Eddy

Defence Editor of the Economist tweets
Which is what I always thought because 1) it's the Mirror, 2) article says sending AH-64E of which we have the square root of bugger all and 3) it's the Mirror. For non-UK people The Sun, The Mirror, The Star and The Express are really, really not good sources for information

Defence Editor of the Economist tweets
Which is what I always thought because 1) it's the Mirror, 2) article says sending AH-64E of which we have the square root of bugger all and 3) it's the Mirror. For non-UK people The Sun, The Mirror, The Star and The Express are really, really not good sources for information

You can add the Daily Mail to that list too.

Defence Editor of the Economist tweets
Which is what I always thought because 1) it's the Mirror, 2) article says sending AH-64E of which we have the square root of bugger all and 3) it's the Mirror. For non-UK people The Sun, The Mirror, The Star and The Express are really, really not good sources for information

https://warontherocks.com/episode/therussiacontingency/28081/where-russias-war-in-ukraine-is-going-part-1/

paywall podcast bulletpoints:
- transitional period and it is unclear where exactly it is heading
- not clear at all if RUS can restore offensive potential. What he sees in Bakhmut is not impressive at all from RUS
- UKR has only made modest incremental gains recently but this doesn't mean the next operational attack would not be successful 
- RUS transitioned to defensive
- biggest question what is going to be done with the rest of the mobilized force
- RUS in autumn downsized the front and probably doubled the force available. Now the have reserves, multiple lines..
- belarus based force is unknown in terms of combat readiness. Probably very much not ready
- western military district performance was historical underperformance compared to expectations. 
- southern and eastern military districts performed better.
- RUS military system was designed to mobilize before or at the start of the war. Mobilized were to buff up the professional units. Now it mobilized 8 months into the war, when force and equipment that was supposed to be buffed up was mostly out of action.
- regional volunteer battalions were a flop. They just ate up the resources from the actual mobilization in piece meal.
- now mobilized do not really have equipment or structures where to integrate to
- mobilization system was also the place where RUS has cut the most over the years. They themselves have stated in the past large scale land war is not something they are planning for.
- mobilization system was also probably most guilty of "readiness padding"
- about half of the initial mobilization force was used to stabilize the collapsing fronts
- Kharkiv operation was a great success thanks to too little RUS force and good UKR planning
- Kherson was difficult fight for both and RUS did succeed in the pullout. Everyway very different from Kharkiv.
- In Kherson RUS retreat was well planned and executed and also UKR force was probably worn and exhausted. 
- Kofman thinks Gerasimov&Shoigu are "an absolute joke in the Russian military"
- after Kharkiv Putin might have also realized the above point. And so Surovikin
- Surovikin had the idea to create more coherent military effort. It was clearly promised that Donbass would have been taken enabled by the Kherson retreat.
- Talk about internal power plays between Prigozhin + Kadyrov vs. Shoigu. Putin might also play these against each other.
- Arguments in media and analyst recently have brought up points: significant mobilization force buildup, new attack from Belarus, RUS regaining offensive potential. Mike and Dara are very sceptical of all of these. These arguments need concrete evidence, where is the material and human capital coming from for these?
- Will there be another mobilization? They suspect more of a dispeched and rolling approach in future.
- RUS are now thinking in terms of years. This is already a long war, even by historical scale. Also unclear will this war end or just have a pause and again a continuation war (that this war also sort of is for 2014). Plenty of historical examples.
- The RUS army is not anymore the same army as it was in 2021. So it is unfamiliar animal to all of us.
- RUS military is now living from its soviet legacy that it will never get back. They cannot rebuild the equipment or ammo they have inherited from the USSR.
- They are using up the military inheritance of the USSR. Inheritance of another power that will never come back.
- RUS military will become more of an european military after this war than not. Interims of potential.
- RUS can rebuild limited offensive potential but will be limited by ammunition and force quality.
- RUS military is fires and manpower driven military. Now it has gone from having fires and lacking manpower to lacking fires but having manpower.

