Why the Russian Military is Floundering in Ukraine; KILL LIST Putin’s losses mount with 9 commanders among ‘12,000 killed’; Zelensky slams the West over Polish fighter jet confusion: ‘Solve it faster’, NY Post/WSJ: Russia-Ukraine News LATEST UPDATES, and related stories

By admin On Mar 9, 2022

Why the Russian military is floundering in Ukraine:

It’s been two weeks, and Vladimir Putin still has not taken Kyiv. The war in Ukraine is a Rorschach test: One observer sees a Russian war machine continuing to grind forward, ineptly but ultimately irresistibly. A second squints and sees a Russian army in a quagmire of its own making — out of gas, out of food and dangerously low on fighting spirit.

It’s important to keep this in perspective: The Kremlin is still favored to win this fight through sheer weight of men, materiel and firepower. The Russian army is not, as some have said, a piper tiger. Instead, it’s a wounded tiger. And a wounded, desperate animal is a dangerous one.

Putin has made two critical mistakes. First, he did not expect to encounter a Ukrainian people in arms. He did not expect the Ukrainian army to put up a fierce, stubborn resistance in the field. And he did not expect to face off with a comedian-turned-president who has turned out to be a savvy social-media star with the spirit of a latter-day Winston Churchill.

Second, the Russian dictator frankly expected more out of his own troops.

After suffering severe neglect in the ’90s, during Russia’s post-Soviet financial crisis, the army began to reorganize and modernize with the strengthening of the Russian economy under Putin. The Russians spent vast sums of money over the last 20 years to modernize and improve their equipment and kit — everything from new main battle tanks to, in 2013, ordering Russian troopers to finally retire the traditional portyanki foot wraps and switch to wool socks. —>READ MORE HERE

KILL LIST Putin’s losses mount with NINE commanders among ‘12,000 killed’ as Kremlin official calls invasion a ‘clusterf***’

NINE of Vladimir Putin’s military commanders have now been killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

They are among the 12,000 Russian troops Ukraine now claims it has killed, as one Kremlin official has reportedly described the campaign to subdue its neighbour as a “clusterf***”.

The latest senior commander to die is Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, who was killed in fighting outside Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv.

Gerasimov was awarded a medal for “capturing” the disputed province of Crimea in 2014, and also received medals after leading troops in Syria and in the second Chechen war.

Three other top commanders have were killed in recent fighting in Ukraine.

Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Safronov, who led a Marine brigade, died along with Lieutenant Colonel Denis Glebov and Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky, who led air assault troops.