acrashb

Here I have to diverge.  The plan was doomed by bad strategy both political and military - capability only guaranteed it.  This is why I claim no prescience before the war because until we saw the actual strategy could the outcome become clearer.  For example and one you used, if Russia had focused solely on the Donbas and limited objectives we would likely be seeing a very different outcome, sucky tactical capability and all.  It was the absurd political objectives misaligned with strategy and reality that killed this thing, the UA’s ability to reinvent warfare made sure it was going to happen faster and across a broader set of possible outcomes - to the point I am note sure how the RA could have pulled this off as they were built for another war entirely.
It isn’t western thinking it is military professional thinking, something Russia lacked.  Find me a military school of thought, east or west where this was a good idea.  A lot of this is arguing with simple physics and some pretty simple rules of war - like effective concentration of forces, unity of command and selection and maint of the aim for starters.
I agree but you are really stretching the concept of an effective plan here.  A term I employ is “relative rationality”, sure from inside the Russian bubble it was a great plan, we love this plan!  But inside that bubble was mass delusion reinforced by an autocrat who does not tolerate dissent.  Just because everyone opinion the room believes it is a great plan doesn’t mean it is in reality…the last 7-8 months have been a glorious testimony to that fact.  A plan based on fantasy does not have merit, even if they really believed in that fantasy.
Relative rationality and progressive unreality are absolute poison to military planning - trust me I have flogged enough majors with this over the years.  A “good plan” is aligned with reality, certainty and capability.  It ensures the certainty one is pursuing is going to be well communicated, supports a position of stronger negotiation and keeps the sacrifice to a min.  The Russian strategy had none of that, except in this world they totally made up.
Steve, no I do not buy into the post-truth world.  Bribe, lie, cheat and murder may get me on a runway in Paris but reality is going to come crashing down sooner than later.  Reality is squishy, I get that, but it is not that flexible, nor is a plan so detached from it.  I can see how you might come to the conclusion that IF Russia had a good relative plan but tactical capability sucked THEN military capability was the determinative factor.  
But Russia did not have a good or viable strategy that aligned the capability they had (means) with the operation (ways) to achieve viable objectives (ends).  I think we are coming at this from opposite directions.  Here is some test questions:
- If Russia had a better strategy, say to solely focus the crappy capabilities it had to take the entire Donbas and far more limited objectives would it have worked, even with UA resistance?  Would it have met better  and more realistic political objectives?
-If Russia had better capability would it have been successful in its extant strategy?
- If the UA had poorer capability, say similar to,what they had in 2014 would the extant Russian strategy work?
- And finally what about the UA strategy?  What would have happened if they had sought decisive battle (which is very western combined arms) for example?
What is becoming clear to me that we have a spectrum of Russian sucking but in different places and levels.  Some, such as a broken strategy, were definitive. Others such as bad capability or operational systems were contributing. The same applies to the UA but here their capability to resist appears more definitive as it destroyed Russian strategy - UA strategy was less dependent on Russian capabilities.  A different Russian strategy that took into account UA resistance may have worked, different Russian capability not so much - we noted that even modern western militaries would have a problem with the UA right now. 
A bad UA strategy would have killed this thing too but they aligned theirs with their capabilities very well, and then those capabilities adapted and evolved very quickly. Russia a rigid strategy that stifled evolution, hell they are pretty much zombie operations in the Donbas right now.
So it comes down to much more than Russia sucking - where did they suck and why.  What impact did sucking at certain levels of warfare have?
It also comes down to how much Ukraine did not suck, excelled in fact.  And then the comparative collision of those two systems. 