I think there is a coherent argument that the Russian military is in collapse, the rate of that collapse is really the outstanding question.  Personally I see collapse a "a failure to be able to sustain option spaces".  Collapses come in many flavors, the dramatic cascade failures get all the ink but I think history demonstrates that these are really just the punctuation marks on a longer process of systemic degradation.
Russia has seen its option spaces continually shrink in the prosecution of this war.  They had the most options on 24 Feb, and ever since then it has been a slow and steady compression.  Some has been forced by the UA and some by Russia itself.  Examples:
- On 23 Feb 22 Russia had pretty broad options, which included to not-invade.  Then on the 24th those options began to shrink.  They committed pretty much their entire ready-force on one Hail Mary plan: no Lviv cut-off back up, no strategic erosion campaign fall back.
- By the end of March, they had lost all viable options in the North around Kyiv and their main effort.  So they politically weaseled into new "real" objectives, which was simply accepting and re-selling the reduced options they already had.
 -  By the summer, they had run out of strategic options that relied on manoeuvre.  Recall those maps with sweeping red arrows drawn all over them - those were utter fiction.  The RA had lost an ability to sustain that sort of warfare over the Spring.  So they were down to attrition and mass based options at Severodonetsk, making incremental gains while simply trying to hold on everywhere else.
- Enter the HIMAR campaigns, along with other capability and by Aug/Sep 22 Russia no longer had viable offensive options at the operational level. 
- Then they lost any an all options around Kharkiv and Kherson over the Fall.
They are literally down to symbolic tactical grinding at Bakhmut and holding on by their fingernails everywhere else.  Their force generation capability is slumping downward and their last option of nuclear weapons is a dead end.
All the while the UA develops capability and a broader array of options in an expanding portfolio.  Simple equation that says a lot about this war:
Capability x Speed/Agility/Precision = Options.  Options x Cognitive Advantage (Information) = Outcomes.
A whole lot is trending towards zero  for Russia.  As to when the whole thing starts failing fast...l that is the big question.  My money is the next major move by the UA is flank pressure to pull the RA east and west simultaneously.  Lotta opportunity on that Eastern flank and keeping pressure up south of Kherson - in my dreams an amphib action is on the table, but that is likely asking way too much (now there is one interesting CM campaign).  And then when the the RA is stretched thin in the middle, they will try to cut that corridor and separate the two.  A drive to Melitopol is the most likely, but there are other...wait for it...options.
With the strategic corridor cut the two AOs are now connected by land only thru that bridge Ukraine already damaged, and air/sea but those are not optimal if the UA hold the North Coast of the Azov Sea.  All traffic basically has to go around the back across the Black Sea while that big bridge gets HIMARsed - Crimea basically becomes another larger Kherson pocket on the wrong side of a water obstacle.  The UA can then squeeze until things turn purple.
Will this be enough for the political house to come down - unknown, but I definitely think it has potential.  Someone in the Russian power mechanism, as ponzi as it is, has to realize that one 70 year old losing a major land war is simply not worth it at some point.  

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I found the latter part of this interesting (first part explains what an integrated AD is so you won't learn anything new – or anything at all really)
Around about 40 mins they talk about why Putin is pushing for something before late spring and what is bubbling up in the Russian economy/society. It puts a bit of flesh on the bone of what a Russian home front ‘collapse’ (for want of a better word) could look like.

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I found the latter part of this interesting (first part explains what an integrated AD is so you won't learn anything new – or anything at all really)
Around about 40 mins they talk about why Putin is pushing for something before late spring and what is bubbling up in the Russian economy/society. It puts a bit of flesh on the bone of what a Russian home front ‘collapse’ (for want of a better word) could look like.

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I found the latter part of this interesting (first part explains what an integrated AD is so you won't learn anything new – or anything at all really)
Around about 40 mins they talk about why Putin is pushing for something before late spring and what is bubbling up in the Russian economy/society. It puts a bit of flesh on the bone of what a Russian home front ‘collapse’ (for want of a better word) could look like.

