself no longer being viable in combat now let’s switch our attention to the more modern fighters in the Russian Fleet the SU 35 is the jewel in the Moscow Crown but when it’s stacked up against other modern Fighters particularly the American F-22 Raptor stealth jet it gets

Left in the dust every time take the Su 35’s radar cross-section for instance Business Insider reported back in 2016 that the Su 35’s radar cross-section landed somewhere between 3 and 10 ft easily detectable by most advanced radar Hardware by comparison the f-22s came back at the size of a marble having a

More detectable plane creat it’s a challenge for even the most skilled of Pilots but for the poorly trained flyers in the vks it’s practically a death sentence there are other issues for instance the Su 35 is also one of the few modern fighter jets not to have an active electronically scanned array ACA

Radar instead using the older passive electronically scanned array Pacer Radars those Pacer Radars are more prone to jamming and malfunctions and aren’t as capable as aces of detecting smaller targets especially those on the ground and so we see the modern Russian Pilots first problem they’re flying and being trained on outdated military hardware

That isn’t fit for purpose when stacked against modern options but this brings us to an interesting point Ukraine hardly has the most advanced Fleet either with much of its meager Air Force using similar updated Soviet era machines as the Russians and yet far more Russian Pilots are getting shot

Down or crashing compared to Ukrainian Pilots there must be more going on behind the scenes and if you look look a little closer it becomes a lot easier to see the evidence of poor training that may be at the heart of Russia’s recent flight failures in 20122 Harry bonum an

Aerospace Analyst at the analytics company global data offered some insight into what the vk’s pilot training methodology looks like he said that training outlines provided by the vks indicated that a graduating pilot from the Russian Air Force’s Academy had to complete over 100 hours of flight time

As recently as 2017 with that number only increasing to over 120 hours in recent years by comparison he points out that the average Western pilot will Notch between 180 and 240 flight hours under their belt before they head out into the field up to double the flight time amassed by a supposedly qualified

Russian equivalent perhaps we see a link between Russian training methods and the deteriorating state of its air fleet here remember that Rand points out a large portion of the vk’s fleet is outdated to the point where some of its planes are hit in the end of their lives

As the conflict goes on reducing Russian air strength in the process could the lack of training hours Russian Pilots undergo at least in comparison to their Western equivalence be blamed on the vks essentially rationing out the flight hours the older equipment in its Fleet still has available that’s speculative

But it would at least partially explain why Russian Pilots are handicapped by having fewer flight hours than pilots from other nations but what’s more important is the effect that this lack of flight hours has on pilots during active operations bonum points out that Russian authorities are likely aware of the

Issues this inexperience causes which has undermined their confidence in their ability to pull off joint operations particularly with the Sam units their troops have on the ground we also see a lack of confidence in Russia’s failure to leverage Koo tactics as discussed earlier and that combined with logistical issues appears to hamper

Russia’s ability to not only secure Ukrainian airspace but to do so without suffering casualties inexperienced may also come into play when it comes to Russia’s scarce use of precision guided Munitions pgms it’s known that the vks has access to pgms which can be guided to their targets using a combination of

Lasers and the Russian equivalent of GPS glonass and yet we’ve seen fairly few of these types of Munitions utilized in the Ukraine conflict we can speculate in several directions when it comes to why with one of the more popular opinions being that Russia has failed to stockpile enough pgms for an extended

Conflict hence their need to ration the munition but what seems equally likely is that many of the country’s Pilots simply don’t know how to deploy pgms effectively again the lack of training hours comes into play here taking away a form of attack that would Aid in Pilot

Safety how rather than using pgms the vks has generally used dumb bombs to attack Ukrainian targets these unguided Munitions can only hit targets once the pilot achieves visual confirmation of the target’s existence which forces the pilot to fly low and steady making them a Sitting Duck for anti-air attacks and

That mention of flying low brings us to another issue with Russian pilot training many of its Pilots seem to struggle to fly low safely an April 2023 report by the Royal United Services Institute a think tank based in the UK highlighted that Russia’s Pilots either seem to be unwilling or incapable of

Providing close air support to troops on the ground providing that support would require Pilots to know how to fly safely at low altitudes which the report says is something that many if not most Russian Pilots simply haven’t been trained to do the report goes on to state that flying at low altitudes

Especially in contested situations isn’t part of the core training that Russian Pilots go through in order to earn their wings the only ones that can are typically members of the s25 smm frogfoot fleet a small part of the vk’s fleet that lack of low altitude training bore its most terrible fruits at least

From a Russian perspective during the first week of March 2022 the country lost 10 of its Jets alongside several helicopters in that week all shot down by Ukrainian forces and most flying below 3,000 ft in day likee conditions those crafts became instantly vulnerable to Ukrainian man pads shoulder fired

Missiles deployed by groundbased troops and it’s not speculative to say that the vks quickly decided that having its pilots flying low to the ground especially in daylight hours simply wasn’t an option anymore after that first week of March 2022 the vks quickly switched from using fixed wing and

Rotary Craft on the front lines to bombarding Ukrainian troops with unguided rockets and minimal PGM attacks speaking of Russian aircraft shot down during the early stages of the war another issue was discovered that perfectly demonstrates how the combination of poor training and inadequate equipment leads to the deaths

Of so many vks pilots in a speech at the national Army museum in May 2022 the then defense secretary of the United Kingdom Ben Wallace noted that several down vks Jets had been found with insecure navigational equipment as Wallace a graduate of sand hurst’s Royal Military Academy put it the equipment

Essentially seemed to be GPS receivers that were taped to the dashboards of the Jets these findings raise more questions does the vks have so little faith in the Russian glonass system that it’s willing to place its Pilots at risk by supplying them with insecure and unencrypted GPS receivers that make them easier to