In reading the article it says he thinks we should be sending more weapons both sooner and faster. Pretty sure that is what a bunch of us here have been saying since the beginning.
Then goes on to say that he thinks there should be oversight of the money being sent. In the last few days there have been several conversations on here that talked about the pallets of cash to Afghanistan that either disappeared or weren't spent the way they were intended. Overall the gist was those pallets were a waste. Isn't it reasonable to want to make sure that the actual money sent is being used for what it is meant for and trying to keep the graft and corruption to a minimum? Haven't we pointed out how corruption is a rot that will mess up the entire system if let go unchecked? 
The way I interpret this is just responsibility and accountability. I don't know why anyone on either side of the political isle wouldn't think that is a good thing. I know as a taxpayer I want my taxes used responsibly by our government and lawmakers. I didn't see anywhere in the article about cutting off support or sending less, just having oversight on the money and how it is used. 
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. If it weren't for partisan politics and media spinning it would probably sound pretty reasonable to most people, but this is the world we live in. So I suppose I should get down off my high horse of reasonableness, responsibility and accountability (terms that surely show my antiquated 20th century boomer coerced mentality) and start flinging mud at one side or the other no matter what they say or do. 

Not exactly.  McCarthy said his comments were misinterpreted way back on the 19th, just one day after he said them:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3695482-mccarthy-defends-blank-check-remark-on-ukraine/

1) this is a good point.  Right now we have a clear idea as to who did the Colonial Pipeline attack.  However, everyone pretty much knows who blew the Nordstream pipeline(s), and that didn't stop or apparently deter Russia.
2) maybe.  I don't know about military cyber capabilities or more specifically the overall military cyber security posture, but I can tell you that the last ten years, accelerating in the last five, has seen huge strides in industry.  I'd say that on the whole on a 1-5 scale of a capability maturity model, industry has moved one or one and a have points forward (that's gut, not research). There are of course still gaps, especially in Operational Technology (OT) as shown in the Colonial Pipeline attack, but speaking as someone who has responded to NERC requirements, it gets better every year.
 

1) this is a good point.  Right now we have a clear idea as to who did the Colonial Pipeline attack.  However, everyone pretty much knows who blew the Nordstream pipeline(s), and that didn't stop or apparently deter Russia.
2) maybe.  I don't know about military cyber capabilities or more specifically the overall military cyber security posture, but I can tell you that the last ten years, accelerating in the last five, has seen huge strides in industry.  I'd say that on the whole on a 1-5 scale of a capability maturity model, industry has moved one or one and a have points forward (that's gut, not research). There are of course still gaps, especially in Operational Technology (OT) as shown in the Colonial Pipeline attack, but speaking as someone who has responded to NERC requirements, it gets better every year.
 

There have been some effective attacks, for example: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/viasat-internet-hack-ukraine-russia, but overall I agree that the whole arena has been underwhelming.
Why?
Cyber is a use-it-once family of weapons.  Attack someone, and they harden up not just the immediate code base but the processes to retain hardening - and almost all successful attacks are easy to defend against, just patch your equipment to remove known vulnerabilities.  Zero-day attacks, like the Iranian centrifuges, are rare and require high end capability and resources if they are even possible - contrary to popular belief, not all software is vulnerable and hackers can't just press the magic "crack this" button to  break things.  Of course there are non-technical attacks that rely on human carelessness (e.g., phishing) and coercion (bribery, blackmail, etc.) but to do things at scale it's technical attacks.
About six weeks before the ground assault, cyber attacks, almost all directed against critical infrastructure, were significantly elevated against baseline, and this was maintained for months into the conflict.  I don't know where it is now, because the lack of overall success has led my attention elsewhere. 
Russia has capable hacking groups, for example Fancy Bear.  Continued action of these groups has, as noted above, upped the investments made by critical infrastructure owners - as has an increasing mesh of legislation, regulation and industry associations (e.g., https://www.nerc.com/AboutNERC/Pages/default.aspx ).

While it is possible that RA-affiliated hackers have something up their sleeves, if so they are waiting for a decisive moment, which IMO will not arrive.
 
