> unless the Ukrainians already have moveable tank capable bridges
I am pretty sure they've had them for a long time, not least because they did multiple river crossings, many successful. Their army is quite capable, and was already quite capable prior to the post-February wave of foreign support. For example in the air defense department, as far as Europe goes they were only second to Russia (though the missiles are starting to run out).
Ukraine was deeply integrated into the USSR and even Russian military industrial complex - shipbuilding (after Moskva sank the remaining best ships in the Black Sea Fleet are made in Ukraine, Mykolaiv I think), engines (both turbojet/turbofan and rocket), whole aircraft manufacturing (Antonov), assembly of armored vehicles ... The lead designer of R-7, the first serious space rocket and the reason why Russians think they won the space race, was a Ukrainian.
> which is also why Ukraine punched above its weight in the space sector
In 1991 it was expected that independent Ukraine, a 52 million strong country, will basically be the next Spain.
What did it punch in the space sector in the last 30 years? They did indeed inherit a huge chunk of USSR industry and science and nothing went out of it.
> The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day Russia.
It is indeed the product of USSR, which had integrated supply chain and R&D. Very likely some components of it were manufactured in Russia. Ukraine alone would not be able to build and maintain such ship due to budget and resource constraints, but Russia has rebuilt its capabilities in XXI century — their military industrial complex can maintain, upgrade and build such ships. I doubt though they will commission a replacement any time soon, since they are actively building lots of smaller vessels.
>Ukraine has repelled Russia very effectively with just manpads, ATGMs and NATO intelligence.
MANPADs are nice to have, but it's Ukraine's own Soviet air defense equipment which is keeping Russian aviation at bay.
The focus on MANPADs really makes it hard to take anything else you say seriously. It's the 100+ active S300 batteries Ukraine had that made all the difference, not MANPADs.
> Ukraine has gotten some advanced stuff like the Javelin, but since 2014 they have been a nation at war that knows their survival depends on having better quality troops
Ukraine battles for their future, because we don't want to return to USSR, which is so loved by Russians.
And BTW, Russia have huge technological advantage, because they have lot more techs than Ukraine.
Basically, in 2014, Ukrainians was only ak-74s, even have not body armor; old artillery (without computers); no military communication.
After that, allies helped lot, mostly US/Britain.
Also Ukrainians repaired old soviet t-64s and armored machines and soviet helicopters, and jets, and air defense.
And Russia have for decades spend huge budgets on create enhanced electronics for soviet weapons, so we where sure, they have advanced tech.
In reality, Russians was not good enough trained to withstand long war, they planned to win in few days, and most their forces was planned to be used as military-police.
But any way, Russians have huge advantage in techs - numbers of tanks, jets, helis, mobile air defense, differ few times.
Best forces landed in Hostomel. Here, very close to Kiev, was very interest battle, officials said about 35 helicopters and few hundreds land troops, and there Ukrainians shot down first ka-52 in this war, also they tried to land few il-76s (I'm not sure, hear that one was also shot down), so stakes was extremely high.
They has been eliminated by few days artillery shooting (and yes, there also destroyed Mriya plane).
As I know, similar battles was at other airports.
Also we seen few saboteurs groups, but fortunately they where small and Ukrainian troops eliminated them with just hand arms.
Most other Russian military mostly kneaded the dirt, or fire on civilian objects, and and does not do any honorable.
I think the Soviet Union physically based a good chunk of its military industry in Ukraine, which the country then inherited when it became independent. So when we talk about Ukraine in this context, we're talking about a former superpower.
> You must also understand that in Russian culture it was common to mock Ukrainians as dumb farmer hicks, while thinking of themselves as highly technologically advanced.
Where did you get this info from? My experience growing up in USSR (in areas that are now Russia and Ukraine) was totally different. Ukraine had a reputation (well deserved) as a major tech hub. Most of Soviet space industry (military for one) was there -- rockets, missiles, rocket engines, electronics. Kyiv University was one of the major places of learning rivaling MGU (Moscow State University). People from all over the Soviet Union were fighting nail and tooth to be allowed to move and live in Kyiv. Yes, there were folk-jokes (anekdoty) about Ukrainians like about anybody else. This does not reflect in any form upon the fact that Ukraine was very highly developed republic within USSR. 3 out of 7 leader of USSR were Ukrainians (Khrushchev - 8 years, Brezhnev - 18 years in power, Chernenko - 2 years). Ukraine has always been a force to recon with.
>The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day Russia.
>The mighty warship was created by Ukraine
The independent Ukraine with all its "manufacturing prowess" was unable to finish its sister ship Ukraina for 30 years. It got almost sold to Russia in 2010.
>brought down by Ukrainian missiles
With a tinsy bit of help from the NATO radars and surveillance drones.