Detect or has the lack of training these Pilots have received LED them to independently trying to use these GPS systems because they’re unaware of the risks that come with navigating using unsecured equipment either possibility is disturbing but both could have played a hand in why Russia lost so many of its

Pilots during the early stages of the Ukraine conflict even so Russia is a large country with a population of nearly 145 million people even with the loss of so many Pilots due to poor training and inadequate equipment surely it can train more to replace those

Losses and even with so many of its Jets being shot down it still easily has the aerial might to subdue Ukraine right unfortunately for Russia it’s not that simple a May 2022 story published in the Moscow times reported that Major General kamat bachev was shot down from the

Skies over Ukraine while piloting su2 fighter jet while that story may seem unremarkable in the context of the dramatic losses Russia has already experienced it becomes more interesting when you learn that Bev was a 63-year-old retired pilot more he’d essentially been forced into retirement from active duty in 2012 after he’d

Crashed at su27 while demonstrating acrobatic Maneuvers which raises an obvious question what was a retired and high ranking member of the Russian military doing flying on the front lines of the conflict the answer likely comes back to the lack of training the country’s other Pilots have perhaps the

Vks wasn’t confident in the skills of its younger Flyers forcing them into bringing older pilots who are perhaps not up to speed on Modern flying into the fold Bev’s death shows that it may not have been a good tactic still it also presents another problem for Russia

As his death along with the deaths of other senior members could have a knock-on effect on the quality of future pilots in the vks in fact this is something that Yuri inat the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force Al but said in comments published in Ukraine Pravda an online Ukrainian News website he

Points out that the vks is continuing to train pilots in its Academy and likely has the ability to create between 100 and 50 new pilots annually so there’s little danger of the vks running out of Flyers but inat points out that the quality of those Pilots will be lower in

Comparison to those who’ve already been shot down as many of the pilots so far were Veterans of the Syrian conflict mentioned earlier so the future clearly presents a problem for the vks on two fronts first it appears to rely on sheer numbers to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses this has already been demonstrated not

To work and will only become a less viable tactic as more in experienced Pilots enter the conflict second losing so many of its veterans to the war means that the pilots the vks train in the future will lose valuable sources of knowledge both in the academy and when

They’re in the field compounding their inexperience to the point where it becomes dangerous and worse yet for Putin it’s not just ukrainians shooting down his most experienced Flyers that he has to worry about it’s his own people in June 2023 Putin confirmed that the Vagner militia mutineers managed to down

13 vks pilots during their short-lived Insurrection that’s 13 on top of the 130 or so that Ukraine has managed to shoot down and it’s likely that at least some of those Pilots were experienced veterans the picture painted here is grim if the vk’s pilots can’t even handle a militia Mutiny one that lasted

Only a day what chance do they have when trying to take on Ukrainian troops on less familiar soil ironically fighting from within has done as much to expose the poor training of the vks pilots as the war in Ukraine has through all of this it’s important not to Discount the

Fact that Ukraine has done an excellent job of exploiting the weaknesses inherent in the vks approach for instance Forbes reports that the vks training Doctrine essentially classes its Air Force as an extension of its Army that approach which again is mirrored in the training that the vks pilots receive leads to Russia

Approaching air combat as a way to briefly control small portions of airspace so its craft can come in drop bombs and leave that runs counter to the comeo approach Ro taken by the US Air Force which focuses on coordinated efforts to control large amounts of airspace and as we’ve already seen plays

Right into Ukraine’s hands vks Pilots are trained to come in and deploy Munitions but at the same time that tactic requires an understanding of low altitude flight which we’ve already established is an understanding many vks Pilots don’t have Ukraine has taken advantage of this lack of training in

The very approach that Russia favors to down dozens of fixed wi Fighters using man pads backed by long-range defense systems such as tunguska and T it’s smart work by the ukrainians knowing how Russia was likely to use its air fleet to attack it essentially forced dozens of inexperienced pilots flying at low

Altitudes directly into a path of its anti-air defenses and due at least in part to their lack of training many of these Pilots did not know how to avoid groundbased defenses that are hardly Innovative in the theater of war when you combine this knowledge of vks tactics with the consistent stream of

Information and Equipment you ukine is receiving from its Western allies the situation continues to look dire for a Russian Air Force that is already depleted and likely only to be restocked with more poorly trained pilots finally consider this in August 2023 the United States approved the delivery of F-16

Fighter jets to Ukraine while far from the newest Jets the US has to offer f-16s have poor raadar and less capable missiles than Russia’s S35 it’s entirely possible that better training delivered to Ukraine’s Pilots could lead them to understanding their crafts better than Russian Pilots understand the ones

They’re flying so it may not be long before we see reports of Ukrainian Pilots actively Downing Russian ones in dog fights assuming Russia is brave enough to send its Pilots to fight Ukraine’s directly given the losses the vks has experienced so far but what do

You think how large a role has the poor training offered to Russia’s Pilots played in the losses the vks has suffered during the conflict is Russia even capable of cre creating a new crop of Pilots that won’t fall victim to the combination of outdated equipment ineffective training and Superior

Ukrainian tactics in the future tell us your opinions in the comments section below when you break down the T90 on paper Russia’s most modern battle tank looks pretty Fierce among other high-tech accessories it boasts a 125 mm smooth Bo gun modular composite armor and a 1,000 plus horsepower V12 diesel

Engine in theory it offers excellent Mobil ability protection and Firepower along with the ability to launch armor-piercing fin stabilized discarding sabbot rounds and anti-tank guided missiles the T90 also has several variants and has been a popular export due to its relatively high cost to benefit ratio then why you might be