For those who are interested, CISA is very well regarded, here is the entry page into their russo-ukraine war (a phrase I use that is not catching on - yet) guidance: https://www.cisa.gov/shields-up
 

Russia did bunch of cyberattacks. Both over the years (they managed to turn off utilities in Ukraine a few times in last decade and there was the whole NotPetya thing - for details, I remember excellent podcast Darknet Diaries) and recently, they attacked Romania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_DDoS_attacks_on_Romania
I agree that lot of the cyberattacks are spent when they execute, so I would speculate that Russia attacking Ukraine over the last decade kind of served as inoculation of sorts.
As for cyberattacking the West, Russia is doing that - do not forget that Russia's strongest weapon is misinformation, media manipulation, changing scope and topics of public debate, what is trending, etc. Brexit, Clinton's emails, Wikileaks, Antivaxxers, and so on. It is happening now more than ever before. Here in Czechia there's presidential elections soon, the leading candidate is a former Chair of the NATO Military Committee and suddenly there's hundreds of comments under every article how terrible he is. I'm pretty sure it is going to work and we'll get another Kremlin puppet after the last two.
As for attacking utilities and so on, I think some NATO spokesperson said that this will be responded as to actual attack. I'm not sure it would be, but Russia is pretty scared of NATO so that deterrent seems to be working.

Just like the physical fighting, the Russians have been cyber-attacking Ukraine since 2014 (and already took down the power network before) so I assume Ukraine is pretty resilient by now. 

For the next game (CMTS aka CM Taiwan Strait, which will need to model an opposed landing), not just UGV but air-dropped UGV: (CONSERVATIVE SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK)
Shocking video shows Chinese robot attack dog with machine gun dropped by drone | Fox News
"A Chinese military contractor created a video showing off its terrifying new military technology, revealing a robot attack dog that can dropped off by a drone."
 
And more directly related to the strategic element of the Russo-Ukraine war: (LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK)
Putin has been watching and waiting for this moment in Washington | CNN Politics
"For months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited and watched, hoping for a fracturing of the remarkable Washington consensus built by President Joe Biden on the need to do everything it takes to defend democracy in Ukraine."

For the next game (CMTS aka CM Taiwan Strait, which will need to model an opposed landing), not just UGV but air-dropped UGV: (CONSERVATIVE SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK)
Shocking video shows Chinese robot attack dog with machine gun dropped by drone | Fox News
"A Chinese military contractor created a video showing off its terrifying new military technology, revealing a robot attack dog that can dropped off by a drone."
 
And more directly related to the strategic element of the Russo-Ukraine war: (LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK)
Putin has been watching and waiting for this moment in Washington | CNN Politics
"For months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited and watched, hoping for a fracturing of the remarkable Washington consensus built by President Joe Biden on the need to do everything it takes to defend democracy in Ukraine."

They don't have the birth rate and population to support it anymore.

Exactly.  Through ISR and precision fires it is possible to see the forces defending the obstacle incredible high resolution, from freakin space, and then hammer them hard.  Do this is several places, infiltrate on main efforts and the breaching op becomes a route clearance job.  This is building on the theme of precision fires as a form of manoeuvre.
I personally think that static obstacles that take months to build are fading into extinction.  Smart mobile minefields or swarming dormant systems, now we are onto something.  Again Russia, in this specific case, is building a very professional looking linear complex obstacle….designed for a war 30 years ago.  I think this is a central theme throughout this thing.

There have been some effective attacks, for example: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/viasat-internet-hack-ukraine-russia, but overall I agree that the whole arena has been underwhelming.
Why?
Cyber is a use-it-once family of weapons.  Attack someone, and they harden up not just the immediate code base but the processes to retain hardening - and almost all successful attacks are easy to defend against, just patch your equipment to remove known vulnerabilities.  Zero-day attacks, like the Iranian centrifuges, are rare and require high end capability and resources if they are even possible - contrary to popular belief, not all software is vulnerable and hackers can't just press the magic "crack this" button to  break things.  Of course there are non-technical attacks that rely on human carelessness (e.g., phishing) and coercion (bribery, blackmail, etc.) but to do things at scale it's technical attacks.
About six weeks before the ground assault, cyber attacks, almost all directed against critical infrastructure, were significantly elevated against baseline, and this was maintained for months into the conflict.  I don't know where it is now, because the lack of overall success has led my attention elsewhere. 
Russia has capable hacking groups, for example Fancy Bear.  Continued action of these groups has, as noted above, upped the investments made by critical infrastructure owners - as has an increasing mesh of legislation, regulation and industry associations (e.g., https://www.nerc.com/AboutNERC/Pages/default.aspx ).