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I found the latter part of this interesting (first part explains what an integrated AD is so you won't learn anything new – or anything at all really)
Around about 40 mins they talk about why Putin is pushing for something before late spring and what is bubbling up in the Russian economy/society. It puts a bit of flesh on the bone of what a Russian home front ‘collapse’ (for want of a better word) could look like.

Not sure if this has been posted yet but I found the latter part of this interesting (first part explains what an integrated AD is so you won't learn anything new – or anything at all really)
Around about 40 mins they talk about why Putin is pushing for something before late spring and what is bubbling up in the Russian economy/society. It puts a bit of flesh on the bone of what a Russian home front ‘collapse’ (for want of a better word) could look like.

The ugly fact that Germany long time explained own loyality and appeasment policy to Russia and business-as-usual with them despite growing imperial appetites by "moral obligations because Russian population losses during 1941-1945". But most affected former Soviet republics in WWII were Belarus and Ukraine. But Russia has a gas and oil and it has big market, so "obligations" were only before Russia, not before some "annoying minors". 
Merkel's vote for no NATO membership of Ukriane also was one of reasons of current war.
In 2014 Germany rejected to sold engines for our BTR-4, hypocrytically explaining this decision that "this will more escalate a conflict and will cause new deaths"
In 2015 Germany and France pressing of hesitating Poroshenko contributed Minsk-2 agreenemts, laying the slow bomb under Ukriane 
So, maybe Germany hasn't LEGAL obligations, but now it has MORAL. 
Yes, Germany give us many of financial support and took in a lot of refugees, but Germany does not enough in military aspect, looking back to previous policy toward Ukraine. Though... PzH2000 and IRIS-T are really good things. But there is imagination,. that Germany to this time scare to loss Russian market and get some political problems with Russia after the war if will give more heavy weapon to us. 

Absolute peace on this.  I have stated repeatedly that this is a single incident that is in need of a thorough investigation...and then and only then can a determination of a war crime on either side be be made and charges laid for due legal process.  
Nor is this an indicator of wider UA behaviour as far as we have seen.  There was that one kneecapping incident - and I have no doubt there have been others because: scared/angry/tired kids + ammunition = **** happens.  So there is not inclination to blow this out of proportion here.
However, what is important is that the UA and Ukraine are seen and recognized as doing the investigation and follow up, as well as re-tightening rules of engagement etc.  That way they demonstrate that they are better than the RA by leaps and bounds.  Further, entry into NATO after this war is over will no doubt require closing these cases regardless.
Finally, why make Russia's life easier?  Gawd knows what people like Col Macgregor are going to to with this in those echo chambers out there.  Last thing Ukraine needs to question marks on their way of warfare from people already tired of hearing of this war, and losing interest in paying for it in the middle of a recession.  As Steve said - the second the west cannot tell the difference between Ukrainian and Russian behaviors, clearly, the whole damn gig is at risk.  
And then there is this.  I think it is very fair to say that we here on this forum and thread are very pro-Ukrainian.  We have been pushing back against the "Ukraine is doomed" from Day One largely based on tactical observation from the ground.  But we should not be blindly pro-Ukrainian, which frankly appears to be the direction some people want to go, and I for one do not support it in the least.
This is supposed to be a place where military experts, enthusiast and historical nerds can get together and observe this war through an objective lens and conduct collective analysis.  The second we jump on the "Ukraine can do no wrong" and "Lulz Russia always sux because Russia" train (despite evidence to the contrary), we will lose any objectivity we have.  The second we start supporting - even passively - some of the frankly immensely stupid extremist ideas floating around e.g. demonizing every Russian man, woman and child, lobbying for cultural genocide or worse, or some bizarre "war crimes are just ok, well ours are..." narratives, then we start the steady slide into a true internet cesspool, which frankly is beneath us all.

