I’ve a couple items I want to expand on a bit, but not necessarily develop at length. Hopefully these short expanded thoughts will be interesting.
Lessons learned. Eventually.
It is tempting to do an analysis of why things happen the way they do in a war, but it is also pretty premature to do so when it’s so recent. There are top-down and bottom-up analyses to be made, but it’s not at all clear that any made now will be relevant. I think this thread makes some correct observations, but the findings are unsupported and “just so.”
Many critical environmental factors are missing from this analysis. For example, the objectives for the Russian advance towards Kyiv and the logistical constraints and force composition enforced a particular style of operation. There are different issues at play with Ukraine in Kharkiv and Kherson; for example, they are attacking much smaller areas, and they lack the heavy armour for major “iron fist” offensives.
Are there doctrinal differences? Of course. Does this analysis expose them? Definitely not.
Multicultural armies need sensitivity training
So it turns out that cultural sensitivity training is actually critical to running a modern military. If you’re going to have a multicultural force, you can’t really go around insulting them.
Allegedly: A group of Muslim soldiers said they didn’t want to fight in Ukraine, it wasn’t their war. The Lieutenant Colonel tells them it’s a Holy War, which …you know, is between Muslims and unbelievers, not Russians and Ukrainians. The Muslims object and the Lt Col says Allah is a coward. An hour later they’re at the shooting range and shoot the colonel dead.
The military also notes that those who opened the shooting were ardent supporters of their faith and repeatedly quarreled with the command for not being allowed to pray on time and not allotted a prayer room.