While it is possible that RA-affiliated hackers have something up their sleeves, if so they are waiting for a decisive moment, which IMO will not arrive.
 
For those who are interested, CISA is very well regarded, here is the entry page into their russo-ukraine war (a phrase I use that is not catching on - yet) guidance: https://www.cisa.gov/shields-up
 

Ok let’s get some knowledge on this whole Wagner Line thing.  I will caveat that 1) I am not even sure a complex obstacle belt will work against how the UA has been fighting this war and 2) I have no idea how long this Wagner line is, or whether it ties into natural obstacles nor what the fire plans are around it.
That said, be very wary of the internet.  I see a lot of people talking about stuff they have no idea about, particularly in the “Russia sux camp”.  I do not go into my professional background too much for many reasons but I will say that one of my military incarcerations over a 34 year career is a military engineer, so take that into account if you like.
First, I doubt the veracity of the styrofoam claim very much.  Why?  Because it would take more time and resources to make a fake dragons tooth than to simply pour some concrete over steel bars.  I have heard nothing about Russia suffering a concrete shortage and this whole styrofoam theory sound like complete BS.
Second, efficacy of the Wagner line dragons teeth.  Dragons teeth need not be fixed or footed, particularly not the pyramidal ones I am seeing in this pictures.  They are designed to roll and catch the ground on their points as they do.  In doing so they can either belly up a tracked vehicle or de-track it.  Either way they act as caltrops for tracked IFVs and armor, looking for mobility kills but these are just the appetizer.
Third, these are clearly part of a complex obstacle.  The sorts of obstacles are designed to pull combat engineering and key armoured resources forward and expose them the fires.  If you can kill them then bull-rushing such a complex obstacle will likely yield in and around 70-80% casualties.  It isn’t how large the dragons teeth are, or how much they weigh, it is their placement.  I have heard a lot of “well we can just go in and tow them out” or “bring in a dozer and simply push them”.  Sure, but you are doing that in the middle of a 400m deep minefield while having ATGMs and artillery dropped on your head.  In fact the dragons teeth I have seen in that double row are likely the horizontal safelane markers as well.  As you would expect dismounting in the middle of a minefield with crowbars and chains is a good way to turn trained sappers into names on a memorial.
Finally, stuff like dragons teeth are hell on mine plows and rollers.  The get in between them and mess up the tank.  So this means engineers have to bring up technical vehicles like dozer tanks..which are very rare on the battlefield.  I have seen pics of these dragons teeth next to railways and embankments, which is really smart as that makes the mechanical clearing job that much harder.  About the only expedient way for this is explosive clearing - which I am not sure the UA even have - dragons teeth then should be fixed to avoid being blown aside.  But when combined with an AT ditch and some decent sighting that can even stump an explosive breach.
So no, there is nothing wrong with those Dragons Teeth as is at least as far as I can see from a picture, maybe not the most awesome I have ever seen but as part of a larger complex obstacle they will do exactly what they were designed to so long as that obstacle is covered by fire and observation.  The Russians are going to need about 100kms of these in a triple belt with KZs pre-sighted to get the effect I think they are looking for, which I do not think they can do and shame on the UA if they give them time and space to do this.
Remember that diagram I did up a while back, look both left towards effect and right towards capability when seeing stuff like this and always keep in mind the entire picture.  And avoid groups who are just seeing what they want to see at this point.

