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No lo he podido copiar del todo, y parte en inglés. A ver si alguien lo consigue entero.
Tenían hasta una tabla con un planing por horas y minutos de todas las acciones para tomar Kiev.
"Ellos nunca tuvieron una oportunidad.
Buscando a tientas a través de granjas llenas de cráteres, las tropas de la 155.ª Brigada de Infantería Naval de Rusia no tenían mapas, botiquines médicos ni walkie-talkies que funcionaran, dijeron. Apenas unas semanas antes, habían sido trabajadores de fábricas y camioneros, viendo una exhibición interminable de supuestas victorias militares rusas en casa en la televisión estatal antes de ser reclutados en septiembre. Un médico era un ex barista que nunca había tenido ningún entrenamiento médico.
Ahora, estaban apilados en la parte superior de vehículos blindados abarrotados, avanzando pesadamente a través de campos de otoño en barbecho con rifles Kalashnikov de hace medio siglo y prácticamente sin nada para comer, dijeron. Rusia había estado en guerra la mayor parte del año, pero su ejército parecía menos preparado que nunca. En las entrevistas, los miembros de la brigada dijeron que algunos de ellos apenas habían disparado un arma antes y describieron que casi no tenían balas, y mucho menos cobertura aérea o artillería. Pero no los asustó demasiado, dijeron. Nunca entrarían en combate, habían prometido sus comandantes.
Solo cuando los proyectiles comenzaron a estrellarse a su alrededor, destrozando a sus camaradas, se dieron cuenta de lo mal que los habían engañado.
Tirado al suelo, un soldado ruso reclutado llamado Mikhail recordó haber abierto los ojos y recibir una sorpresa: los cuerpos destrozados de sus camaradas esparcidos por el campo. La metralla también le había abierto el vientre. Desesperado por escapar, dijo, se arrastró hasta una espesura de árboles y trató de cavar una zanja con las manos.
De los 60 miembros de su pelotón cerca de la ciudad de Pavlivka, en el este de Ucrania, ese día a fines de octubre, unos 40 murieron, dijo Mikhail, hablando por teléfono desde un hospital militar en las afueras de Moscú. Solo ocho, dijo, escaparon de lesiones graves.
"Esto no es una guerra", dijo Mikhail, luchando por hablar a través de respiraciones pesadas y líquidas. “Es la destrucción del pueblo ruso por parte de sus propios comandantes” Nunca se supuso que la guerra del presidente Vladimir V. pilinguin fuera así. Cuando el jefe de la CIA viajó a Moscú el año pasado para advertir contra la oleada turística de Ucrania, se encontró con un Kremlin sumamente confiado, y el asesor de seguridad nacional de pilinguin se jactó de que las fuerzas armadas de vanguardia de Rusia eran lo suficientemente fuertes como para hacer frente incluso a los estadounidenses.
Los planes de oleada turística rusos, obtenidos por The New York Times, muestran que los militares esperaban correr cientos de millas a través de Ucrania y triunfar en unos días. Se les dijo a los oficiales que empacaran sus uniformes de gala y medallas antes de los desfiles militares en la capital de Ucrania, Kyiv.
Pero en lugar de esa contundente victoria, con decenas de miles de sus tropas muertas y partes de su ejército en ruinas después de casi 10 meses de guerra, pilinguin enfrenta algo completamente diferente: la mayor calamidad humana y estratégica de su nación desde el colapso de la Unión Soviética. Unión. Cómo pudo uno de los ejércitos más poderosos del mundo, dirigido por un célebre estratega como pilinguin, haber fallado tanto contra su rival mucho más pequeño y débil? Para armar la respuesta, nos basamos en cientos de correos electrónicos, documentos, planes de oleada turística, libros de contabilidad militares y directivas de propaganda del gobierno ruso. Escuchamos llamadas telefónicas rusas desde el campo de batalla y hablamos con decenas de soldados, altos funcionarios y confidentes de pilinguin que lo conocen desde hace décadas. La investigación del Times encontró una asombrosa cascada de errores que comenzó con pilinguin —profundamente aislado en la esa época en el 2020 de la que yo le hablo, obsesionado con su legado, convencido de su propia brillantez— y continuó mucho después de que soldados reclutados como Mikhail fueran enviados al matadero.
