Member-only story
Russia: it’s not a bug, its a feature- The Russian and Soviet armies were never good at warfighting.
Their problems in Ukraine are hardly unique.
Many people were surprised at the ineptitude of the Russian “Special Military Operation” and the subpar performance of Russian soldiers and equipment. A historic lense gives a clue why one should not have been surprised.
Firstly I want to stress to my Russian friends who had their grandfathers fight in the Great War(WW2) that I am not talking about individual soldiers and acts of bravery and heroics-nor trying to tarnish their memory.
This is about the Russian leadership over hundreds of years and what disdain they have for the average rank and file that makes up their armies. And that Putin, and not anyone else, is the greatest killer of Russians in recent history.
A historical perspective
Certainly you can go way back to Alexander Nevsky and his fight against my ancestors, the Prussians, on the war on ice- to see Russian military prowess there. You could look to Ivan the Great who was the first to unite territory and begin to shake off the Tatar yoke.
You could look a bit later at another Ivan,Ivan Grozni or Ivan the Terrible, who took Kazan and Astrahan and stabbed at the…