Ok, but these are also all strategies adopted by weaker sides of a confrontation, some straight out of Mao’s playbook - who he ‘borrowed’ from others.  I have no doubt the UA was planning an unconventional resistance and if we recall the early days of this war, they were kinda scrambling.  I think what surprised everyone one was just how well it worked.  It morphed from a resistance to a new form of defence/corrosive warfare that I am not sure anyone was ready for.  Further when Phase I collapsed, recall the RA did withdraw back to the border.  Even with all the abandoned gear they were not driven there by any conventional offensive waged by the UA.
I am not sure the Ukrainians knew the true state of the Russian military well in advance; I am not even sure the west did to be honest.  We could see it here on the forum about 72 hours in (I still have a copy of some of those posts).
Jumping to the end - ok, I think we agree on more than we disagree on these points.  One area that I do think the Russians did entirely get in their own way and frankly even with the force they have could have done much better, maybe even pulled off what they were looking for, was in the arena of military strategy.
They had several strategic COAs going into this from which everything that followed was a direct result.  They chose - typically Russian - a strategy of overwhelmtion (yep, it is a word that I did not just totally make up).  5-6 operational axis of advance and massively deep penetration requirements was ridiculous overreach for both the size of the force and the enablers they had available to them. NATO would be really stretched to pull off such a fight - if I recall correctly we only had 3 axis of advance in CMSF.  The Russian way overestimated their forces and way underestimated what modern equipped defence could do (they were not alone in that).  All of this was exacerbated by very poor operational level targeting and logistics, and as you not abysmal tactical C2 - frankly I am not even sure how the managed the road move, let alone contact.  And to your point, this over reach may still have failed if the UA was less capable - I say may because it would have been a much closer run thing, as you note straight up mass and speed still count for something.
Now if the Russian military had done two strategic things, this war may have turned out differently.  1) Establish preconditions.  This costs time but hitting key transportation and communication/information infrastructure and power production and distribution.  Economic/finance systems.  And finally actually tried something nuanced in the diplomatic space other than “lie, lie, still lying..and now I am going to prove I was lying…”. To this add build a competitive C4ISR architecture that feeds a joint targeting enterprise and then get some unity of command going to control the whole thing.  All this and keeping the political level - with zero military expertise - from micro managing.
2) Isolate Ukraine.  Once you make the nation go dark and even with everything Ukraine already had, you focus on cutting them off from all support.  I find it baffling that Russia not only did not do this in the diplomatic space, they did not do it as part of military strategy…here Russia sucking was a definitive factor.  Put the main effort on a drive to Lviv and cut the western corridor approaches.  Reduce the axis of advance to Lviv, Kherson and Kyiv, which is still very ambitious.
If they did that from Day 1, I am still not sure they would have achieved success, best case they are fighting an historic insurgency-from-hell fully backed by the west.  But this clown show they are in might have had a few less acts.
Military strategy is clearly the one area where Russia “sucking” is all on them.  Operationally and tactically I think it gets a lot more complicated and frankly the Ukrainian defence (and then offensives) will be studied for years to fully understand what just happened.  I am not sure anyone could solve for the Ukrainian resistance to be honest.  The fact that the RA itself was a key factor in them failing faster, I totally agree with.
I personally think that warfare has changed - the needle has moved - I think it has shifted much farther and faster than we ever expected, which is actually normal.  I think things as basic as force ratios and principles need to be revisited (Surprise, for example…what does one do with that?). 
Seriously, you guys should, start thinking about the Op Research game.  Training Cbt Tm commanders is cool, but I think there is going to be a serious market for OR - of course you will need to make CM massively bloated, less user friendly and cost over a billion dollars in order for western militaries to buy in.

This seems like a significant data point in the artillery balance swinging to the Ukrainians advantage.

Nothing lamer than blaming staff for a letter you signed yourself.