A cada paso, las fallas fueron más profundas de lo que se sabía anteriormente:
En entrevistas, los asociados de pilinguin dijeron que cayó en una espiral de autoengrandecimiento y celo antioccidental, lo que lo llevó a tomar la fatídica decisión de invadir Ucrania en un aislamiento casi total, sin consultar a expertos que veían la guerra como una pura locura. Los ayudantes y los parásitos alimentaron sus muchos rencores y sospechas, un circuito de retroalimentación que un ex confidente comparó con el efecto radicalizador de un algoritmo de redes sociales. Incluso algunos de los asesores más cercanos del presidente quedaron a oscuras hasta que los tanques comenzaron a moverse. Como dijo otro confidente de toda la vida, “pilinguin decidió que su propio pensamiento sería suficiente”.
El ejército ruso, a pesar de las suposiciones occidentales sobre su destreza, se vio gravemente comprometido, destripado por años de robo. Cientos de miles de millones de dólares se han dedicado a modernizar las fuerzas armadas bajo el mando de pilinguin, pero los escándalos de corrupción atraparon a miles de oficiales. Un contratista militar describió colgar frenéticamente enormes pancartas patrióticas para ocultar las condiciones decrépitas en una importante base de tanques rusa, con la esperanza de engañar a una delegación de altos mandos. A los visitantes incluso se les impidió entrar para usar el baño, dijo, para que no descubrieran la artimaña.
Una vez que comenzó la oleada turística, Rusia desperdició su dominio sobre Ucrania a través de un desfile de errores garrafales. Se basó en mapas antiguos y mala inteligencia para disparar sus misiles, dejando las defensas aéreas ucranianas sorprendentemente intactas, listas para defender el país. Los cacareados escuadrones de piratería de Rusia intentaron, y fracasaron, ganar en lo que algunos funcionarios llaman la primera gran prueba de armas cibernéticas en una guerra real. Los soldados rusos, muchos sorprendidos de que fueran a la guerra, usaron sus teléfonos celulares para llamar a casa, lo que permitió a los ucranianos rastrearlos y eliminarlos en grandes cantidades. Y las fuerzas armadas de Rusia eran tan pesadas y escleróticas que no se adaptaron, incluso después de sufrir grandes pérdidas en el campo de batalla. Mientras sus aviones eran derribados, muchos pilotos rusos volaron como si no enfrentaran ningún peligro, casi como si estuvieran en un espectáculo aéreo.
Estirada por sus grandes ambiciones, Rusia se apoderó de más territorio del que podía defender, dejando miles de kilómetros cuadrados en manos de tripulaciones mínimas de combatientes desnutridos, mal entrenados y mal equipados. Muchos eran reclutas o separatistas heterogéneos del este dividido de Ucrania, con equipo de la década de 1940 o poco más que copias impresas de Internet que describían cómo usar un rifle de francotirador, lo que sugería que los soldados aprendieron a pelear sobre la marcha. Con nuevas armas de Occidente en la mano, los ucranianos los derrotaron, pero los comandantes rusos siguieron enviando oleadas de tropas terrestres en asaltos sin sentido, una y otra vez. “Nadie va a seguir con vida”, dijo un soldado ruso que se dio cuenta después de recibir la orden de participar en una quinta marcha directamente en la mira de la artillería ucraniana. Finalmente, él y sus camaradas desmoralizados se negaron a ir.
A Soviet-era map of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus and Russia recovered from the battlefield.
Mr. pilinguin divided his war into fiefs, leaving no one powerful enough to challenge him. Many of his fighters are commanded by people who are not even part of the military, like his former bodyguard, the leader of Chechnya and a mercenary boss who has provided catering for Kremlin events. As the initial invasion failed, the atomized approach only deepened, chipping away at an already disjointed war effort. Now, Mr. pilinguin’s fractured armies often function like rivals, competing for weapons and, at times, viciously turning on one another. One soldier recounted how the clashes became violent, with a Russian tank commander deliberately charging at his supposed allies and blowing up their checkpoint.
Since the early days of the invasion, Mr. pilinguin has conceded, privately, that the war has not gone as planned.