Wondering has the T90 been such an epic failure on the battlefield to be fair it’s not just the t9s that are dropping like flies as Russia’s war with Ukraine continues since February last year the Russian armored Core losses have since reached more than 2,100 tanks that’s around 2/3 of the tanks Russia initially

Rolled out of Moscow on their way to keev Russia has lost so many tanks in fact that they’ve had to reactivate and deploy hundreds of older models including the t72 eural t62 and t-54 55 some of which are 50 60 even 70 years old and most of these have headed to the

Front without any meaningful upgrade not since the collapse of the Soviet Union anyway to their Optics Fire Control Systems or armor it probably wasn’t the first choice one could imagine of the boys back at the Kremlin to roll out these older models this decision likely has something to do with

The recent spike in losses of their prized t9s in total Russian troops have been forced to scrap or abandon nearly 60 of these 53 ton three person tanks roughly 15% of Russia’s pre-war inventory with most being lost in only the last few months but wait aren’t these supposed to be the baddest tanks

Around that’s certainly what the kremlin’s been saying before we get to the specific factors contributing to the t9s proposed survivability or lack thereof let’s take a moment to address one other important point when we zoom out there’s an argument to be made that the increasing number of t9s being

Destroyed on the battlefield in Ukraine might actually be a negative sign of things to come for our friends in keev how’s that well let’s look at it like this one reason that so many t9s have been destroyed recently but certainly not the only reason is that there’s been

More of them deployed to destroy translation Russia’s current production of t9s has been picking up as Putin’s nearly 2-year effort to boost tank production finally seems to be paying off apparently Russia has been able to work around some of its increasingly tighter foreign sanctions including those on critical high-end electronics

That it was once importing from France as mentioned before the number of destroyed or captured t9s accounts for roughly a quarter of Russia’s pre-war inventory this overall number however does not include the hundreds that have been produced by the uralvagonzavod plant ined lovo blast since the start of 2022 Russia’s increased productivity

Could become a serious problem for Ukraine considering its main tank plant the malishev factory in kiv currently lacks the capacity to produce new tanks from scratch and is limited to performing upgrades and repairs this leaves Ukraine’s Armed Forces mostly reliant on foreign donations if they intend to deploy a fleet of modern

Western style tanks which they have including German Leopard twos British Challenger twos and the American M1 Abrams but are foreign donations going to be able to match Russian tank production well it’s hard to say but it probably wouldn’t hurt for Ukraine’s Western allies to throw in a few more tanks especially because the

Uralvagonzavod plant can hypothetically produce enough new t9s in the next 6 months to match Ukraine’s current inventory of comparable modern battle tanks but even if this theory is true and an increasing number of t9s are being destroyed largely because more are being manufactured and deployed that certainly isn’t the whole story the

Overall effectiveness and functionality of the T90 has been a matter of debate since the beginning with many distinguished experts expertly concluding that overall the T90 is a piece of junk first introduced as the t72 Buu then renamed the T90 to distinguish it from all the other t72

Variants the T90 was thought to be one of the most well-protected tanks in the world while also boasting one of the most heavily equipped battle systems currently on the market after being officially brought into service in 1992 the T90 has received a number of upgrades and subsequent name changes in

2004 it was renamed the t90a and then in 2016 it was upgraded and rebranded again as the t90m then after its most recent upgrade in 2017 it came to be called the T90 Ms there were also less popular variants along the way but those aren’t worth mentioning here since its

Conception one of the major selling points of the T90 has been its relatively low cost save for the most recent variant the T90 Ms which runs closer to $4 million the full line of older less expensive T90 models can still be purchased and exported for around $3 million even though it

Continues to be produced primarily for use by the Russian army Armored Division the Kremlin has sold and exported thousands of t9s mostly t9s variants to countries such as Algeria Armenia and Iraq in fact India alone is now in possession of more than 2,000 russian-built T90 s’s underneath the

Hood so to speak of all currently available T90 variants is a V12 diesel engine the most powerful coming in at 1,130 horsepower can be found on the T90 Ms the T90 is also about 20 tons lighter than the M1 arams and was designed to accommodate and be operated by thanks to

Its autoloading firing system just a three-man crew upon closer inspection however the effectiveness of both the engine and loading system have come into question but more on that a bit later so what about Firepower well if the T90 has one thing going for it it definitely has

A lot of that the T90 246 M4 125 mm smooth B main gun can fire a range of high-tech ammunition options including armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot rounds as well as the anti-tank guided missiles mentioned earlier also known as the 9 m119 reflex or by NATO as the at11 sniper these high-tech

Projectiles have a maximum range of 4,000 M with a flight time of 11.7 seconds and can under certain conditions even take down helicopters also in terms of Firepower the T90 features two externally mounted machine guns one is a 12.7 MM cord heavy machine gun that has

A cycle rate of fire of 700 to 800 rounds per minute and can be remotely operated from within the tank the other is a pkmt 7.62 mm coal machine gun and when it comes to protection in addition to Conventional armor plating modern T90 variants also come equipped with two

Very high-tech defensive systems the first is the chatur 1 an active protection system made by the Russian company electronic Tor that includes a 360° Laser warning receiver complete with automatically triggered counter measures the deploy of the tank is painted by an enemy laser this device can even Orient the Tank’s main gun in

The direction of the Laser’s origin the shatur 1 among other features also comes with an infrared Jammer and a grenade launching system that has the capacity to discharge smoke grenades which release an infrared obscuring aerosol Cloud the modern T90 second line of defense is its contact 5 explosive

