What is Wrong With Russia’s Military?

Good morning, good news! Russia is failing in their war on Ukraine despite being better equipped, having more soldiers, and spending $25 billion dollars a day on this unprovoked invasion. According to military analysts, Russia has largely stalled on all fronts, and Russian forces have made minimal progress on land, sea, and air, while continuing to suffer heavy losses. 

But how is it possible that the second most powerful military in the world is losing so badly to a military that isn’t even in the top 20? The fact is, Russia’s failures all stem from the same dysfunction: Russian politics and military culture value corruption and ego above accountability and preparedness, so let's take a look at what the hell is wrong with Russia’s military.

Despite throwing hundreds of thousands of soldiers, tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters, fighter jets, drones, heavy artillery, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and bombs upon bombs upon bombs at Ukraine… after 3 weeks of terror, all Putin has to show for it is between 7,000 and 14,000 dead Russian soldiers, total economic collapse back home, and just a single captured city in Ukraine, and it’s not even Ukraine’s capital.

Their failures start from the beginning: Russia’s plan for invasion was put together in secret by a group of Putin’s yes-men, whose first priority is affirming to Putin that Russia is an unbeatable superpower. Voicing the fact that this isn’t true is liable to get you fired from your position or even arrested. Moreover, the people Putin has surrounded himself with are just as conspiratorial and incompetent as he is. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Putin’s core belief is that Ukraine is a part of Russia, as is the rest of the former Soviet Union.

He genuinely thinks that Ukrainians are desperate to return to the motherland, and it’s just their fascist governments that want to be independent. So naturally, Putin expected his military would meet little to no resistance from the Ukrainian people, which is why the original invasion was expected to take just 15 days.

As a result, Russia’s plan was simply to send a large and unsupported force of tanks and soldiers into major cities, round up their elected officials, and call it a day. Instead, Ukrainians fought back fiercely, and immediately disabled Russia’s supply lines, bogged down their tanks, and began slaughtering their invaders who were now trapped without support, food, or fuel. And it’s important to note that this lack of support is also due to a fundamental problem with the Russian government. 

It’s no secret that politics in Russia is fundamentally corrupt, with everyone skimming off the top and cutting corners for their own benefit. Trying to engage in the largest land war in Europe since World War Two with a military supply system that priorities personally profiting government officials rather than actually procuring the correct amount of equipment and supplies has essentially uncovered the most basic flaw in their kleptocratic government. On paper, Russia is the second most powerful military on earth, 

but the real-world conditions in Russia’s military are abysmal. Training is inadequate, morale is non-existent, and some sources note that “The quality of food and housing in the Russian military is reportedly worse than in its prisons”. And of course, as is being widely reported, the Russian soldiers sent into Ukraine have no idea why they’re there. Many were told they were just going for training on the Ukrainian border, others said that Ukraine was full of N*zis, or that Ukrainians would welcome them with open arms.

Almost immediately, Russian soldiers realized that this was not even remotely true, and that they were mostly fighting against innocent civilians protecting their homes and families. And that’s really the final piece of the puzzle: no matter how badly Russia’s unhinged dictator wants to conquer Europe - many of the people he is sending into harm's way don’t share his ambitions.

As Western sanctions decimate the economy back home, and thousands of young protestors are arrested for holding blank pieces of paper: those immediate effects are significantly more important to a Russian soldier than the demands of Vladimir Putin. The entire world has united in support of Ukraine, and instead of the global domination Putin intended, he has now become a global pariah, and plunged his own country into a cataclysmic collapse from which it may never fully recover. In other words, what’s wrong with Russia’s military? Putin’s ego.