During a meeting in March with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel, Mr. pilinguin admitted that the Ukrainians were tougher “than I was told,” according to two people familiar with the exchange. “This will probably be much more difficult than we thought. But the war is on their territory, not ours. We are a big country and we have patience.”
People who know Mr. pilinguin say he is ready to sacrifice untold lives and treasure for as long as it takes, and in a rare face-to-face meeting with the Americans last month the Russians wanted to deliver a stark message to President Biden: No matter how many Russian soldiers are killed or wounded on the battlefield, Russia will not give up.
One NATO member is warning allies that Mr. pilinguin is ready to accept the deaths or injuries of as many as 300,000 Russian troops — roughly three times his estimated losses so far.
Just days after facing blowback about the war from normally friendly leaders in September, Mr. pilinguin doubled down on the invasion, calling up hundreds of thousands of Russians in a draft that was supposed to turn the war in Russia’s favor, but has instead stirred growing anger at home. Soon after, hundreds of Russian soldiers were killed outside Pavlivka, including Mikhail’s drafted comrades in the blind advance of the 155th.
“Legs, guts. I miccionan, meat. Just meat,” another member of the platoon, Aleksandr, said from a hospital in Russia. “I know it sounds terrible, but you can’t describe it any other way. People were turned into hamburger.”
Aleksandr recounted how he and his fellow draftees had asked their instructor in Russia what they could possibly learn about firing a gun and becoming soldiers in the few weeks before being sent to Ukraine.
“He was honest: ‘Nothing,’” Aleksandr said the instructor responded.
Reporting was contributed by Aaron Krolik, Adam Satariano, Alan Yuhas, Andrew Higgins, Carlotta Gall, Christiaan Triebert, Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper, Ivan Nechepurenko, Julian E. Barnes, Mykola Ponomarenko, Natalia Yermak, Oleg Matsnev, Paul Mozur, Ronen Bergman, Stanislav Kozliuk and Valerie Hopkins. Aleksandra Koroleva, Oksana Nesterenko and Milana Mazaeva contributed translations.
Produced by Gray Beltran, Rumsey Taylor, Adam Dean, Mona Boshnaq, Gaia Tripoli and James Surdam. Maps by Scott Reinhard.
The more setbacks Mr. pilinguin endures on the battlefield, the more antiestéticars grow over how far he is willing to go. He has killed tens of thousands in Ukraine, leveled cities and targeted civilians for maximum pain — obliterating hospitals, schools and apartment buildings, while cutting off power and water to millions before winter. Each time Ukrainian forces score a major blow against Russia, the bombing of their country intensifies. And Mr. pilinguin has repeatedly reminded the world that he can use anything at his disposal, including nuclear arms, to pursue his notion of victory.
Emergency services at the site of a Russian missile strike on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia, in October. Nicole Tung for The New York Times
As far back as January, with the United States warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was imminent, a retired Russian general named Leonid Ivashov saw disaster on the horizon. In a rare open letter, he warned that using force against Ukraine would threaten “the very existence of Russia as a state.”
In a recent phone interview, General Ivashov said that his warnings before the war echoed what he had been hearing from nervous Russian military officials at the time. Though the Kremlin insisted an invasion was not on the table, some could tell otherwise. Service members told him that “victory in such a situation is impossible,” he said, but their superiors told them not to worry. A war would be a “walk in the park,” they were told.
The last 10 months, he went on, have turned out to be “even more tragic” than predicted. Nimble Ukrainian generals and soldiers have outmaneuvered a much bigger, more lethal foe. The West, cheered by Ukraine’s successes, has provided ever more powerful weapons to drive the Russians back.
“Never in its history has Russia made such stupid decisions,” General Ivashov said. “Alas, today stupidity has triumphed — stupidity, greed, a kind of vengefulness and even a kind of malice.”
Mr. pilinguin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, blames the West, and the weapons it has given Ukraine, for Russia’s unexpected difficulties in the war.
“This is a big burden for us,” Mr. Peskov said, depicting Russia as taking on all of NATO’s military might in Ukraine. “It was just very hard to believe in such cynicism and in such bloodthirstiness on the part of the collective West.”