{Apologizing for a very long post up front - proceed at your own risk}
Ok now we are getting somewhere.  There is ample evidence that in 2014 the RA surprised the world in that it did not actually suck, there is your citation above and then from the references I posted:
"The Ukraine conflict has been described as “World War I with technology.”11 One aspect that stands out in the Ukraine conflict is the Russian employment of indirect fires. Combining separatist and regular BTGs, Russia has effectively degraded Ukrainian military forces with long range artillery and rocket fire. Russia’s preferred concept of operations has been to keep its fires units at a safe distance, while relying on drones, counter-battery radars, and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets to target over the horizon.12 The observed combination of increased range and precision tracks with a general trend noted worldwide, particularly with multiple rocket launchers. As a result, Russia has on numerous occasions successfully blunted Ukrainian operations while avoiding significant casualties. Ukraine, on the other hand, is estimated to have suffered 80% of its casualties from artillery fire.13 The increased lethality has required fewer rounds, yet Russia has also demonstrated that it retains the ability to mass large volumes of fires when necessary."
"A defining feature of Russian fires has been their speed. Ukrainian units report that once a
Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is spotted they may receive artillery strikes within
minutes."
https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NS-D-10367-Learning-Lessons-from-Ukraine-Conflict-Final.pdf

 

These by Karber - there is no grey area here and plenty more which we could fill pages with.  Yes, the Russian proxy forces did suck but these were not Russian "hybrids" by any stretch, it was not until summer '14 thru winter '15 that RA conventional forces got fully in the game, and even then highly constrained because - denial.  Once those conventional forces got into the game they appeared to largely dominate the battlespace and a series of major reversals on the UA ensued.  
This surprised the hell out of everyone - I was in FD at the time - because exactly as you note "Russia has been sucking" at conventional war since the end of the Cold War, from Chechnya thru Georgia.  Suddenly this yokel military was doing things that we could not do, particularly with integration of tactical fires.  But...and it is a big "but" (tee hee) even Karber saw some holes that point to the fact that all was not sunshine and roses on the RA side:

Ah ha!  To my old eye this speaks to 1) lack of PGM integration and 2) a rigid system that can deliver very fast but lacks agility to switch on the fly.  So what?  Well in the intervening 8 years the UA adapted to highly dispersed and more mobile warfare.  There is a lot more out there on how in 2014 the Russian's did not suck tactically and even hints they got their act together operationally - but nowhere near enough for 2022.  Finally the results also speak for themselves as the outcome of the war was clearly a Russian win - even with only gaining half of the Donbas, the Russian failure was translating a tactical win to a strategic one.  In fact it appears that Putin simply "post-truthed" the entire thing and called it a strategic win, when it was not.   We could fill a lot more forum space on this but in the end Ukraine was not cowed and subserviently accepting Russian dominance, they pivoted heavily to the west - we started our training missions there then - and conducted major military reforms exactly because they had suffered battlefield defeats.  It is on Putin and Russia for 1) giving Ukraine the breathing room and 2) convincing themselves of their own superiority.  Both factors led directly to the debacle of this war.  In fact Putin likely set in motion the very reasons for this war - a westward facing Ukraine looking seriously at NATO.
So rather than playing "Russia Sucks" and "No It Doesn't - UA rulez" because it is frankly going to get us nowhere lets have a conversation on what the real issue is in the early assessment of this war and why it went largely wrong.  I offer it had nothing to do with "Russia Sucks" or "Russia Rulz" and everything to do with two key factors in the analysis - context and scaling, the pitfalls of effective military assessment. (that is right folks, the deep truths are very often the least sexy).
So the primary issue with pre-war assessments - and I am talking for both the west and Russia - as far as I can can tell is that they took the tactical performance of the RA in 2014 1) out of context, 2) failed to properly understand the challenges of scaling and 3) applied very poor alignment of that scaling.
So what is The_Capt talking about?
Well context is the first daemon people did not slay.  Karber glanced off it and many cautioned against directly translating the phenomenon of 2014 over to this war but it looks like everyone did it to some extent anyway. 
In other work we studied global pandemics for various reasons, the fact we were in one being the primary, and we found that pandemics are not unlike wars when looking at macro and micro social constructs.  It causes similar tensions, vertical and horizontal, and reaches deeply into human psyche.  But that is not my point here, the major conclusion was that pandemics are like wars in that each has commonality between events but also is each unique in its context.  There will only ever be one COVID-19 pandemic.  In ten years COVID could take a twist to the left and do its gig, but the context will be very different.  Primarily, it would occur in a post-COVID 19 world.  The trick in pandemics and wars is being able to identify what is a trend and what is an isolated phenomenon, and how we do this is through careful analysis of context.  
So the 2014 war was very small by the standards of this one.  Russian involvement at the strategic level had major issues - one of which I just explained up there.  Russia demonstrated acumen in strategic subversive warfare - and frankly I have read and heard plenty that we probably over estimated this as well - however, they had no strategic follow through and displayed a lot of poor assumptions and biases both going into and out of 2014.  It was no strategic masterpiece and we should have expected a strategic mess in this war as this was a visible trend from way back to Chechnya.  Further it was made unfixable largely due to political interference.
Next, there were signals that at the operational level the RA was still operating under an old ruleset.  My take away from Steve's posted citations was likely problems with the RA logistical system and the lack of operational enablers.  The Russian issues with operational level of warfare were not really that evident but there were plenty of indications that all was not perfect either.
Tactically, we have already discussed at length but here is where context left the building.  Ok, so 4000 RA conventional troops summer '14, which is what? about 3 BTGs? - managed to score some pretty impressive points against a military that was clearly not prepared for what they brought.  But this does not immediately translate to the entire RA, nor does it mean the RA could do this at a different scale.  Assessing tactical success or failure without context is nearly useless - we learned that in places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan the hard way.  Further onto the real punchline - tactical success or failure without full understanding of scaling is not useless, it is dangerous as hell.
So scaling can go up or down, and the major failure in understanding this war from a lot of the experts was the assumptions on scaling the RA in both directions.  First there was taking the tactical performance in 2014 and upscaling it.  It was a huge leap, and frankly pretty amateur for the pay grades of some of these experts, to take the observed RA tactical "wows" and upscale them through the operational level to the strategic. The level of complexity and investment to make those "wows" happen on a larger scope and scale, let alone synchronize them is a challenge for the US military who is spending the most on military capability in the history of our species (ok, and before the Prussian, Mongol and Spartan lovers jump in...per capita exceptions accepted...gawd, I hate all you so much).  It was an enormous leap of logic to think that Russia would walk out of phonebooth as a super-military able to do something the US and western allies would think twice about - the upscaling challenges were (and are) frankly humbling.
Now because chaos rules in this universe, it is a bit less of a leap to say badness upscales, I will give you that; however, it is also a risky venture.  Less so for outcomes but it masks a whole lot of the macro-issues, which frankly if Russia ever did solve for, we should be concerned because by definition it will mean they understand their weakness and can learn from them.
So at the beginning of this war, we had a lot of experts who had spent 8 years upscaling 2014 and then failed to down-scale when the war actually happened...seriously?!  A whole lot of wargames and operational research showed the RA in Kyiv in less than a week.  Wargames in the Baltics showed the same Russian blitzkriegs.  So, ok, lets forget that Russian superiority at the strategic and operational level was in doubt even from 2014, failure to downscale and actually test the Russian "wows" against what they were going to be facing at the tactical level (and we had a very good idea what the UA was capable of at the tactical level - we had been training with them for years).  In the business we call this macro-masking, which is where macro calculus fails to take into account micro-phenomenon across a broad range of samples. 
For example, if all the experts had loaded pre-war scenarios into CMBS they would have seen that battlefield friction had gone up significantly.  So if your dice rolls at the operational level say "the RA will advance in three days", well test out that advance across a range of tactical vignettes and lo and behold it did not go so well because it turns out that global ISR advantage, plus smart-ATGMs, plus PGM against what the RA could bring to the party pointed squarely to rethinking those stupid operational dice tables. 
So what?  Well over here in CM land we were looking for other things than those at the macro-table.  The (very expensive) experts with lot of letters behind their names were watching the big red lines on the country map because that is how they played their games.  We were looking at a lot of abandoned Russian equipment - and I mean a lot of very valuable equipment.  We were seeing a steady stream of hi res UAS video coming out of Ukraine on a daily basis when we should not be seeing anything.  We saw RA combined arms fall apart, right along with their logistics as demonstrated by F ech vehicles out of gas and burning re-fuelers.  It did not take a major leap at this altitude to know there was really loud dangerous sounds coming out of the RA engine room, while mainstream was waiting for Kyiv to fall.  However, we also understood upscaling as well.  The effect of the tactical mess spread along most operational axis was consistent - as was the complete lack of operational integration.  Targeting, air support, logistics and the list goes on - the RA was fighting 5-6 separate 2014s, not a coherent and integrated joint operation designed to collapse Ukrainian option spaces.  
So, so what?  Well sitting around and patting ourselves on the back is about as helpful as circle-jerking does for procreation. I think we have established we were, and still are to some extent ahead of the curve - no point dancing a jig on that one.  What we need to do is fully understand what is happening on the ground on this war, what is a trend and what is isolated context.  I am not really interested in what I think I know, I am interested in what I know I do not know.  For example, the old Capt has gone on about mass...at length.  Well if the utility of military mass has shifted, even slightly, the repercussions are profound - one need only study WW1 and WW2 to see why.  Do the principles of war even still apply?  Is conventional manoeuvre warfare still a thing? Is the tank dead? What the hell just happened?  
The point of a highly distributed collective "brain" as we have developed here on this little forum is to try and understand the events better - to inform and create cognitive advantage.  So this is not about sitting around and feeling good watching RA soldier have a bad last day, nor self-validation or promoting/reinforcing echo-chamber; it is about collective learning about war through what is happening in this one...and what better place to do that than a bunch of computer wargamers with far too much time on their hands? 
  
