A significant factor – VG

Updated less than 20 minutes ago

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After two weeks of intense fighting, Russia has failed to take control of major, important cities in Ukraine – despite its military superiority.

Poor planning, poor management and poor coordination, is drawn forward as explanatory factors. But it also speculated in whether Russian soldiers are struggling with low combat morale.

Russia has suffered significant military losses in Ukraine in a short time. Even the most conservative estimates, 500 soldiers killed according to Russian authorities, are higher than Britain’s total losses over 20 years in Afghanistan.

Videos on social media show what Russian soldiers should have abandoned their vehicles, sabotaged equipment, given up or who refuses to fight.

How widespread this is is difficult to assess.

– We think it is a significant factor, but we do not know how big, says lieutenant colonel and head teacher at the Norwegian Defense College Geir Hågen Karlsen, to VG.

It is obviously difficult for Russian forces to attack the Ukrainians, he believes.

– This is the neighboring country. It looks like home, the people look like they do at home, they speak the same language as at home. That is not how they have been told that it should be, that they should attack Ukrainian fascists, says the lieutenant colonel.

The Guardian has reported on prisoners of war who say they were shocked by the reception in Ukraine, that they thought they should be treated like heroes. A prisoner said he was “tricked” by Russian authorities.

Another claimed that “no” Russians wanted to take part in the war, but that they risked seven years in prison. It is Daily Mail which reproduces his quotes from video published by Ukrainian intelligence.

The lieutenant colonel points out that it is important to be critical of statements from, for example, Russian prisoners of war, who will feel pressured to say what Ukrainian forces want them to say.

But there have been other signs that Russian forces were unprepared for what awaited them in Ukraine.

– Mom, I’m scared

More analysts has pointed out that Russian forces may not even know they were participating in an invasion. When they arrived, they quickly ran out food and other supplies.

The day after Russia invaded, March 1, read Ukraine’s UN Ambassador aloud what he said was a text message from a Russian soldier to his mother, sent just before the soldier died:

«Mom, I’m in Ukraine. It’s a real war here. I’m afraid. We bomb all the cities together, even civilians. They said we were going to be welcomed. And they fall under our armored vehicles, throw themselves under the wheels and do not let us pass. They call us fascists. Mom, this is so difficult. “

– The shock has subsided

To sell off the war, President Vladimir Putin has cultivated propaganda as that Russia must “de-Nazify” Ukraine, and save ethnic Russians in Ukrainian breakaway republics from genocide.

– In the beginning, it may have been a shock that the soldiers were not prepared for, but that shock has probably subsided, says Captain Amund Osflaten, teacher in tactical cooperation at the War School, specialist in Russian strategic culture and military method, to VG.

He believes the moral problems on the Russian side will diminish over time.

– When you realize that you are in battle and in danger of death and see other Russians and comrades being killed, it often hardens, he says.

May lead to arbitrary warfare

The high civilian death toll may indicate that Russian forces are becoming desperate for their own losses, according to Jean-Francois Ratelle, a military expert and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Social Sciences.

– Usually when they suffer these losses, they will slowly but surely slide over to more arbitrary artillery fire, and that is what we see, he says to abc17news.

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