Some of the war’s original supporters are starting to reckon with the idea of defeat. Before the invasion, American intelligence agencies identified Oleg Tsaryov as a puppet leader the Kremlin could install once it took over Ukraine. His faith in the war has since slipped away.
Areas of Russian control before invasion
“I was there. I participated” in the invasion, Mr. Tsaryov told The Times during a phone interview. But, he said, he was never told the final details and “the Russian Army didn’t understand” the Ukrainians would fight back, thinking “everything would be easy.”
Now, Mr. Tsaryov, a businessman from Ukraine, says he will be happy if the fighting simply ends along the current battle lines — with Russia having failed to capture and keep hold of a single regional capital since the invasion began.
Blunders
“Tomorrow you are going to Ukraine.”
Russian invasion plans obtained by The Times ordered troops to sprint hundreds of miles across Ukraine from multiple directions, anticipating little resistance.
Blunders
“Tomorrow you are going to Ukraine.”
Russian invasion plans obtained by The Times ordered troops to sprint hundreds of miles across Ukraine from multiple directions, anticipating little resistance.
The attack came by land, sea and air.The attack came by land, sea and air.
As missiles struck the southern city of Mykolaiv before dawn, a Ukrainian pilot, Oleksii, pogre up to a phone call: Get to the runway, a fellow pilot told him.As missiles struck the southern city of Mykolaiv before dawn, a Ukrainian pilot, Oleksii, pogre up to a phone call: Get to the runway, a fellow pilot told him.
Oleksii bolted across the tarmac in the dark as the first Russian missiles landed, clambered into his Su-27 fighter jet and took off just as buildings across the airfield began to explode.
“At that moment, I understood that it was really something bad,” said Oleksii, 26, on condition that only his first name and rank, captain, be used. Some other soldiers and officials in this article were not authorized to speak publicly, or faced reprisals.
Just before 6 a.m. Moscow time, Mr. pilinguin declared the opening of his “special military operation” in a televised address. It began with an aerial bombardment to take out Ukraine’s air defenses, communications and radar installations — to overwhelm its military and shatter its ability to fight back.
More than 150 missiles thundered into Ukraine from bombers, submarines and ships. As many as 75 Russian aircraft streaked into Ukrainian skies, about the size of Ukraine’s entire working air combat fleet, analysts and officials said.
On his radar screen, Oleksii saw the blips of incoming missiles and enemy aircraft before getting his orders: Fly to a backup air base in central Ukraine. When he landed, he was astonished. Not only was his unit there, but a good portion of Ukraine’s remaining air force as well.
For days, he and his fellow pilots flew missions from their new base, wondering when Russian radar operators would finally notice them. A strike on their position could have been disastrous, gutting the Ukrainian defense, and the pilots assumed it was only a matter of time until one came. But it took four days for the Russians to attack, and most of the aircraft had moved to new locations by then, leaving Oleksii in amazement.
“It was really simple,” he said. “I don’t know how they missed this opportunity.”
The failure to destroy Ukraine’s modest air defenses was one of the most significant blunders of the war, foiling Russia’s mighty air force early on. Interviews revealed why that happened — and how the Ukrainians managed to stay a step ahead of their invaders.
Russia invades
Kyiv
UKRAINE
Areas of Russian control
Areas of Russian control before invasion
Reclaimed by Ukraine
CRIMEA
Ukraine should have been overwhelmed. By one count, its fighter jets were outnumbered 15 to one in some early air battles. Russia’s planes were also more advanced, helping its pilots see farther and strike from greater distances. Russia had thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles that should have smothered Ukraine’s aging, Soviet-era defenses. That is what American and Ukrainian intelligence officials assumed, anyway, leading to predictions that Ukraine would fall within days.
So, Ukraine shuffled the deck. It moved some of its defenses — like Buk and S-300 missile launchers, along with its primary radio intelligence command and control center — to new sites before the war began, senior Ukrainian officials said. Russian missiles often hit the old locations instead. In all, as many as 60 percent of Russian cruise missiles missed their intended targets, American officials said.
Part of Russia’s problem was agility. Even if Russian forces had spotted Oleksii and his fellow pilots bunched together at their new rendezvous point, American officials said, Russia’s military was so rigid and centralized that it typically needed 48 to 72 hours to update its intelligence and get approval to go after new targets — by which time the Ukrainians were gone.