 
 

Incredible 27min video from Counter offensive on Kupiansk, by Kraken Unit. Contains NSFW CQB clip.

I saw it in this thread 
 

I saw it in this thread 
 

Sky News are reporting it Ukraine war: Eleven volunteer soldiers killed in Russian military firing range shooting, Kremlin ministry of defence says | World News | Sky News

When viewed from space Elon musk’s ego causes a minor eclipse of Zelensky’s balls, but only briefly. 

Hi, 
Another guy from Poland, have on forum for years, usually only Reading, been following the thread since around March, usually few pages behind. 
Best place to get current info, reasonable opinions, experts on details etc. 
Helped me calm down in stressful beginning of this war and pass hope to some friends. 
First time I managed to find something of interest, some of you may have seen it but I think it was not posted. 
 
The second video shows explosion in slow motion.
 

Since everyone seems to be going crazy about nukes these days, this article by Timothy Snyder about how the war might actually end is especially worth reading:
https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war

TLDR: It's probably not by nuclear war, but by a gradual shift in Russian perceptions about the war led both by setbacks on the battlefield and political crisis at home.

Yes I believe the cathedral whose spire is 123 metres tall (404 feet) is a firm favourite amongst Muscovites

Yes I believe the cathedral whose spire is 123 metres tall (404 feet) is a firm favourite amongst Muscovites

