Well here is a video I never thought I'd make.

In the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, most observers stressed how one sided the matchup was. They compared tank numbers, aircraft numbers, and defence budgets, and bluntly came up with the idea that Ukraine must be doomed.

Now, after a week of fighting, Russia has made advances, sure, but there is every sign that the invasion has been fifty times more of a clusterf*ck than they were expecting, and Ukrainian resistance is giving NATO's traditional rival a run for its money.

Why?

I'll leave the mil and ex-mil to comment on the strategy, operations, and tactics we've observed over the last week. But there's another part to all this, and that's that Russia may spend more on its military than Ukraine...but it also spends a bunch of that on blingy capabilities that have and now they're paying the price.

They've got thousands of nukes, they've got battlecruisers, and next gen hypersonic missiles...but they have tanks missing GPS, troops with no night vision, and an air force without the kit it needs to supress the limited Ukrainian forces opposing them.

It's all bling, no basics, and here I spend 50 minutes calling them out on it.

All opinions are my own, and dissenting opinions are most welcome.

Video game related content will resume tomorrow.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:26 David vs Goliath? (media narrative)
02:43 What is a gaming guy talking about here?
04:11 What this presentation isn't
05:17 David vs Goliath? (militaries)
07:02 So WTF is going on?
08:18 My Controversial Statements
09:19 Military strategy is built strategy.
11:48 So how does this work?
15:11 What did Russia need for this war?
19:01 Where do the Rubles go?
20:28 Atomics
23:41 The Navy
25:34 Internal Security
26:41 Wunderwaffe
28:09 Legacy Air and Ground Forces
30:17 Ukranian Forces
32:54 So what's happening?
35:21 What am I seeing?
37:38 So is the Russian Military Shit?
41:46 How could they have done better?
45:44 What about the West?
52:32 Summary