Is this the biggest military blunder since Hitler's Operation Barbarossa?

[Elwood P Dowd]

It looks like Russia will have to level every city and kill millions of people in order to control Ukraine. Even if they throw 200,000 troops into the operation, they still have 43 million people to deal with. That's an awful bad ratio - for every Russian solder you have 215 Ukrainians who want to kill them.

[COL Mustard]

1. That's the problem.

The Russians brought tanks to a sunflower seed war!

[lame54]

5. ...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. This seriously sounds like something from The Move.

I'll grab a video.

[PortTack]

2. Agree!

[lame54]

3. A week ago Putin was the most feared man in the world...

Now he is an international punchline

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. Yep, with the exception of a few countries and a few million Trump voters, most of planet earth

wants Putin and his military destroyed. Plus, he is destroying his country's economy and uniting NATO in the process.

[Wingus Dingus]

18. Well, he's still feared, but mostly because

he's a psycho.

[uponit7771]

28. +1, his whore in America still fears him though. He's been kinda quite lately about his pimp

[lagomorph777]

4. Huge mistake.

Putrid will be destroyed by this.

[SoonerPride]

6. It was doomed from the start

Modern military warfare is good at taking out buildings, bridges, infrastructure.

But unless you kill everyone - and I do mean everyone - then your occupying force is simply unsustainable.

The USSR faced this in Afghanistan.

The US faced this in Iraq & Afghanistan.

It will be a slow bleed of troops and treasure that goes forever until you finally decide you have had enough.

Then you leave.

And what did you get for your trouble?

Nothing.

Even if Putin's army takes control of Ukraine and drives Zelensky into exile or the the grave, they won't hold Ukraine.

It was always a doomed effort.

[Happy Hoosier]

8. It's a pretty massive blunder, that's for sure.

Russia will have a black eye that lasts for a generation or more and their military reputation is in the pooper.

[former9thward]

10. This action is not even a week old.

Ukraine is a country the size of Texas. It would take any army a long time to invade. In WW II when the allies attacked Germany it took nearly a year to reach Berlin and even at the end of the war much of Germany was still in Nazi control. We have grown used to 1/2 hour tv programs and that seems to be about the time people think something in real life gets done.

We will not know for a year, maybe several years, the success or failure of this invasion.

[Irish_Dem]

11. In my book, he is a military laughing stock.

I really have no idea how he screwed up this military operation so badly.
I am beginning to wonder if the US had some hand in sabotaging Putin in some way.

Unfortunately from a psychological standpoint, the world wide humiliation makes him more dangerous. A narcissist cannot stand criticism or being shamed.

Especially since he was certain that he could change the world order with this military campaign and emerge as a 21st century force to be reckoned with.

[samsingh]

15. The West wanted to support Russia after the fall of the USSR and gave them

very favorable policies. Yeltsin who provided some leadership to Russia for some reason gave his support to putin. Instead of continuing the Democratic direction, he decided to become a dictator who easily conquered the American Republican Party and hired Trump to work for him as President. I believe he thought he owned enough support in the US to cause confusion and to get away with it. It was never ability leadership or talent but rather corruption of the traitors in the repug party who sold out to him, as well as the plants in the other parties like susan sarandon who, in my view, are duped or bought by russia.

[Irish_Dem]

22. We learned from WWI, that if you severely humiliate and punish an enemy

they will come back even harder, and start another war. So after WWII we went easy on Germany and Japan and helped them re-build. They became our allies, not our enemies.

Yes, absolutely. Putin was able to do a soft invasion of the US. He owned a sitting president, half the US government and US media. Putin never fired a shot. It was like taking candy from a baby. The GOP let him in the front door. Yes so many people were bought off by Russia.

Putin weakened the US greatly and this made him feel invincible.

Putin wanted this military action to change the world order. He believes he could be a strong and feared 21st century superpower. He would control the West, China would control the East. China would take Taiwan. This plan has been in the works for some time.