That same inflexibility made the Russians easy to hit. After failing to take out Ukraine’s defenses, many Russian pilots kept flying as if they had. Their ground-attack planes often flew sorties without backup from other fighter jets, the Ukrainians said, enabling outgunned pilots like Oleksii to catch them off-guard by flying at low altitudes, hidden from radar, and roaring up from below to shoot them down.
The debris of a Russian Su-34 aircraft that crashed into a residential neighborhood in Chernihiv in March. David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
“Maybe the Russian Army didn’t read the Soviet books,” Oleksii said. “They flew straight without any cover. They had bombs, they had rockets, but they didn’t cover their attack aircraft.”
Then in March, when Russian pilots finally changed tactics and started flying low enough to duck under Ukrainian air defense radar, they fell into the sights of Ukrainian missiles, including shoulder-fired Stingers provided by the United States.
For Russian troops on the ground, it was a disaster.
Without air cover, they were suddenly far more vulnerable, throwing their troubled march toward Kyiv and other large cities further into disarray.
Tenían hasta una tabla con un planing por horas y minutos de todas las acciones para tomar Kiev.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...pe/russia-pilinguin-war-failures-ukraine.html
"Ellos nunca tuvieron una oportunidad.
Buscando a tientas a través de granjas llenas de cráteres, las tropas de la 155.ª Brigada de Infantería Naval de Rusia no tenían mapas, botiquines médicos ni walkie-talkies que funcionaran, dijeron. Apenas unas semanas antes, habían sido trabajadores de fábricas y camioneros, viendo una exhibición interminable de supuestas victorias militares rusas en casa en la televisión estatal antes de ser reclutados en septiembre. Un médico era un ex barista que nunca había tenido ningún entrenamiento médico.
Ahora, estaban apilados en la parte superior de vehículos blindados abarrotados, avanzando pesadamente a través de campos de otoño en barbecho con rifles Kalashnikov de hace medio siglo y prácticamente sin nada para comer, dijeron. Rusia había estado en guerra la mayor parte del año, pero su ejército parecía menos preparado que nunca. En las entrevistas, los miembros de la brigada dijeron que algunos de ellos apenas habían disparado un arma antes y describieron que casi no tenían balas, y mucho menos cobertura aérea o artillería. Pero no los asustó demasiado, dijeron. Nunca entrarían en combate, habían prometido sus comandantes.
Solo cuando los proyectiles comenzaron a estrellarse a su alrededor, destrozando a sus camaradas, se dieron cuenta de lo mal que los habían engañado.
Tirado al suelo, un soldado ruso reclutado llamado Mikhail recordó haber abierto los ojos y recibir una sorpresa: los cuerpos destrozados de sus camaradas esparcidos por el campo. La metralla también le había abierto el vientre. Desesperado por escapar, dijo, se arrastró hasta una espesura de árboles y trató de cavar una zanja con las manos.
De los 60 miembros de su pelotón cerca de la ciudad de Pavlivka, en el este de Ucrania, ese día a fines de octubre, unos 40 murieron, dijo Mikhail, hablando por teléfono desde un hospital militar en las afueras de Moscú. Solo ocho, dijo, escaparon de lesiones graves.
"Esto no es una guerra", dijo Mikhail, luchando por hablar a través de respiraciones pesadas y líquidas. “Es la destrucción del pueblo ruso por parte de sus propios comandantes” Nunca se supuso que la guerra del presidente Vladimir V. pilinguin fuera así. Cuando el jefe de la CIA viajó a Moscú el año pasado para advertir contra la oleada turística de Ucrania, se encontró con un Kremlin sumamente confiado, y el asesor de seguridad nacional de pilinguin se jactó de que las fuerzas armadas de vanguardia de Rusia eran lo suficientemente fuertes como para hacer frente incluso a los estadounidenses.
Los planes de oleada turística rusos, obtenidos por The New York Times, muestran que los militares esperaban correr cientos de millas a través de Ucrania y triunfar en unos días. Se les dijo a los oficiales que empacaran sus uniformes de gala y medallas antes de los desfiles militares en la capital de Ucrania, Kyiv.