I am not sure we even know what this still means to be honest.  Didn’t JonS and I lock horns over what exactly “modern combined arms” actually means?  I would argue that the RA BTG concept, the one they carried over from 2014 is more in line with our contemporary definitions of “combined arms”.  In phase I of this war some of those units, flaws and all did conduct some pretty deep advances.  The UA on the other hand has not been employing traditional combined arms by any stretch.  The appear to have reinvented it by combining C4ISR, unmanned, light infantry and precision fires.  My point being that the metric of “modern combined arms military” is in the wind and I would not lean on it for assessments at least for a few years.
And I think this is the crux of our disagreement,  I do not disagree that at many levels the “Russian Army sux”, peace on that.  My point is that this was not the determinative factor in the outcome of this war.  It was a lower standard force designed to fight along our former definitions of “combined arms”; however, even at that sub standard level it was not until it ran headlong into something that no combined force on earth would have been fully prepared for that the failures we are seeing became their destiny in this war.
More simply put it was is the Ukrainian redefinition of what combined arms really means in 2022 that led to Russian defeat, the “Russians sucking” was a contributing factor not the definitive one.  I stand by this thru the simple fact that if Ukraine had attempted to meet the same “sucky” Russian force as they had in 2014 we would have seen a very different result - the failure in expert assessment pre-war was to take this into account.  Hell if the west turned off the ISR and cut off PGMs tomorrow the UAs modern reinvention of combined arms would likely be at risk, even against the RA in its current shape - isn’t that what the concern is over US mid-terms?
I think we both agree the RA is pretty much done as a effective fighting force now - although I still see some signs of life - the outcome is now really down to where they are tied off, or a compete political collapse in Russia (now here the Russian political system sucking is a definitive factor).  My point is that no matter how badly the Russians do or do not suck is secondary to whatever the UA has managed to do here.  If the mighty US and it’s allies were waging this war against a Ukraine like entity I am sure we would not suck anywhere near as much; however, our casualties would likely be so high as to scare political leadership and very likely break our sustainment if it went on as long as this one has - our vehicles need gas, our aircraft are just as vulnerable to next-gen MANPADS and last I checked we were no better at stopping HIMARs if they were coming at us.
The Russian suck…ok, we got it.  So long as we keep that as an factor and not the entirety of analysis we are fine.  Otherwise we seriously risk undersubscribing what actually happened in this war and miss the points we need to for the next one.

This is a highly complex question with likely an entire eco-system of possible answers.  Fundamentally we have to accept that silence does not automatically equal support. True freedom of speech and a right to lawful protest is a tricky issue even we in Canada and the US are wrestling with. So if one comes from a nation of high oppression the impulse to protest is very often not well understood or even valued.  Plenty examples of this; did we see a massive uprising in Latino communities when US policy got draconian on illegal immigration?  How much actual diaspora marches have we seen on the Chinese Uyghurs?  How about Palestinians and current issues in Iran?  There are examples of diaspora weighing in on all of these but comparative to their populations these are very muted responses particularly when compared to Me Too and BLM. 
Does this mean that these groups support whatever crimes against humanity or injustice that is happening? Not necessarily.  Russians are coming from a highly oppressive power structure built on top of even more oppressive power structures - one could argue that the oppression is embedded into their culture at this point, having been inculcate for centuries. In fact, flip that, we all come from oppressive power government roots Russia has yet to shed them.
Lets go back to Afghanistan (sigh) - we realized early on that the insurgency was not a nice neat sub-group of Afghan society, it was more of a spectrum.  So we worked hard to get the Afghan people to rise up against the TB, which had been incredibly oppressive…and we won the war and went home (heh).  In reality most Afghans just wanted to be left alone.  Our war with the TB was like the weather, one tried to predict it but pretty much just endured whatever came.  Some Aghans took our money, or their money but there was never loyalty to either side.  So does this mean that all Afghans were TB and slathering AQ supporters…no.  Did it mean that inside every Afghan there was a US citizen yearning to come out…nope.  So what?  Well micro-social power is 1) incredibly powerful, 2) largely in stasis, locked in routine, culture and traditions and 3) has very short range, like 10km from where one is born type of stuff.  So translating that into a massive uprising/protest/movement, particularly in the direction an outside government wants is not really low hanging fruit.
I suspect just because Russian are living in relatively safe part of the world outside of Putin’s grasp that they, as a group, do not want to be singled out for anything right now. In some areas they likely support this war and buy into the Putin narrative. In others I have no doubt they oppose this war vehemently.  As to protest, there have been some but massive protest movements lie over tipping points that take a lot to build up to especially given the history and culture of power oppression in the region.  
Leaping to the “they are with us are agin us” conclusion is extremely dangerous as it will quickly alienate those who will be needed to fix Russia when this is over.  Those in the “let Russia burn camp” and support this “all Russians are evil…look they are not marching in the streets” are very emotional and letting that cloud the fact that a burning Russia is a fire that will spread quickly.  Treating all Russians as collaborators and 5th columnists is even dumber as we need Russian speakers and cultural experts, as well as political opposition for what happens next.
People are about as complex a problem as we can come up with - when I hear simple answers I stop listening.  Problem is that we are addicted to simple answers, to the point that I argue the most terrible things humans have ever done each other comes down to simple answers.  The Russians are using simple answers to try to solve their “Ukraine problem” right now and anyone promoting more simple answers in response is actually part of the problem and not the solution - and I know that isn’t where you were coming from Steve.