Reactive armor or era which is essentially a layer of high explosive sandwich between two metal plates designed to minimize the damage of explosive projectiles by detonating just prior to their impact pretty fancy right AA was specifically designed to counter a range of advanced Weaponry including missiles and Rockets carrying high

Explosive anti-tank Warheads as well as highly deadly sabot rounds which separate after being fired and turn into a thin th stabilized Rod made of depleted uranium once a sabot round impacts an enemy tank the kinetic force it creates while penetrating also creates a steam of molten metal that

Pours into the cabin with it this instantaneously increases the temperature and pressure inside of the sealed turret killing or rather cooking everyone inside the T90 also comes with a magnetic mine detection system that when functioning properly uses an electromagnetic pulse to disable mines before the tank can run over them so

Then what’s the deal you might be asking why aren’t these extra fancy Protection Systems making the t9s Unstoppable for one these systems haven’t performed so well against longrange anti-tank guided missiles there was one report that stated a Ukrainian took out two t90ms backto back using an at4 anti-tank

Weapon if that report is accurate this would be a very impressive set of skills the Swedish made Sab at4 given to the ukrainians by the US and Sweden is a lightweight shoulder launched anti-armor weapon however despite delivering an 84 mm projectile out to a range of 300 M

This unguided weapon should not be effective against a T90 M’s reactive armor which the manufacturers claim is effective against not just low-speed rockets and missiles but also tank rounds coming in at Hypersonic speeds there are it seems even more embarrassing ways to lose a tank which Russia has also discovered recently

Apparently a group of Russian technicians accidentally set fire to to a t72 they were attempting to repair in the confusion the ammunition on board caught fire and exploded completely destroying the tank and damaging two others nearby the loss of this tank and the two T90 M’s suggest that a more

Complex set of problems might be plaguing the Russian military and this makes the actual durability and effectiveness of the T90 more difficult to determine is the hyped t90m any less vulnerable than earlier models it’s hard to tell when it’s regularly being used without proper tactical or common sense

Another reason the T90 was poorly conceived compared to other main battle tanks is that its underlying design is outdated ultimately as we mentioned before the T90 is simply an improved version of the t72 essentially the turret of the t80 and the hull and drivetrain of the t72 combined together

And covered over with reactive armor and because the T90 is in its Essence only an update it retains all of the defects of its bargain built older brothers its inherent shortcomings leading to the apparent failure of the t9s ultramodern defensive systems is one thing but this tank has also been the victim of

Tactical incompetence and has regularly been rolled into impossible no- win situations in Modern Warfare advancing tanks are supposed to be supported by infantry for the very purpose of suppressing enemy ground troops who might be using anti-tank weapons like the at4 deployed armor should also have artillery support if only only to help

Mitigate any longrange threats sending tanks forward without defensive support as Russia has continued to do in Ukraine makes them extremely vulnerable especially to infantry units using shoulder launched weapons mobile ground units when allowed to get in close can carry out ambushes at short range which allows them to focus their attacks on a

Tanks more vulnerable target areas a particularly vulnerable area for these tanks that’s also been exposed by the creative fighting tactics being used in Ukraine is the roof so it seems the T90 has had some trouble with the anti-tank missiles that are fired from elevated positions and ultimately come down onto

These vehicles from above the t9s 360° active protection system is supposed to protect from this sort of attack and its failure to do so might suggest that this fancy new system isn’t as infallible as first advertised a range of other deficiencies came to light after the first T90 was captured intact from the

Battlefield in Ukraine with with the tank now safely in their possession military Specialists from the Ukrainian center for the study of captured and prospective weapons and military equipment were able to conduct an analysis of all internal equipment and armaments and went on to publicly announce their findings in March of

20123 when around the same time another t90a was captured this one was apparently handed over to the US also for the purpose of research but when one of Russia’s most modern pieces of armor was spotted on a trailer in Louisiana the and subsequently photographed a debate surrounding the Tank’s unlikely

Appearance on American soil exploded on social media it isn’t fully known what the US ultimately had planned for the tank but we do know what Ukraine did with theirs they ripped it apart literally and figuratively once the team of Ukrainian experts had completed their investigation they claimed to have

Uncovered little more than an old t72 hiding beneath the shell of widespread Russian propaganda labeling Russia’s new war machine an overall failure and not nearly the Breakthrough the Kremlin had been all along claiming it to be the team of Engineers from the center for the study of captured and prospective

Weapons and military equipment also noted that the well praised automatic loader was largely the same design as could be found on the older t72 the only major difference being that the ammo was now stored in a separate compartment outside the turret this modification however created the complication of

Tankers having to fully exit the vehicle in order to load ammunition into the main compartment which to be done with any practical sense or relative amount of safety would require that the tank leave the field of battle talk about taking yourself out of the fight the center also reportedly discovered

Significant limitations concerning the t9s B92 s2f V12 diesel engine which Ukrainian Engineers claimed did not have sufficient power to reliably Propel the vehicle a claim that was supported by videos of t9s getting stuck stuck in the mud they also noted that the highly praised Kina computerized Fire Control

System had Incorporated in its design not only civilian electronic components but some of Western origin while other electronic components had been assembled without adhering to moisture control requirements resulting in increased oxidation shortened lifespan and unexpected failure but the embarrassment of Russian tank Builders isn’t the kremlin’s biggest problem here if

Ukraine persists in revealing the secrets and vulnerabil ities of the allegedly Advanced systems and Technologies of the T90 this could potentially create a serious Financial challenge for Russia in the future by giving other countries the information needed to produce their own while simultaneously diminishing the hype surrounding the Russian made T90 sales