Oh, this requires many writing, but this is impolite to ignore a question, so... 
On my opinion, rashism is a new form of agressive expansionistic and revanсhist ideology, offered by ruling elites to wide mass of Russians as state ideocratia.  This ideology based on of Euro-Asian philosophy of Dugin, "Russian World", "Moscow is Third Rome", USSR 2.0 conceptions. Motivation - whishes of revanchism and domination of Russain elites, which want a redistribution of economical and political influence spheres in the world, contesting the West in hybrid way in the form of restoration of lost Russain Empire (even not USSR) influence sphere and its expanding on other countries. 
Derashization will be VERY long process, which will take maybe two next generations and like said Poesel it will be almost useless for most of curerntly living population, because people over 35-40 years with big difficalty can change own mind settings. 
Because rashism is a product of symbiothic system of power and people's aspirations it has two forming components - outer and inner. Thus, to derashize a nation we have to strike on two components simultainously. Germans in most, I think, were affected only by outer component of nazism. German nation was more civilized and educated, than nations of USSR in 30th. So, German way: punish nazi + force demonstration to Germans consequenses of nazism + "don't ask don't tell" will be insufficient, because in Russian case big role plays inner factors of Russian mentality. So, I think, more proper example should be Japan, where local militaristic ideology also leaned on local mentality and traditions.    
So, outer factors:
- Neo-imperial phylosophy.  New authorities must recognize and condemn publicly Euroasian/ Russian World/ USSR 2.0 conceptions as neo-imperialistic and colonial. Their place should be near Mein Kampf for learning by hystorians.
- Ideocracy. Rashism now is a obligue state ideology like communism of USSR time. All state media provide only ideocratic messges. Alternmative thoughts and critic allowed only for minor aspects. If oppopse thougts appear on state TV as opponents of state mainstream, it's usually give like marginals and freaks. Remedy -  ideocracy must be destroyed. Returning real pluralism in media, like this was in early Yeltsin's times. Media have to show widely crimes of former Russian elites - both against other nations and against Russian people. Though, I must point that several investigations of independent Russian journalists about Putin's palaces and luxury life of oligarchs, which posessed almost all Russian actives and have been turning  income in own huge palaces and yachts, instead to develop Russia, almost didn't have responce from society. Most of Russians consider this is natural order of things for Russia. Though, anyway,  the big role in quick falling of USSR ideology played a role of Gorbachov's "glasnost", when millions for relatively short time learned about communist crimes and that West is not "rotten", but much more successfull, that Soviet paradise.
- "Ruling and ordering" party. Like Communist Party in USSR, modern "Unite Russia" plays the same role, providing ideocracy to regions. All other parties just a puppets, imitating democracy, even they criticize main party, lile Communists or LDPR. Remedy - establishing in future of real diffrent democracy political platforms. But on the time of "crossing period" Russian have to be ruled by "steel hand in velvet glove", leaning on some political force.
- Educational system. Ideocracy complete occupied all education system - from kindergardens to univercities. The vertical region government - educational department - director - teachers maintains state ideology line. Kids from small years have been learning "Russian supremacy" ideology, based on lessons of hystory, when Russia always held just wars for the sake of defending of oppresed, carry enlightmnent and freedom and always won, glorifying Russian weapon. All this backed up with endless cult of war with dressing in WWII uniform, kids "military parades" and as final stage membership in state paramilitary organizations like "Junior Army" or cossacks, studing in numerous classes in many usual scholls with reinforcement military and phisical training. All this also to the statemant "kids are not guilt". Of course, their choice can be caused by parents or teachers, but membership in "Junior Army" usually their deliberate choice. On other hand teachers are obedient performers of election falsifications, because voting points mostly located in schools and teachers usually are most of committee members. So the remedy - demilitarisation of schools, new course of history, releasing of teachers from the brutal pressure of officials, demanding to execute.
