The Failed Logistics of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

If there’s a small sil­ver lin­ing in Putin’s assault on Ukraine, it’s that we’ve dis­cov­ered the medi­oc­rity of the Russ­ian mil­i­tary. Rus­sia expect­ed a short and deci­sive war. Two weeks lat­er, the inva­sion grinds on.

Already, Rus­sia has lost 4,000 sol­diers (the US lost 2,400 dur­ing its 20-year cam­paign in Afghanistan), while Ukraine still retains con­trol of its major cities. Above, Wen­dover Pro­duc­tions breaks down a major fac­tor behind Rus­si­a’s stum­ble–the fail­ure of its logis­tics.

For more on this ques­tion, it’s worth lis­ten­ing to this inter­view with Retired Lt. Gen­er­al Mark Hertling, the for­mer com­mand­ing gen­er­al of U.S. Army Europe and 7th Army.  Draw­ing on his own mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence, he elab­o­rates on the major gaps in Rus­si­a’s strate­gic plan­ning.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Russ­ian Inva­sion of Ukraine Teach-Out: A Free Course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan

West Point Expert Gives Ukraini­ans Advice on Con­duct­ing Effec­tive Urban War­fare Against Russ­ian Troops

Why Rus­sia Invad­ed Ukraine: A Use­ful Primer