> without the several billion USD in free high-tech weapons from the Western countries (mostly though not exclusively NATO members) Ukraine would probably have lost the war by now
And without the navy Russia annexed [1], or it’s Soviet military kit, much of which was designed and built in Ukraine, Russia wouldn’t have much of a start.
Ukraine repelled Putin’s forces on its own in the early days of the war, when Western intelligence was predicting another Kabul. That it later attracted sympathy is further testament to its diplomatic strength (and the Kremlin’s isolation).
>Ukraine is outfighting Russia despite massive disadvantages numerically and technologically
You are somewhat misinformed about the Ukrainian war. Ukraine has 3-4 times less population than Russia, but it started full mobilization early in the war. Meanwhile Russia started partial mobilization just recently. So it was common for the Ukranian army to have a numerical advantage on the ground. Most of the recent Russian retreats can be attributed to the lack of personnel to properly mount defensive positions.
As for technological advantage... It depends. Ukraine effectively has the whole NATO and a number of additional countries as its rear and supply base, while Russia depends only on itself and a bit on Iran. In terms of communication systems, intelligence, and likely anti-tank and anti-ship systems, the Ukrainian army is miles ahead of Russia. Russia has advantage in air, artillery, anti-air, and ground-to-ground rocket systems.
> And it seems like largest country in Europe (by area), with 200 thousand strong army, tons od most sophisticated NATO weapons
Where did you get this idea?
Ukrain has only a tiny airforce, no modern air defences, and most heavy military hardware, from artillery to tanks, is cold war vintage.
NATO never supplied it with modern fighter jets and missile systems, if it had, Russian helicopters would not be circling Kiev right now.
"Every Russian general is born with the ambition of driving his tanks to the Atlantic Ocean"
This is not helpfull, Russia has the idea that it should be able to do as it pleasesnl in its sphere of influence, but I never met anyone thinking it stretched to include anything past former eastern block borders.
> It is not as if Ukraine has anything better to offer.
They have 260+ captured Russian tanks, for one thing. Ukraine has asked supporting countries to instead send howitzers, anti-air guns/missiles, and multiple-launch rockets. They have enough tanks. By the end of this war Ukraine might end up with one of the largest tank armies in the world. https://oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenti...
By most reports Ukraine (and Russia for that matter) are both much more limited by supply of trained tank crew than lack of physical tanks. Hundreds of Russian tanks requiring 3 crew members were already being driven by crews of 2 (in some cases untrained), and therefore combat ineffective right from the start.
Russia has lost an estimated 1000+ tanks in 3 months of war, and now has all but stopped doing maneuver operations, whether because they are scared to lose more or have run out of supply. From what I understand Russia’s tank production has entirely stopped for lack of microchips and other components.
> Cruise, ballistic missiles on the conveyor and in the air. Every day and night.
The rate of Russian use of long-distance missiles dropped off dramatically after the first couple months of the war. They wasted their missiles blowing up hundreds or thousands of militarily irrelevant civilian targets (apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, etc.). External experts don’t have perfect knowledge of Russian supplies, but the most plausible inference is that the Russian military is out of whatever stores they were willing to use here. (Presumably there is still some reserve, but missiles getting used are not being obviously replaced.)
What the Russian military does have a lot of compared to Ukraine is artillery and artillery ammo, and unguided rocket launchers. Pretty much all of the stockpiled 152 mm (Soviet caliber) artillery ammo in Europe was already sent to Ukraine and Ukraine has almost run through it all, but Ukraine doesn’t yet have enough 155 mm (NATO caliber) howitzers to replace the 152 mm artillery that is out of ammo. Hopefully they will get hundreds more NATO howitzers in the coming weeks and months.
> I was under the impression that Ukraine's air defense is just our air defense, just 20 years out of date.
My impression is that Ukraine's air defence is whatever they can get their hands on (and rightly so). This (I think) includes everything from old Soviet and western systems to relatively new western systems. From the fairly-recent essay [0] by General Zaluzhnyi*:
The number of anti-aircraft missile systems was
significantly increased mainly due to Western-made assets, in particular, "Martlet",
"Starstreak", "Javelin", "Piorun", "Mistral", "Stinger", "Grom" man-portable air-defence
systems, "Gepard" self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, "Skynex" air defence gun systems,
"Avenger", "Stormer", "Patriot", "Hawk", "IRIS-T", "NASAMS", "SAMP-T", "Crotale-NG"
air defence systems.
> And I'm also under the impression that what needs defending from isn't going to look like what Russian does now, as Russia is essentially a failed state, using tech that's even older.
Whether or not Russia is a failed state is a very different matter than the current state of Russia's missile/artrillery/drone stockpiles. As I understand it, what Russia does now is not hugely different from what Ukraine does now as far as air attack is concerned (cruise/ballistic missiles, drones, artillery, bombs, etc.), though there are of course differences in the details and the amount of ammunition available, and these change over time. I don't have a non-paywalled link to back this up, here are some (approximate) quotes from a recent episode of a podcast conversation between three defense analyists who seem to be pro-Ukrainian, but mostly not at the expense of accurate analysis [1]:
The Russians do things at scale pretty well. Right, so they're slow to adapt, but when
they get hit once or twice in the face, they do adapt. And then they do things at scale
pretty quickly.