Are bound to diminish and this is no small sum we’re talking about Russia has currently received a combined total of nearly $1 billion for exported t9s from India and Algeria alone but a fair amount of damage seems to have already been done as reports of the t9s mediocrity have continued to surface

Many foreign companies that had previously signed contracts with Russia have swiftly cancelled those agreements all these technological and mechanical shortcomings though are only part of the bigger Story the lack of success the T90 has had on the battlefield in Ukraine cannot be truly understood without looking at the opposition they faced it

Would be a disservice to Ukraine’s ferocious troops to do otherwise combined with grit and determination born largely of national pride Ukrainian forces have also received an impressive amount of anti-tank Weaponry from the US as well as other allies from the us alone Ukraine has received more than 10,000 Javelin anti- armor systems

990,000 other anti- armor systems and Munitions 8,000 tube launched optically tracked wire guided tow missiles 35,000 grenade launchers and small arms 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades and a whole slew of laser guided rocket systems rocket launchers and anti-tank mines according to Washington’s regularly updated list of

Wartime contributions which includes 31 Abrams Tanks 45 t72 B tanks 186 Bradley infantry fighting Vehicles 20 mi7 helicopters dozens of combat drones lots of state-of-the-art satellite Communications equipment and more than 100,000 sets of body armor and helmets President Biden has provided nearly $44 billion in military assistance to

Ukraine thus far weapons are a critical part of warfare that’s obvious but without resourcefulness they will only take a conventional Force so far which makes the new tactic Ukrainian forces have been using against Russian tanks that much more impressive to go along with their already proven yet more traditional Ambush Maneuvers they’ve

Also developed a highly creative yet simp simple way of utilizing landmines essentially as a Russian mine plow clears a path through a known Minefield Ukrainian troops will wait for it to pass then toss fresh mines onto the same path right in front and sometimes behind the trailing Convoy effectively

Littering the cleared Corridor with new mines the vehicles following the mine plow end up hitting these mines or run over the mines as they try to escape the trap to execute this Brazen new maneuver the ukrainians have been utilizing two different types of Mines one is the Soviet

Tm62 the other is the American remote anti- armor mine system or Ram of which the US has donated more than 30,000 the 21 tm62 is what you think of when you think of a traditional mine basically a big metal disc packed with explosives and fitted with some sort of fuse the

RAM on the other hand is slightly different and consists of nine mines that are4 each stacked together in a hollow 155 mm artillery shell with practice Ukrainian troops have found that a few well- aimed volleys can scatter scores of these each with a magnetic fuse across a relatively wide

Area this tactic has been a big success recently as armored vehicles have continued to roll in neat lines across the fields and forests between the Russian occupied cities of pavka and Vadar and what often happens after the lead tank hits a mine and explodes the rest of the column attempts to scatter

Some Vehicles try to go around the wrecked lead vehicle only to hit a mine themselves in these scenarios even Retreat is dangerous as there might be fresh mines now scattered behind the column littered across the very path it used to come through in the past weeks in the region surrounding Vadar the

Russians have lost 30 or more armored vehicles including a few tanks and it seems that well-placed mines have largely been the cause to defeat these tactics and save a few of their prize t9s Russia will need at minimum better intelligence and a more flexible command and control strategy in theory the

Narrow tm62 minefields shouldn’t be that hard to avoid if the opposing force was able to let’s say organize 24-hour surveillance and a reliable means of disseminating information to its Frontline forces and Russia will need exactly that if they want to keep ahead of Ukraine’s clearly Savvy military

Engineers but what do you think have the technical shortcomings of the Russian T90 been the primary cause of it poor performance or are these tanks being utilized poorly and judged unfairly also how might foreign military aid and Ukraine’s improvised tactics be contributing to the loss of so many

Russian tanks let us know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for more military analysis from military experts as of June 2023 Russian tank losses have exceeded a whopping 4,000 since the beginning of the war in Ukraine that is a lot of tanks and Putin’s troubles don’t end there Russia

Will have a Manpower shortage very very soon unless Putin orders another wave of mobilization but Ukrainian losses have not been insignificant either so far Ukraine has managed to constantly mobilize their soldiers and replace their losses but how long before they start running out of Manpower 2 will

Putin run out of troops before Ukraine does let’s hear what our military experts have to say in February 2023 word got out that a treasure Trove of classified us documents had been leaked across the popular social media platform Discord in those documents were some harsh assessments of the future of

Ukraine’s counter offensive against Russia who had begun their full-fledged Invasion a year earlier in February 2022 the more than a 100 documents included secret and top secret files on foreign intelligence analysis of opponent forces and briefing documents for US military and government officials one file in particular stood out in its Pages The

Source claimed that Ukraine would be faced with significant Force generation and sustainment shortfalls and the probability that any Ukrainian offensive in 2023 would result in only modest territorial gains if not supported by a sufficient number of troops and Hardware this report was not the first time Ukraine was challenged on whether they

Had enough men to defeat the vastly larger country of Russia it’s been evident for some time that both Ukraine and Russia have seen a decline in their populations for Ukraine the 2014 invasion of the dbass region and Crimea initiated their population decline their population loss has significantly increased since the February 2022

Invasion coupled with the indiscriminate bombing of Civilian areas and brutalization of any population that didn’t evacuate Russia despite having a vastly bigger population has a vastly different problem it’s huge AKA hugely embarrassing losses of Hardware Russia’s Hardware problems in comparison to its troop losses are perhaps a more reliable

Indicator of just how bad the war has been going for them since tanks infantry fighting vehicles trucks and artillery are big and bulky their losses are harder to hide and can be counted and identified more easily than individual soldiers when analysists look at Hardware losses Russia has suffered the

