Hacker News Reader

Comment by trasz | Hacker News Reader

>Putin can just assemble divisions

He could - half a year ago. Now he’s missing officers, equipment, and even uniforms. Zerg rush won’t work, not against proper weapons. Just yesterday another train full of T-62s mysteriously exploded moments after arriving somewhere at Donetsk.

>Nobody is going to violate Russian territory

Ukraine is already violating Russian territory in Belgorod and Russians can’t do anything about it.

View on HN

Fully agree that he can't assemble combat divisions, or anything close. But given that he has lots of bodies and fuel, I think he has the capacity to move units around on the map all winter, while keeping planners, analysts and pundits busy.

This will be miserable for the conscripts (who are allegedly being issued with decades-old equipment and might not even have proper winter uniforms & boots) but even if it's pure stagecraft that would help to rebuild logistic expertise and confidence.

Still, I think Russia is capable of arming and training several hundred thousand of its troops in less than half a year. Russia still has a very large potential.

Russia isn't even capable of equipping all their current real troops in Ukraine with tanks build after the 60's, what are the conscripts going to ride on ? T55's?.

Russian defense industry - and pretty much every other Russian industry - is wholly dependent on western parts, tools, software, and know-how. Notice how Russia is forced to buy drones from Iran - even China refuses to provide them with technology at this point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com