... when we talk about drones, you know FPV, Ukraine was the first to really adapt and
experiment with FPVs, last winter, maybe last fall. They did this before the Russians
did this in any numbers, but ... a lot of production is still on a unit-by-unit basis,
individual guys building stuff in apartments. The Russians waited, but now they are
producing them at scale, and so now on multiple parts of the front line the Russians have
a quantitative advantage in FPVs. And so basically when we talk about the Russian military,
they're slow to adapt, but when they do adapt, they then produce things in large numbers,
pretty quickly, and they become more resilient than some people imagine.
There is a danger of wishcasting. There is a danger, and this has been present from the
start, even before this war, of these stereotypes about the Russians, and maybe some
stereotypes too about the Ukrainians, ... and it's not actually beneficial to the
Ukrainians to have this ... 'Russians are clownshoes' narrative out there.
Defense establishments do not do nuance. They understand that the adversary is either
twelve feet tall or four feet tall, but they are not good at ... understanding that
forces evolve over time, the relative balance between them, the militaries change. You
don't have the same forces fighting in 2023 that you had in 2022, or fighting in the same
way.
* Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
>Now please quote any achievements of post-Soviet Ukraine.
How about establishing a country its citizens care for? Ukrainian army is revered; compare this to Russians who consider (not without a point) their army to be a bunch of losers and criminals; nobody goes to army in Russia unless they got no other options (cf https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1499377671855292423 and other threads there). Same about the military industry; let me remind you Russia can’t manufacture tanks anymore - and not because of electronics, but metallurgy.
> Looking at this war (and compare it to the fighting in 2014-2015) it is very noticeable how much a progress Ukraine has made in the last 8 years and in particular absorbing all the new developments in the technology while Russia in many areas hasn't progressed since 1945.
Even worse than that for Russia. The "Moskova" was created in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
The warship itself was a creation of the USSR, but has more to do with Ukraine's manufacturing prowess than present-day Russia.
Russia wants to pretend that the USSR's history is Russia and Russia's alone. That's why Russia wants to erase Ukrainian history. But this war is proving that Ukrainian contributions to the old USSR's power was mighty and cannot be ignored.
------
The mighty warship was created by Ukraine, and brought down by Ukrainian missiles. The story here is really about how Russia has forgotten their Slavic brother's contributions to the USSR.
EDIT: It is quite possible that Ukrainians knew some kind of weakness to the ship that they exploited during the attack.
> Ukrainian military was one if not the most trained professional army in Europe. Second to none. With enough military supplies, fortified trenches and predefined logistical support, trained on NATO standards. The Russians, which we believed to be inferior, actually adapted to the task and without mobilization are winning.
Are you trying to pivot the russian narrative into a underdog story?
> I wonder to what extent advice and training of Ukrainian forces, not to mention real-time intelligence, has aided the Ukrainians in denying Russia air superiority.
I read somewhere that Soviet-style air defense turns out to be most effective against Soviet-style air forces. Basically Western militaries have never invested heavily in SAMs, but invested heavily in anti-SAM weapons an tactics; while Soviet-style militaries did the opposite. That leaves Soviet-style forces with with very good SAM capabilities and weak air forces without the ability to counter it.
> Ukraine has repelled Russia very effectively with just manpads, ATGMs and NATO intelligence.
Ukraine has effectively repelled Russia because it's the second biggest military in Europe after Russia, and second strongest air defence in Europe after Russia.
This is the sole biggest factor without saying which, everything else is meaningless.
>arms export is a pretty sweet way (relatively) for a new country to get some nice cashflow.
Ukraine was delivering relatively modern tanks - T-84 - to Thailand about the time when they outlawed Russian language while its army still had the old T-64. Historic lesson - putting your army on modern tanks should be the first step while outlawing a language of a major minority - second - and not otherwise :)
I am pretty sure they've had them for a long time, not least because they did multiple river crossings, many successful. Their army is quite capable, and was already quite capable prior to the post-February wave of foreign support. For example in the air defense department, as far as Europe goes they were only second to Russia (though the missiles are starting to run out).
Ukraine was deeply integrated into the USSR and even Russian military industrial complex - shipbuilding (after Moskva sank the remaining best ships in the Black Sea Fleet are made in Ukraine, Mykolaiv I think), engines (both turbojet/turbofan and rocket), whole aircraft manufacturing (Antonov), assembly of armored vehicles ... The lead designer of R-7, the first serious space rocket and the reason why Russians think they won the space race, was a Ukrainian.
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