Numbers are simply staggering an analysis done by the Ukrainian general staff reports that Russian armed forces have lost over 3,900 tanks 7,600 armored fighting vehicles 6,400 unarmored vehicles and fuel tanks 3,700 artillery systems 600 multiple rocket launch systems mlrs 350 air defense systems more than 300 planes 300 helicopters 3,200 drones and

18 ships to put this all into perspective Russia was believed to have only around 3,500 main battle tanks before The Invasion the best estimates were that they invaded Ukraine with a total ground force of around 150,000 soldiers an update on June 21st 2023 from the same Ukrainian source suggested

That the number of lost Russian tanks has just exceeded 4,000 while the estimate from Ukraine might be biased those from neutral open source group orx are not they count only those weapon systems for which they can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that they were destroyed or captured and document each

And every loss in their figures they report as of June 13th 2023 Russia has lost at a minimum 2,70 tanks 894 armored fighting vehicles 2,454 infantry fighting Vehicles 318 armored personnel carriers and thousands more M resistant Vehicles transports mobile artillery air defense systems and various intelligence Supply and command

Vehicles since orx only includes confirmed losses even they admit Russia’s real losses are much higher there are several indications of how bad Russian material losses are one of the most glaring is that Russia has been transporting 70 and 80-year-old tanks from storage yards and even museums and

Sending them by rail to the front one such Relic was a t-54 55 that was packed with around 6 tons of explosives and sent trundling to the Ukrainian front lines though it was blown up before it could reach them that tank was built a few years after the end of World War II

Others just like it have been photographed heading towards the front lines from all over Russia another surprising display occurred during the 2023 Mayday Parade through Red Square in Moscow normally this was the yearly event when the supposed Mighty Russian military would parade its newest and most powerful military vehicles from

Tanks ifvs and multiple launch rocket systems to Portable ballistic missiles all of them overflown by Frontline Fighters and strategic bombers but this year the world received a surprise when only a single World War II era t34 tank trundled through the parade President Vladimir Putin was mocked around the

World for such a weak display of supposed Russian military might so it’s pretty clear at this point that Russia is indeed running out of Tanks but does it have enough troops to defend its own cities even more embarrassing for Putin was the abortive March for justice that his one-time chef and Military oligarch

Yevi prisin launched for a brief 24-hour period from June 23rd through 24th pin’s private military company the Vagner group was able to capture the major city of rosov on da don without firing a shot and weren’t met with any substantial ground opposition until they were within 125 miles of Moscow itself the only

Thing that apparently stopped pazin and Vagner was the failure of a popular Uprising to join him he certainly wasn’t stopped by any military units most analysists believe that’s because the vast majority of Russian military strength is all in Ukraine additional shortages of men and material have been

Seen in the Russian oblast of belgorod where a series of crossborder raids launched by free Russian opposition units together with a small number of Polish expatriate fighting for Ukraine have caused Havoc for weeks the minimal border security forces there have been wholly incapable of stopping them not until they were supported by heavy

Artillery and Air Force strikes some Reports say that the Russian defense units didn’t even have weapons or ammo since according to Russian law it was illegal for them to carry firearms what about the regular troops now that we’ve seen that Russia has suffered a probably massive loss in hardware and material

And doesn’t even have enough troops to protect its own borders we can better understand the level of their actual troop losses and possible remaining strength according to the same Ukrainian general staff report mentioned earlier Russia has lost a staggering 213,000 killed wounded and missing soldiers Sailors and Airmen that analysis

Includes more than 43,000 killed in action and over 170,000 wounded many of whom will not be returning to combat The Independent Center for strategic and International Studies csis has come up with an even higher estimate their report from February 2023 indicated that Russia had lost lost as many as 250,000

Total casualties in comparison this total from just the 12 months of fighting is more than all the combat losses Russia and the former Soviet Union had suffered in all their Wars since World War II combined the estimate of 250,000 casualties would have increased by an additional 60 to 70,000

Casualties between February and June of 2023 in just the first 3 months of the invasion Russia suffered as many casualties as it did during its entire 10-year war in Afghanistan what’s worse is that according to the most recent reports their casualty rate may be increasing Russia lost over 1,100 troops

In a single day on June 8th as Ukraine has begun to hammer Russian forces with its summer offensive but what’s causing such high casualty rates one of the biggest causes of such casualties is the outdated method in which Russia is conducting the war overall the Russian military Doctrine has changed little

Since World War I they rely on masses of inaccurate artill supported by Fighters that perform ground attack roles and masses of human assaults sometimes but not always backed up by tanks but the Russian Air Force known as the SVS has seen High losses as well due to the

Large numbers of surface to- a missiles sent by the US and NATO members they’ve been reluctant to fly over Ukrainian territory and prefer to lob bombs from the safety of Russian occupied territory Russian Doctrine also suggests that if the first human assault fails keep sending in more troops until the Defenders fall

Britain’s defense intelligence agency points out that such outdated tactics carry with them enormous losses their report states that a combination of poor low-level tactics limited air cover a lack of flexibility and a command approach which is prepared to reinforce failure and repeat mistakes has led to Russia’s High casualty rate among its

Troops in Ukraine but here’s the really bad part these casualties primarily include the vets and the elite indeed one of the most significant areas where Russia’s casualties have had a telling effect has been in their elite units an example of the losses such elite units have suffered can be seen in the current

State of the 331st guards Airborne regiment a part of the 98th guards airborne division one of the best trained and most experienced combat units Russia has available prior to the Invasion the 331st regiment’s size was around 1500 to 1700 soldiers it sent two Battalion groups into Ukraine at the

