https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/02/06/us-troops-poland-2/Assessing the Military Strength of Russia and Ukraine
Russia may not the hold the military advantage media reports indicate.
Giselle Donnelly
1 hr ago
A unit of the Southern Military District of Russia. (Photo by Russian Defense Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.)
As tensions between Russia and the West approach a boiling point over Ukraine, two questions come to the fore: What is Vladimir Putin thinking? And what is the Russian military capable of doing?
The answers to both are uncertain, but thinking through the second should be a prerequisite for tackling the first. Alas, much of the recent press speculation suffers, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or Alan Greenspan might say, from a kind of irrational exuberance. In particular, there has been a profusion of lurid “invasion maps” slashed with multiple scarlet arrows encircling Kyiv—this one from England’s Daily Mail is not atypical—as though it was 1943 come again and Marshal Georgy Zhukov has been exhumed to lead the charge westward.
Map from the Daily Mail.
Not the Red Army
There has also been a profusion of articles summarizing Russian military modernization and reforms since the end of the Cold War and highlighting Russian successes in Syria and elsewhere, including Ukraine in 2014. “Russia’s Military, Once Creaky, Is Modern and Lethal,” headlines the New York Times. Under “Putin’s leadership,” the paper reports, the Russian military “has been overhauled into a modern sophisticated army, able to deploy quickly and with lethal effect in conventional conflicts. … It features precision-guided weaponry, a newly streamlined command structure and well-fed and professional soldiers.”
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/02/06/us-troops-poland-2/
