A lot of puzzling things going on in this conflict so far. The twitter thread posted above leaves me with a lot of questions, and some disagreements.
1. I agree with
@Feanor that I don't believe that they made up BTG's with a mish mash of companies from different units or that they lacked in planning support for these units. Aren't these BTG's supposed to be combined arms units with organic support companies? And because they are supposed to be THE maneuver unit for Russian conops, wouldn't a parent unit concentrate their best troops in one battalion because that would be the unit that will be deployed if necessary. Also wouldn't it be better to concentrate your best troops in one unit to keep the negative externalities that come with lower morale and/or conscript units away from them so as to assure at least the combat effectiveness of that unit?
2. But is there some credence in arguments that say that these are not all the best troops Russia has available? One analyst on the Duran (I know they're biased) made the argument that a lot of the units are green, and not the battle hardened veterans and other highly experienced troops. The above mentioned twitterer also hinted at this, only he suggested there where inexperienced companies interspersed into larger units. One more thing that makes me suspect there's credence in this argument is the battle damage reports that
@Feanor so kindly keeps us updated with. Those show a lot of destroyed T-72's, and BMP2's, some T-80's and in
@Feanor 's latest post I saw a destroyed BMP-3. But there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of very new, or top of the line equipment among the wreckage I've seen so far. The lack of air coverage is another indicator of coarse.
So what does this mean? I could be totally wrong and I'm not looking close enough. But are the Russians not sending in their best units just yet? Or do they just don't have enough T-80's, T-90's and BMP-3's to equip these units? Another explanation could be that they are using this conflict to "bloody" their less experienced troops? That could lend credence to the argument that they are encountering more resistance than they where expecting, and they bit of more than their "green" troops could chew? But then again, wouldn't you send in your best troops in the initial assault?
3. One more thing that puzzles me is that the Russians look to be trying very hard to avoid civilian casualties. This is laudable of course, however in the thread above
@Feanor was wondering about the formation of Russian troops following an armored vehicle and talking about the possibility of ambushes. This video was filmed from an apartment overlooking these troops moving through a city street. And when I think about it, they could post ambushes or snipers in plenty of places. It is after all an urban environment and that can be hell to fight in, but the Russians aren't going door to door clearing houses like we've seen for example in Fallujah. This would instantly make the soldiers extremely unpopular. But I haven't seen reports that the Ukrainians are engaging in such tactics either, so it looks that other than in Kyiv there has not been a lot of tactics used that would make the civilian population a target.
4. Speaking of these tactics, one of the most bewildering things I've seen is the Ukrainians handing out weapons to people in Kyiv. Have they been doing this anywhere else? Or is this some desperate thing they're doing there and most local leaders are keeping more level headed about this? Because I think arming random civilians is a terrible idea! For one it makes all civilians a target because you don't know who is dangerous. Plenty of innocent people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan because civilians where indistinguishable from combatants.
Another thing, that we've seen already, is the possibility of friendly fire. Or people mistaking each other for the enemy, like the reports where captured "infiltrators" where not and their mission getting hindered by rando's with AK's. And besides all of that, even the supposed upsides are not what they seem. Holding a line with untrained civilians who don't know military tactics, have questionable weapon handling skills and morale doesn't seem like a recipe for success.
5. Finally, as for the goals of this operation... Well none of us are mind readers, so we can't say anything with certainty. But we can make inferences from what we see, and the events over the last days and the shape the battlefield is taking do seem to indicate a number of things. For one I disagree with the people saying that the Russians want to conquer or occupy Ukraine, I have never though this, and I stand by it. To think that the Russians expected to be invited in like liberators or that they expected the Ukrainians not to be hostile. Any rational person ,and I think Putin and the Russian high command to be at least that, wouldn't expect that any people will be receptive to a foreign army rolling through their streets, causing mayhem and disrupting their lives.
I think they are securing the area's that they absolutely want to be "up for discussion" and they avoid the rest. What we see is that they are assaulting in the South, because they want something with or for the Crimea. They let the "rebels" in the East make some territorial gains, and they attack Kyiv to force a surrender or negotiations. So in my opinion they have no interest in Kyiv, but it's necessary to for leverage. And their offensives in the South and the East are to create a "de facto" situation if negotiations don't get them what they want.