Start of the invasion on February 24th 2022 for a total of 1,000 to 1 ,200 men they suffered heavily in the initial day effort to capture hostel airport just outside of keev the lightly armored infantry vehicles that they were sent in with proved no match for Ukrainian anti-tank weapons and heavy artillery an

Estimated 94 soldiers almost 10% of their strength were killed in just the first few days of fighting by the end of the year some accounts indicated their casualties numbered more than 500 continued fighting showed that the unit was unprepared for the length of the war within just a few weeks of the invasion

Locals back at the city of kostroma where the unit was based were holding fundraising drives to send the troops warm clothes the governor of the region sergy sitnikov a former CEO of the 331st commented a few months later that we need to help our guys so they have

Decent conditions when he visited the wounded survivors he bought with him care packages from relatives back home and civilian drones bought on the open market if the conditions were this bad for one of Russia’s most elite units then it can only be much worse for the regular Army troops these same high

Casualty rates have been reported for all branches of Russia’s Armed Forces but since the best trained most elite units are the ones that can be most trusted in a fight those are the ones that can see the most intense combat often spearheading assaults in battles around marup bakut and as we’ve seen

With the 331st the initial drives on keev the problem is as Russia loses a significant portion of their combat veterans they’re being replaced with less well-trained and less skilled replacements for a while the the Russian regular troops were supplemented by pin’s Vagner forces widely regarded as some of the most

Experienced Urban Fighters Russia had left but pin’s abortive march on Moscow resulted in him being exiled to bellarus and his Vagner troops being split up between joining him in bellarus signing contracts with the ministry of defense or returning home to Russia the Vagner forces had been responsible for the only

Sector where Russia had made any kind of incremental gains since the opening months of the invasion that being around the area of the eastern city of of bakut according to the US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby who spoke to reporters on May 1st 2023 Russia had lost nearly 100,000 casualties in its

10-month Siege of bakut including about 20,000 soldiers killed in combat and 80,000 wounded Ukraine have lost about 1/5th as many in its defense of the city according to us intelligence estimates or around 4,000 killed and up to 15,000 wounded it was clear that within the first few months of the invasion that

Russia had failed to allocate enough forces for the complete subjugation of Ukraine and had vastly underestimated the number of casualties they would suffer in September 2022 Putin announced a mobilization of 120,000 new troops while a law was also passed making it a crime for anyone in

Russia to call The Invasion a war those 120,000 weren’t enough however and further conscriptions raised the total to around 300,000 by the end of 2022 the these Nationwide call-ups have had a serious negative side effect on top of losing a quarter of a million men as

Casualties of War as many as 1 million additional young men and women have fled Russia to avoid the conscription many of those who left are the young professionals that Russia desperately needs and cannot replace these igrades have left for various reasons but their primary reason was to escape the

Mobilization along with fleeing the Western sanctions that have caused enormous economic distress within the nation this has led to a significant Manpower shortage across Russia in an intelligence update released on May 27th 2023 the British defense Ministry observed that a survey conducted by the Russian Central Bank involving 14,000

Employees had determined that Russia’s national labor force was at its lowest recorded level since 1998 in addition to losses from the war and immigration to avoid the draft the survey also showed that the Russian population had previously decreased by up to 2 million in the Years between 2020 and 202 2 due

To several factors including the poor Russian response to the covid pandemic poor healthc care and diet excessive alcoholism and an increasingly aging population nowhere has this lack of workers been more acutely felt than in the tech sector where shortages of trained workers have hit the electronics and programming sectors hard this brain

Drain along with continuing Western sanctions has caused what Laura salano a senior adviser for the bank of Finland described as reverse industrialization this means Russia has not only seen a shrinking of its economy but has had to replace overseas investment lost due to Western sanctions with funds supplied by

The state salano reported such policies can only succeed with huge investments in domestic production to replace lost Imports as well as the construction of new Transportation links to the east and south as resources are limited she continued this implies less investment in other sectors including potentially more productive areas Russia’s

Investments will continue to move away from the technological Frontier she said which is why she considers Russia’s current state of the economy as reverse industrialization these factors combined to indicate that Russia will have increasingly fewer young men and women for Putin to draft in 2023 if he feels

The need to repeat his previous mistake on top of Russia’s potentially catastrophic combat losses and Manpower shortages Russia is also facing another area of concern the loss of their combat leadership one of the most widely reported problems regarding the Russian army is a distinct lack of unity of

Command part of that problem is currently due to the combat losses which extend up the chain of command as of November 2022 Russia had lost more than 1500 officers in the first 9 months of the war according to estimates by Ukrainian Colonel Anatoli Stefan and backed up by studies done by the US

Center for Naval analysis these reports suggest an estimated 160 of those 1500 lost officers were Generals major generals and lieutenant generals as well as more than 150 Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels 250 Majors 296 captains and nearly 500 senior lieutenants in descending order of rank while confirmed numbers as with the Lost Russian

Hardware suggest a much lower number is more likely it’s clear that whatever the actual total is Russia is losing far more officers of higher ranks than most western armies would under similar Battlefield conditions as noted previously one of the few areas where Russian military has been successful is

With its private military companies like Vagner but there have been highly publicized clashes between prasin Wagner’s leader and the Russian military leadership in Moscow pazin has complained on multiple occasions that his private military group’s needs have not been met meanwhile whenever a high-ranking officer from the regular

Russian army was fired pazin has been hiring them and adding them to his own private Army further distancing himself from Moscow pin’s march on Moscow was responsible for another loss for Russia General Sergi sovin the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine disappeared from public sight