And I would argue that the point you are missing is that on a strategic and operational level they took that “pretend force” and advanced deeply into the country they were invading and still hold over 20% of it.  We can slight their tactical capability all day (and do) and even though they have been a mess strategically and operationally there is nothing Potemkin or “cargo cultish” about the threat they pose or what they were capable of at higher levels of warfare, particularly at the beginning of this war.
It is as slippery a slope to under estimate the comparative tactical capabilities, as was demonstrated by many experts before this war.  They failed to downscale their strategic and operational assessments and we saw pretty quick the results on the ground quickly failed to meet predictions.  Hell three days into this thing we knew all of the higher level assessment were off because of what we saw on the ground.
Underestimating cuts both ways.  It is just as dangerous to try and take tactical shortfalls and upscale them directly onto the operational and strategic levels.  We have witnessed too many brilliantly conducted strategic campaigns with low quality forces in the VEO space to fall for that one.  Russian tried a form of combined arms that simply did not work; however, they still translated that into limited strategic/operational objectives.  
It was the Ukrainian way of war, supported by the west, and some emerging realities of warfare that broke the Russian system.  Ukrainian forces learned faster and better.  Without western support would we be talking about a Ukrainian offensive at all?  Without Ukrainian fast development of capability?  No, the RA was a hot mess and is a dumpster fire at this point but that was not the determinative factor in this war.  They had enough mass advantage, as ugly as it was, that if this was a battlefield of even a decade ago they might have pulled it off.  This is the biggest problem with the “Russia Sux” narrative, it is far too easy an answer.  It misses a lot of nuances and complex factors that we have literally been tracking right here.
The RA was a fumbling mess but it was at the gates of an enemy capital.  They still are resisting and will likely still be on occupied ground by this winter.  What I am on the lookout for are signs the Russians are actually learning.  For example, they bought a bunch of Iranian UAVs but they are using them as ersatz cruise missiles, not to improve their C4ISR game…which is a good sign they are still not learning.
Finally the biggest reason I am firmly against the “Russia just sux” narrative is that it encourages us to stop learning.  If that is the definitive unifying theory of this war then all phenomena can be explained by it, we have nothing left to learn.  This does nothing to inform us on the direction modern war is heading nor how we need to start thinking about it because it all boils down to “Russia Sux!”  Well 1) Russia is sucking but not everywhere, 2) that does not explain everything we have been seeing and 3) there are things happening in this war that “cargo cult” does not explain and we are way off if we start to thinking that way.

People like me did not.  I work in tech, and my exposure to Russians - going back to the early '90s - has been people who were educated and urban, which I assumed reflected the general population.  I expect that this would be similar for analysts like ISW, and while they have less excuse, this type of exposure would skew the thought process.

This goes beyond sloppy / easy macro quantitative vs. harder-work micro-qualitative and into cultural assumptions.  I'm still trying to build a full picture of why (almost) every analyst was wrong.
 