- Orthodox church. Despite in Russian Constitution claimed separating of church from the state, but indeed like in Tsar times, Church became a lean of state ideocracy and a tool of state power sacralization. The Church is a main conductor of "Russian world" and "Moscow is a Third Rome" conception as well as huge amount of weird anti-semith conspiracy. Church blesses Russian agreesision, Church is a provider of intolerance to other Christainic confessions and intolerance to other thinking. Church supports the cult of war - all can recall real devilish Main Military Cathedral, which looks like a God of War temple. The Church interferring more and more in everyday life of Russians. Church more and more sneak to education system, but not for some sort ethic or religion knowledges, really need for youngsters, but for implementing of "Russian world" ideology and typical Russian life principles, which form inner factors of rashism. Remedy - changing of Church leaders on more moderate, real expelling idecracy influence of Church from educational system.
- Cult of war and Great Victory. All Russian life pierced with mentions about wars and victories, public interactive demonstrations of weapon, parades, rallies like "Immortal regiment" etc. As I told cult of war tied with education and church. And Great Victory Cult now became the secob religion in Russia.  All this should be completely removed especailly on cross period. History of wars and role of Russian in its have to be studied based on science, not on ideocracy. 
Inner factors. There is very tough to fix moods and patterns, composed during centuries.
- Church role. Russian version of Orthodox faith provide several dangerous mind settings - do not rise against powers (sacralized power!) and be obedient to powers, abasement of person with a word "slave of the God", suffering and humility is a right way (so Russian belives that their dads and fathers sufferes and built great country, so they have to suffer for the some great goals), "pray, all the Will of God" (brings up life passivity and expectation some high-ranked official or some happen will help in their question), do not keen to achieve mundane goods and modern knowledges (for example several years ago Church representative stated the learning of English and other languages is really do not need for true Orthodox and number of school lessons of foreign languages in schools should be shortened). And in the same time Church leader lives in luxury mansions, use luxury cars and spent own time on yachts. This is Russia. 
- povetry breed to the craving to ostentatious wealth and envy to prosprity nations. Despite Church influence, all people want to live in prosperity. Though children of generations, who lived in communal flats with one toilet and kitchen on dozens persons and stood in long queus for Yugoslavian high boots inherited this wish to show own success, posession of expensive things and as a consequence own higer place in social hierarchy - from poor Buriatian village inhabitant, which son brought looted washing machine to middle class, to Russian businessmen and oligarchs, buying up expensive real estate around the world in order each can see his success. So, povetry traumas born an envy to prosperity nations and whishes to stockpile of wealth. Putin, for example, because of his tough childhood has this mind trauma.
- swaggering and feeling of own supremacy. This feature of national menthality was discribed many times by Russian classic writers. Because of "Special mission of Russian nation - nation of God-Bearers" ideas of Russian World concept, most of Russians believed they are special "spiritual" people, all around owes them ("because we won in WWII"). Even if he is "poor Buriatian", which took bank loan to spent own vacation in Egypt or Turkey he will behave himself as a middle-east sultan. He will be humilitate personnel or demonstratively disrespect the culture of other country or nation. Even Russian middle class, which fled to Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan is rescenting that there no road things in Russian, no Russian-speaking service (you must know Russian! Are you russophobs?), no employment if you doesn't know local langauge, no cinema in Russian, no school in Russian and too much "non-Russian" around at all, but well, we will change here everything soon!  So, this fearture of mentality is good soil for growing of chavinism.
- cruelty and inner agression. Despite "humanistic Russian culture", the value of life in Russia didn't cost even broken penny. Tough life, hard work, povetry, small salary, especially in deep province have been generating inner agression, developing into carving to alcohol and drugs, showdowns, crimes, harrasments in families, bullings in scholls. In many regions of Russia in last years developed "A.U.E." mass jail cruel sub-culture, involving teenagers. Such spite of so embitterd people enough easyly to support by agressive rhethoric on TV, steering in right direction, blaming in their misery "anglo-saxes", "US and FRS", "Eurogays", "NATO", "jude-massons conspiracy against Holy Russia ", "khokhols, traitors of Russian World" etc.
This list can be continued, but I stop here. There is need to re-educate at least two generations to fix some mentality bugs and instill humanistic values in order to turn the country of Orwel's 1984 into normal peaceful and potentially prospering state. Else the cycle depicted on the cartoon below will be endless

 

Sorry for interrupting a lovely conversation about a deeply relevant topic but we have an interesting UKR rumor