[regnaD kciN]

34. We "learned" only through dumb luck...

The initial plans after WWII were to hit Germany even harder – to break it up into several entities, all of which would have their industrial production destroyed and made to live as agrarian societies without militaries. That was the plan until Stalin pulled off his land-grab of Eastern Europe, and suddenly the idea of a strong (West) Germany allied with us seemed a better alternative.

[Irish_Dem]

37. That may have been part of it. But the Marshall Plan was very successful, a well thought out plan.

[WarGamer]

12. Barbarossa involved 7 million soldiers moving across thousands of miles.

No this isn't comparable to Barbarossa.

[Polybius]

13. Kuwait, 1990 was a huge blunder too

Iraq had no idea that we would get involved.

[marie999]

30. The US ambassador April Glaspie to Iraq, told Saddam,

that we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. He took that to mean it was okay with the US for Iraq to invade Kuwait. Whether or not she meant that, who knows. She later explained to Congress, "We had no idea he would go that far. I made a huge mistake.". Ambassadors are not supposed to make that kind of mistake. Would Saddam have invaded Kuwait if the US told him no, we will never know, but he probably would have.

[regnaD kciN]

35. It wouldn't have been a blunder if the U.S. had stayed out....

…like we’re currently doing in Ukraine.

[Polybius]

44. Wish we would have

Bush's love war.

[Irish_Dem]

14. Could the US have somehow sabotaged Putin's military plan?

It just doesn't seem possible for Putin to have screwed up this badly on his own?

[uponit7771]

26. There's a Russian propaganda video that was supposed to air 2 days after the attack began claiming

... Russia liberated UKR from Nazis and bandits.

It was official Russian and people are prosing Putler thought this was going to be a two day operation like it was in 2014 when 98% of UKR equipment didn't work.

Put NO DOUBT thought this was going to be a short haul and now he's out of food and fuel, fuel trucks are streaming into Belarus though, I wonder if URK forces can hit them too

[Irish_Dem]

32. It is a total cluster F from a military standpoint.

I just don't understand how Putin could screw up so badly.
Even their PR was terrible.

I think Putin felt invincible after his successful soft invasion of the US.
Owned a sitting US president, half the US congress, and US media. The GOP let him in the front door. It was like taking candy from a baby. He was an evil genius. It all went to his head and he felt invincible. And thought Ukraine and Europe was his for the taking.

He didn't listen to his generals or his intel. He was like Hitler, thought he knew better than anyone. Typical narcissist.

[uponit7771]

36. +1, RA is ate up while the UA is operating on all cylinders attacking naked RA support troops.

Even their PR was terrible.

EXACTLY !!!

I did a thread on how UKR's PR is killing Putrid and how dems SHOULD copy it here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216421357

He didn't listen to his generals or his intel. He was like Hitler, thought he knew better than anyone. Typical narcissist.

Yep, could you imagine what the US would have to go through if we were attacked while Putrid's Whore was in office

[Irish_Dem]

39. Zelensky is a genius. He is winning a war using WORDS.

I never saw anything like it.

Yes the US is in denial and not winning the war here against PutinGOP.
They will takeover the US state by state by getting control of the voting apparatus. We will become an autocratic white christian minority rule.
The GOP will have permanent power and access to all US assets. Just like Putin in Russia. Rule by corrupt oligarchs.

Yes unless we start doing something it is going to be too late.
We will have lost our democracy and wonder how it happened.

[drray23]

38. Well, we are certainly feeding intel to the Ukrainians

Position of Russian units, where to attack, etc.. I think it was reported this was happening.

[Irish_Dem]

40. Yes I am beginning to think there was more covert work going on

before anything even started.

[Wingus Dingus]

16. I believe it's a horrible mistake.

He could have sliced off the disputed territories at minimal cost to Russia in the long term, like he did with Crimea. It probably wouldn't have even hastened Ukraine entering NATO. But full scale invasion, with rationales that are completely 100% ridiculous--he miscalculated badly. Someone convinced him Ukraine would quickly fold and embrace Russia, and he believed it. Probably because of how things went down in 2014.