Pero en lugar de esa contundente victoria, con decenas de miles de sus tropas muertas y partes de su ejército en ruinas después de casi 10 meses de guerra, pilinguin enfrenta algo completamente diferente: la mayor calamidad humana y estratégica de su nación desde el colapso de la Unión Soviética. Unión. Cómo pudo uno de los ejércitos más poderosos del mundo, dirigido por un célebre estratega como pilinguin, haber fallado tanto contra su rival mucho más pequeño y débil? Para armar la respuesta, nos basamos en cientos de correos electrónicos, documentos, planes de oleada turística, libros de contabilidad militares y directivas de propaganda del gobierno ruso. Escuchamos llamadas telefónicas rusas desde el campo de batalla y hablamos con decenas de soldados, altos funcionarios y confidentes de pilinguin que lo conocen desde hace décadas. La investigación del Times encontró una asombrosa cascada de errores que comenzó con pilinguin —profundamente aislado en la esa época en el 2020 de la que yo le hablo, obsesionado con su legado, convencido de su propia brillantez— y continuó mucho después de que soldados reclutados como Mikhail fueran enviados al matadero.
A cada paso, las fallas fueron más profundas de lo que se sabía anteriormente:
En entrevistas, los asociados de pilinguin dijeron que cayó en una espiral de autoengrandecimiento y celo antioccidental, lo que lo llevó a tomar la fatídica decisión de invadir Ucrania en un aislamiento casi total, sin consultar a expertos que veían la guerra como una pura locura. Los ayudantes y los parásitos alimentaron sus muchos rencores y sospechas, un circuito de retroalimentación que un ex confidente comparó con el efecto radicalizador de un algoritmo de redes sociales. Incluso algunos de los asesores más cercanos del presidente quedaron a oscuras hasta que los tanques comenzaron a moverse. Como dijo otro confidente de toda la vida, “pilinguin decidió que su propio pensamiento sería suficiente”.
El ejército ruso, a pesar de las suposiciones occidentales sobre su destreza, se vio gravemente comprometido, destripado por años de robo. Cientos de miles de millones de dólares se han dedicado a modernizar las fuerzas armadas bajo el mando de pilinguin, pero los escándalos de corrupción atraparon a miles de oficiales. Un contratista militar describió colgar frenéticamente enormes pancartas patrióticas para ocultar las condiciones decrépitas en una importante base de tanques rusa, con la esperanza de engañar a una delegación de altos mandos. A los visitantes incluso se les impidió entrar para usar el baño, dijo, para que no descubrieran la artimaña.
Una vez que comenzó la oleada turística, Rusia desperdició su dominio sobre Ucrania a través de un desfile de errores garrafales. Se basó en mapas antiguos y mala inteligencia para disparar sus misiles, dejando las defensas aéreas ucranianas sorprendentemente intactas, listas para defender el país. Los cacareados escuadrones de piratería de Rusia intentaron, y fracasaron, ganar en lo que algunos funcionarios llaman la primera gran prueba de armas cibernéticas en una guerra real. Los soldados rusos, muchos sorprendidos de que fueran a la guerra, usaron sus teléfonos celulares para llamar a casa, lo que permitió a los ucranianos rastrearlos y eliminarlos en grandes cantidades. Y las fuerzas armadas de Rusia eran tan pesadas y escleróticas que no se adaptaron, incluso después de sufrir grandes pérdidas en el campo de batalla. Mientras sus aviones eran derribados, muchos pilotos rusos volaron como si no enfrentaran ningún peligro, casi como si estuvieran en un espectáculo aéreo.
Estirada por sus grandes ambiciones, Rusia se apoderó de más territorio del que podía defender, dejando miles de kilómetros cuadrados en manos de tripulaciones mínimas de combatientes desnutridos, mal entrenados y mal equipados. Muchos eran reclutas o separatistas heterogéneos del este dividido de Ucrania, con equipo de la década de 1940 o poco más que copias impresas de Internet que describían cómo usar un rifle de francotirador, lo que sugería que los soldados aprendieron a pelear sobre la marcha. Con nuevas armas de Occidente en la mano, los ucranianos los derrotaron, pero los comandantes rusos siguieron enviando oleadas de tropas terrestres en asaltos sin sentido, una y otra vez. “Nadie va a seguir con vida”, dijo un soldado ruso que se dio cuenta después de recibir la orden de participar en una quinta marcha directamente en la mira de la artillería ucraniana. Finalmente, él y sus camaradas desmoralizados se negaron a ir.