Following the March and was rumored to be under arrest for knowing about pin’s plan and not informing Putin sovin disappearance will be keenly felt across the entirity of the Russian military as he was one of the most reliable ground commanders in the Army having attained his rank through skill and

Accomplishments unlike those above him in the Russian chain of command who owed their position due to loyalty to Putin Above All Else we’ve seen the many problems Russia is having with its troop losses and its population decline how well is Ukraine doing in filling out its Army Ukraine has exceeded all

Expectations in lasting more than a year against a country nearly 30 times its size in area 17 million square km versus 63,000 Square km and more than triple its size in population 143 million versus 43 million for Ukraine that widely accepted estimate of the Ukrainian population of roughly 4 43

Million is contradicted by other sources according to statistics compiled by England’s The Economist newspaper Ukraine including Crimea and the dbass has lost about 16% of its population between its independence in 1991 from the former Soviet Union and the eve of the 2022 Russian invasion these numbers suggest that Ukraine now has a

Population of only about 36 million compared to around 52 million in 1991 but that’s to be expected in a country where the Invader Russia has indiscriminate ly attacked civilian population centers and has leveled whole cities like marapole which has seen its pre-war population of 400,000 reduced to

Less than 5,000 this same Russian effort to depopulate any area of resistance has been repeated across whole regions of Ukraine according to the Joint research center of the European economic Union the EU Ukraine will continue to see a steady decline in its population over the next 20 to 30 years even under the

Most optimistic of circumstances the jrc has estimated that by the beginning of February 2023 around 5.3 million Ukrainian civilians had been displaced internally across Ukraine while approximately 7 million had immigrated to other countries with around 4 million of those fleeing to nearby EU countries especially Poland this means that the

Invasion has displaced close to 30% of the entire Ukrainian population both inside and outside of Ukraine that accounts for the disparity between the pre-war estimates of 43 million for the Ukrainian population and the more recent 35 to 36 million figure it would seem then that Ukraine could be facing a

Shortfall of the younger demographic that usually makes up military service recruits however those numbers Bell the reality that an overwhelming number of volunteers have flooded the Ukrainian Army more than they can adequately train and Supply since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022 Ukraine has seen a truly heroic response not just

From within its own borders but from abroad as well an estimated 2, 3,000 foreign Fighters are believed to be serving in three battalions of a Ukrainian unit named the international Legion according to analysts and academics monitoring them but because the Ukrainian government wishes to keep such numbers private these numbers are

Only best guess estimates in the early months of the war Ukrainian officials estimated that as many as 20,000 volunteers from more than 50 countries had arrived to help fight against the Russian invasion but according to analysts and interviews with many of the foreign fighters who stayed the vast

Vast majority appear to have returned home before the summer hundreds of the better trained volunteers have since then been integrated into smaller units that operate independently of the international Legion these groups led by longtime Regional opponents of Moscow such as the Georgian Legion and Chin battalions as well as other primarily

Western units with names like Alpha faank and the Norman Brigade some of the volunteers who stayed are being used to train young Ukrainian recruits though their training is often rudimentary where a western Nation like the US would spend up to 10 weeks of training in boot camp the Ukrainian recruits often get as

Little as 3 to 5 days though most will get around 2 to 3 weeks it’s not just the total number of troops that Ukraine has that should be considered but also the troops who are trained well enough to survive the most dangerous first few weeks of their deployment it’s also

Clear that the numbers of Ukrainian men and women who volunteered were more than the Ukrainian Army could train early in the war more than 140,000 ukrainians mostly men have returned from Europe according to a social media post by Ukrainian defense minister Alexi reznikov from March 2022 T of thousands

Joined the territorial Defense Forces according to the Ukrainian interior Ministry between 9 and 12 new assault brigades totaling 40,000 men have been training for months to help spearhead the current counter offensive their numbers were swelled by Countrywide media campaigns that called on young ukrainians both men and women to join up

To help rid their country of of the Russian Invaders one of the leaked assessment documents from February 2023 titled Russia Ukraine assessed combat sustainability and attrition compiled by the US defense intelligence agency suggested that Ukraine has suffered as many as 130,000 total casualties including 177,000 killed in action and

Another 113,000 wounded Ukraine has been very tight lipped about their own casualty figures so these numbers are merely best guess estimates overall it can be seen that Ukraine does have less population from which to draw its military recruits while sustaining very large losses over the first year of the

War offsetting this has been a continued strong volunteer effort from both inside and outside Ukraine the violence that Russia has Unleashed on the Ukrainian civilians has convinced many in Ukraine who would normally let others do the fighting to step up and join their country in defending against the Russian

Invaders no matter how long this war goes on whether for months or years it doesn’t appear that Ukraine will run out of highly motivated volunteers anytime soon the original question will Russia run out of troops before Ukraine does seemed at first to be an easily answered question with three times the population

It would have appeared that Russia would simply be able to wear down Ukraine over years of Relentless grinding Warfare but the reality is Russia’s military is on the brink of collapse their best units have been shattered and their ranks have been filled with ill- Tred poorly supplied and poorly LED conscripts their

Once vaunted dominance in tanks is now now just a memory and their artillery is being outfought and outshot by more accurate and longer Range Systems supplied by the West Russia’s Air Force can’t gain air superiority over the battlefield while Russia’s economy is so drastically damaged that they simply cannot replace the losses they’ve

Suffered in high-tech weapons Ukraine appears motivated enough and well enough equipped that if the war were to last another year or another 10 they’d never run out of people willing to fight to remove the last Russian occupier from their land but what do you think how close is Putin to completely running out

Of soldiers will Ukraine continue to be successful in replacing their short-term Manpower deficit let us know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for more military analysis from military experts