How's It Going Vlad?

Well D'uh

This war thing isn't going as promised by Vladimir Putin. A friend of mine alerted to this bit floating around the internet:

Pulled this from Twitter - from a European parliamentarian named Riho Terras

Doesn't sounds promising for the Russians - in fact this could end in complete humiliation for them.

Intel from a Ukrainian officer about a meeting in Putin’s lair in Urals. Oligarchs convened there so no one would flee. Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days.

Russians didn’t have a tactical plan. The war costs about $20 bln/day. There are rockets for 3-4 days at most, they use them sparingly. They lack weapons, the Tula and 2 Rotenberg plants can’t physically fulfil the orders for weapons. Rifles and ammo are the most they can do.

The next Russian weapons can be produced in 3-4 months – if even that. They have no raw materials. What was previously supplied mainly from Slovenia, Finland and Germany is now cut off.

If Ukraine manages to hold the Russians off for 10 days, then the Russians will have to enter negotiations. Because they have no money, weapons, or resources. Nevertheless, they are indifferent about the sanctions.

Alpha Spec Ops have been near Kyiv since the 18th February. The goal was to take Kyiv and instal a puppet regime. They are preparing provocations against innocent civilians – women and children – to sow panic. This is their trump card.

Russia’s whole plan relies on panic – that the civilians and armed forces surrender and Zelensky flees. They expect Kharkiv to surrender first so the other cities would follow suit to avoid bloodshed. The Russians are in shock of the fierce resistance they have encountered.

The Ukrainians must avoid panic! The missile strikes are for intimidation, the Russians fire them at random to “accidentally” hit residential buildings to make the attack look larger than it really is.

Googling the text got me this. Who is Riho Terras? Looking at the Wikipedia entry at least, he seems to be somebody who would know a thing or two about the Russian military machine. Last night the news was how Kyiv (got to get used to that spelling now LOLz) had not fallen, and a quick glance through the headlines shows it still hasn't fallen as I write this entry. 

What's amazing is that the Russians seem to have blundered into Ukraine thinking they might be welcomed by the panic-ed arms of its citizenry. Just the formulation of that idea seems incredibly stupid, but it seems that was what they were expecting. How wrong were they to be facing fierce resistance?

What is also astounding is that in this day and age they went marching in without a great deal of thought given to logistics. There are reports the tanks have run out of fuel. They had this issue in the Chechnya  war in the 90s. 20 years later under Putin, they haven't improved upon their weaknesses in the least bit. It is a complicated thing to run a modern war with all these components. Doing it without the requisite logistical support is impossible. What on earth were they thinking? 

We had the report the troops were selling off their small arms and ammo for vodka during the long encampment, and there are even reports in the NY Pot no less, that these low morale troops are also trying to hook up with Ukrainian women on Tinder. I mean, that, in isolation, is no big deal; however it seems to indicate the months of training at the border hasn't instilled a tremendous sense of mission in the invading troops. There going in with the mindset of The Abduction of the Sabine Women, rather than say, Ride of the Valkyries.   

So to Ukraine we say hold on, hang in there and fight for as long as you can. Putin can't keep this up. The world is with you. We just can't send troops in fear of outright nuclear war, but short of that, we're with you in spirit.