During the last 2 days, the enemy also led the "consolidated" BTG of the 15th and 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 2nd Guards. CAA unsuccessful defensive battles on the eastern outskirts of c. Makeevka (Lugansk region). Let's just say that he failed to hold his positions, "hooking" on the eastern outskirts of the village ... In two scattered groups, he was forced to retreat to the village. Kovalevka and towards Novonikolskaya - Milovatka.
After the forward units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine advanced towards Svatovo in the Stelmahovka area, the enemy was forced to leave the area of the village of Myasozharovka, two significantly "shabby" motorized rifle companies (probably from the 15th or 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade) withdrew to the area south of Kolomiychikha.
Let's summarize (a few general remarks regarding the current and further development of the situation in the Svatov direction)...
1. It is obvious that the main goal of all these counterattacks northwest of Svatovo, mainly on both sides of the R-07 road (Kupyansk - Svatovo), as well as tough "oncoming" battles southwest of Svatovo, is the desire of the enemy command to keep the city of Svatovo. And it is no less obvious that he, to put it mildly, "doesn't work." The advanced units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are confidently advancing from two sides into the city and have actually reached its near approaches.
2. Also, no less obvious is the fact that the command of the enemy troops, to put it mildly, rather strangely distributed their forces and means for conducting defense, both in the Svatovo region and in the Kremennaya region ... Yes, I mean exactly between the so-called "northern" and "southern" parts of their "West" grouping. It is clear that the "northern" (Svatovo) part is noticeably inferior "in volume" to its colleagues from the "southern" (Kremennaya - Rubizhnoye). It follows from this that it is much more important for the command of the enemy troops to keep the Kremennaya area than Svatovo ...
3. At first glance, this may look somewhat strange, but in my opinion, in this case, the Russian command made a completely correct and logical decision ... Why?
 
The answer is in my morning messages. In short, it is obvious that the breakthrough of the Armed Forces of Ukraine through Kremennaya and Rubizhnoye north of Severodonetsk (essentially bypassing it from the north) towards Novoaydar or Starobelsk (with subsequent access to the GKU, for example, in the Gorodishche area) is much more threatening than protracted defensive battles in the area Svatovo, or even Belokurakino or Novopskov ... Which, by and large, do not pose a significant threat to the Russian troops, or difficulties in terms of some kind of bypass maneuvers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or hypothetical "breakthroughs" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the rear of the Zapad grouping ...In this case, the Russians can conduct stubborn, deterrent defensive battles in this part of the Lugansk region (Svatovo - Starobelsk), thus exhausting the advancing Ukrainian troops, and at the same time gradually withdraw as if on their own territory (while maintaining a very real threat to the Armed Forces of Ukraine of going on the counteroffensive on a broad front), and to the south, gradually building up their forces along the Kremennaya - Novoaidar - Alekseevka - Gorodishche line ...
4. Therefore, proceeding precisely from these considerations, I believe that the fate of the northern part of the Lugansk region will be decided not in Svatovo, but in Kremennaya and Rubizhne, which the enemy will strive to keep under any circumstances.
Moreover, the fate of Lisichansk and Severodonetsk will largely depend on who and how will control the area of Kreminnaya and Rubizhnoye, as well as the "triangle" Shipilovka - Privolye - Novodruzhesk and the LNPZ area.

It's the Bomber Damage Analysis fallacy. Yes...we hear about and see the obnoxious Russian emigres behaving badly. We don't hear about the many, many others who are real refuges from Putinist repression and/or bitter enemies of it. In my anecdotal experience, they far outnumber the loons. Kraze can indulge himself in this bigotry if he wants to. I will not. 

This is a profoundly absurd statement. There are plenty of freedom loving Russians in the west and they are very, very easy to find. Beware of staring too long into the abyss.

Oh, I think it's worth reading. They have a lot of good insights, including on and the nature and causes of corruption (hint: when you carpet bomb a country with literal pallet loads of money AND make it clear you don't intend to see the thing through, don't be surprised when the flowers of corruption blossom), but there is some wading required.