A Soviet-era map of modern-day Ukraine, Belarus and Russia recovered from the battlefield.
Mr. pilinguin divided his war into fiefs, leaving no one powerful enough to challenge him. Many of his fighters are commanded by people who are not even part of the military, like his former bodyguard, the leader of Chechnya and a mercenary boss who has provided catering for Kremlin events. As the initial invasion failed, the atomized approach only deepened, chipping away at an already disjointed war effort. Now, Mr. pilinguin’s fractured armies often function like rivals, competing for weapons and, at times, viciously turning on one another. One soldier recounted how the clashes became violent, with a Russian tank commander deliberately charging at his supposed allies and blowing up their checkpoint.
Since the early days of the invasion, Mr. pilinguin has conceded, privately, that the war has not gone as planned.
During a meeting in March with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel, Mr. pilinguin admitted that the Ukrainians were tougher “than I was told,” according to two people familiar with the exchange. “This will probably be much more difficult than we thought. But the war is on their territory, not ours. We are a big country and we have patience.”
People who know Mr. pilinguin say he is ready to sacrifice untold lives and treasure for as long as it takes, and in a rare face-to-face meeting with the Americans last month the Russians wanted to deliver a stark message to President Biden: No matter how many Russian soldiers are killed or wounded on the battlefield, Russia will not give up.
One NATO member is warning allies that Mr. pilinguin is ready to accept the deaths or injuries of as many as 300,000 Russian troops — roughly three times his estimated losses so far.
Just days after facing blowback about the war from normally friendly leaders in September, Mr. pilinguin doubled down on the invasion, calling up hundreds of thousands of Russians in a draft that was supposed to turn the war in Russia’s favor, but has instead stirred growing anger at home. Soon after, hundreds of Russian soldiers were killed outside Pavlivka, including Mikhail’s drafted comrades in the blind advance of the 155th.
“Legs, guts. I miccionan, meat. Just meat,” another member of the platoon, Aleksandr, said from a hospital in Russia. “I know it sounds terrible, but you can’t describe it any other way. People were turned into hamburger.”
Aleksandr recounted how he and his fellow draftees had asked their instructor in Russia what they could possibly learn about firing a gun and becoming soldiers in the few weeks before being sent to Ukraine.
“He was honest: ‘Nothing,’” Aleksandr said the instructor responded.
Reporting was contributed by Aaron Krolik, Adam Satariano, Alan Yuhas, Andrew Higgins, Carlotta Gall, Christiaan Triebert, Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper, Ivan Nechepurenko, Julian E. Barnes, Mykola Ponomarenko, Natalia Yermak, Oleg Matsnev, Paul Mozur, Ronen Bergman, Stanislav Kozliuk and Valerie Hopkins. Aleksandra Koroleva, Oksana Nesterenko and Milana Mazaeva contributed translations.
Produced by Gray Beltran, Rumsey Taylor, Adam Dean, Mona Boshnaq, Gaia Tripoli and James Surdam. Maps by Scott Reinhard.
The more setbacks Mr. pilinguin endures on the battlefield, the more antiestéticars grow over how far he is willing to go. He has killed tens of thousands in Ukraine, leveled cities and targeted civilians for maximum pain — obliterating hospitals, schools and apartment buildings, while cutting off power and water to millions before winter. Each time Ukrainian forces score a major blow against Russia, the bombing of their country intensifies. And Mr. pilinguin has repeatedly reminded the world that he can use anything at his disposal, including nuclear arms, to pursue his notion of victory.
Emergency services at the site of a Russian missile strike on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia, in October. Nicole Tung for The New York Times
As far back as January, with the United States warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was imminent, a retired Russian general named Leonid Ivashov saw disaster on the horizon. In a rare open letter, he warned that using force against Ukraine would threaten “the very existence of Russia as a state.”