[uponit7771]

27. +1, the eastern fight in 14 took 2 days for RU forces to win because 98% of UKR equipment failed

... it was old and had been sitting in storage for decades

[sarisataka]

19. Ask me in a year

After the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 people might have said the colonists made a huge mistake. Six years later the strongest military in the world at that ime conceded defeat.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

20. Operation Barbarossa was 5 months long, we got a ways to go, it's going to be a grinding war

Hope Russian people can pressure him to stop.

[temporary311]

21. It does seem pretty bad.

Maybe not (so far) as bad as Napleon's invasion of Russia or the Athenian attempt to conquer Syracuse, but it's not looking great.

[uponit7771]

23. Barbarossa was VERY successful at first before Hitler split up forces to go after symbolic crap like

... taking a city with no strategic purpose vs taking the oil.

[JustAnotherGen]

24. I hope not

The Germans kept at it for what? 4 months before the Soviets finally pushed them back? And at the expense of the starvation of Russians, and murder of about 1M Russians who were Jewish.

I hope not - but it sure looks as stupid and fruitless as Hitler's op.

[Hortensis]

25. Putin is a ruthless and cruel killer. It's only a blunder to him if it

fails to expand Russia's area of control as needed and of course costs him his power.

He's been expanding control in other nearby nations nonmilitarily or at least, without large-scale military invasion, and now he's willing to do what he had to to put an end to Ukraine's independence and development into a western liberal democracy.

Reminds of the Mongols, who conquered nearly all of Eurasia. Their armies would appear out of the dustclouds their galloping ponies threw up, everyone's worst nightmare, and make cities an offer: surrender immediately to live on mostly as before as semiautonomous subjects or be massacred to the last person. Their reputation preceded them, of course.

[Wingus Dingus]

31. I don't know, western nations can make it ultimately FEEL like a blunder for the

Russian people, no matter what the Kremlin says, with prolonged economic punishment and cultural isolation (assuming Putin prevails and crushes insurgencies and resistance groups). I doubt the ordinary Russian is going to be puffed up with pride at having subjugated smaller, weaker Ukraine, to begin with. Add continued pariah status and economic woes as payment for the invasion? It's the rest of the world's job to make it NOT worth it.

[Hortensis]

42. Yes, but unhappy Russians'd only matter if they stopped Putin,

limited the deaths and destruction, and kept him from achieving his goals. Otherwise, so what if they're unhappy? He has to consider voters in their faux elections a bit, but Russia's not exactly a democracy.

Fwiw, I believe over time the world will make it NOT worth it, the imperial Russian goal itself his own and not worth it to even to sympathetic Russians, but itm he's going for the big dream and not counting any costs he doesn't have to. His predecessors caused the deaths of millions of Russians, and others, while pursuing theirs.

[Disaffected]

29. I'm not sure that is a very good comparison.

Operation Barbarossa came within a hair's breadth of succeeding - they Germans made it to the suburbs of Moscow and if Moscow had fallen, it would have been over as it was the central hub of the Russian economy, industrial base, transportation, communication etc.

Hitler's mistake was postponing Barbarossa for a month or two (to allow for an invasion of Greece or some-such) which turned out to be fatal as the ensuring Russian winter was one of the coldest on record and the German army was not sufficiently equipped for cold weather operations. The Germans in fact lost more personnel and equipment to the weather than to combat.

This BTW is one reason the Russians have been over the years fearful of foreign powers of any nature on their doorstep.

[yellowcanine]

33. No but it is a blunder. Putin has revealed that Russia is no

match for NATO imo.

[msongs]

41. hitleer launched barbarossa 7 weeks too late near the end of June instead of early May

the extra 6 weeks might have been a winner for him to knock out the soviets before winter came but.....too bad

[Elwood P Dowd]

43. Plus, in 1942 he fucked up and sent some of his armies to Stalingrad, another colossal blunder.

By February, 1943 The Soviets had killed or captured hundreds of thousands of German, Italian and Romanian troops, and the war on the Eastern Front turned.