They were fools. Russia has zero experience doing that sort of campaign. Even the Soviets had zero experience running that sort of campaign. And bombing defenceless civilians and freedom fighters/rebels in Chechnya or Syria does not count.
Any Ukrainian speakers might be kind enough to translate this interview? It's with Leonid Khoda, Brigade Commander of the 1st Siverian Tank Brigade that defended Chernihiv last year.
I'm pretty sure whatever consulting fees they are paying BlackRock are a tiny percentage of the aid they are getting.
It's not like the US forces them to buy consulting advice from BlackRock.
8 rounds/minute is with the autoloader (MZ). With manual loading like on BMP-1P as it is being done here, it depends on the commander. They're pretty light projectiles (4-5 kg), and he can do this since he does not have to adjust the aim, otherwise it would be much, much slower.
A small infantry mortar in Russian/Ukrainian is called minomyot lit. "mine-thrower". Same thing like in German (Minenwerfer was a WW1 term for mortars). This distinguishes them from the huge mortars (mortira) like the 240 mm on the 2S4 Tyulpan.