Yesterday, a thunderstorm rolled through Kharkiv at sunset. The last gasps of a dying sun pierced the clouds with its golden light. Heavy showers fell from heaven, and lightning lit up the sky. Blasts of light dominated the horizon for two hours of kinetic frenzy. I sat on my windowsill taking video, eventually able to capture that electric sky.
“This would be a perfect time for Russia to hit us,” I thought macabrely.
The moan of the air raid siren entered the scene less than a second later.
“Yea, that’s what I’d do,” I nodded sagely.
On the frontline, Russia is losing momentum in its Kharkiv-related endeavors. Part of their problem is that they’re never patient enough to wait until they have overwhelming force in bulk before starting their operations. They were supposed to build-up 90,000 troops on the Belgorod border, but they began their operations with 60,000. These are the problems that arise when you can’t speak truth to power ALL the way up a chain of command, and the problems just get brushed under the rug until they become so burdensome that someone gets “disciplined” like a scapegoat for an individual incident, when in fact, it’s the system that promotes irresponsibility and failure.
It’s not that Russians are stupid. It’s that the entire country is run by liars and manipulators who thrive in Putin’s system, but as it turns out, when you need to make sure that trains run on time, supplies are steady, there are no bottlenecks in the chain, and at least 90% of the product makes it to its destination, liars and manipulators fail to ensure success.
Basically, Russia is run by what the famous American General Omar Bradley would call, “strategists.”
They’re really good at spycraft, diplomacy, and misinformation; but when it comes to keeping the soldiers fed and armed they fail spectacularly. This is why there’s such a technical crisis and worker shortage in the country. It turns out ex-KGB members aren’t the best economists. And luckily for Ukraine, they’re not very good military minds either.
In the words of Bradley, “Amateurs talk strategy, and professionals talk logistics.”
This is why Russia is attempting radical reforms that look dangerously successful. It’s purging the “Shoigu-ites” and appointing people who know things, rather than people who lie about knowing things, while their only real skill is silencing rivals in Putin’s Game of Thrones. Appointing a major economist to run the military is a sure sign that even the Russians are realizing that simple logistics matter more than clever schemes.
But at the end of the day, the real lesson in all this is that offensives of all forms in this war have been consistently overhyped. The reality is, once you put down the kind of defensive infrastructure like the Russians and Ukrainians have done, no amount of manpower can easily break through, so you’re left with this grinding war of attrition. It’s not that territorial gains are impossible. It’s that they’re ineffective at achieving victory. Large-scale wars like this one are won in the farms and factories not on the battlefield. Neither side has completely learned this lesson yet, but both slowly seem to be waking up to the idea. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
It doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon, but it can change in heartbeat.
So, we just keep waiting for our moment.
And the drones keep buzzing overhead.
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