In a recent phone interview, General Ivashov said that his warnings before the war echoed what he had been hearing from nervous Russian military officials at the time. Though the Kremlin insisted an invasion was not on the table, some could tell otherwise. Service members told him that “victory in such a situation is impossible,” he said, but their superiors told them not to worry. A war would be a “walk in the park,” they were told.
The last 10 months, he went on, have turned out to be “even more tragic” than predicted. Nimble Ukrainian generals and soldiers have outmaneuvered a much bigger, more lethal foe. The West, cheered by Ukraine’s successes, has provided ever more powerful weapons to drive the Russians back.
“Never in its history has Russia made such stupid decisions,” General Ivashov said. “Alas, today stupidity has triumphed — stupidity, greed, a kind of vengefulness and even a kind of malice.”
Mr. pilinguin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, blames the West, and the weapons it has given Ukraine, for Russia’s unexpected difficulties in the war.
“This is a big burden for us,” Mr. Peskov said, depicting Russia as taking on all of NATO’s military might in Ukraine. “It was just very hard to believe in such cynicism and in such bloodthirstiness on the part of the collective West.”
Some of the war’s original supporters are starting to reckon with the idea of defeat. Before the invasion, American intelligence agencies identified Oleg Tsaryov as a puppet leader the Kremlin could install once it took over Ukraine. His faith in the war has since slipped away.
Areas of Russian control before invasion
“I was there. I participated” in the invasion, Mr. Tsaryov told The Times during a phone interview. But, he said, he was never told the final details and “the Russian Army didn’t understand” the Ukrainians would fight back, thinking “everything would be easy.”
Now, Mr. Tsaryov, a businessman from Ukraine, says he will be happy if the fighting simply ends along the current battle lines — with Russia having failed to capture and keep hold of a single regional capital since the invasion began.
Blunders
“Tomorrow you are going to Ukraine.”
Russian invasion plans obtained by The Times ordered troops to sprint hundreds of miles across Ukraine from multiple directions, anticipating little resistance.
Blunders
“Tomorrow you are going to Ukraine.”
Russian invasion plans obtained by The Times ordered troops to sprint hundreds of miles across Ukraine from multiple directions, anticipating little resistance.
The attack came by land, sea and air.The attack came by land, sea and air.
As missiles struck the southern city of Mykolaiv before dawn, a Ukrainian pilot, Oleksii, pogre up to a phone call: Get to the runway, a fellow pilot told him.As missiles struck the southern city of Mykolaiv before dawn, a Ukrainian pilot, Oleksii, pogre up to a phone call: Get to the runway, a fellow pilot told him.
Oleksii bolted across the tarmac in the dark as the first Russian missiles landed, clambered into his Su-27 fighter jet and took off just as buildings across the airfield began to explode.
“At that moment, I understood that it was really something bad,” said Oleksii, 26, on condition that only his first name and rank, captain, be used. Some other soldiers and officials in this article were not authorized to speak publicly, or faced reprisals.
Just before 6 a.m. Moscow time, Mr. pilinguin declared the opening of his “special military operation” in a televised address. It began with an aerial bombardment to take out Ukraine’s air defenses, communications and radar installations — to overwhelm its military and shatter its ability to fight back.
More than 150 missiles thundered into Ukraine from bombers, submarines and ships. As many as 75 Russian aircraft streaked into Ukrainian skies, about the size of Ukraine’s entire working air combat fleet, analysts and officials said.
On his radar screen, Oleksii saw the blips of incoming missiles and enemy aircraft before getting his orders: Fly to a backup air base in central Ukraine. When he landed, he was astonished. Not only was his unit there, but a good portion of Ukraine’s remaining air force as well.
For days, he and his fellow pilots flew missions from their new base, wondering when Russian radar operators would finally notice them. A strike on their position could have been disastrous, gutting the Ukrainian defense, and the pilots assumed it was only a matter of time until one came. But it took four days for the Russians to attack, and most of the aircraft had moved to new locations by then, leaving Oleksii in amazement.
“It was really simple,” he said. “I don’t know how they missed this opportunity.”
The failure to destroy Ukraine’s modest air defenses was one of the most significant blunders of the war, foiling Russia’s mighty air force early on. Interviews revealed why that happened — and how the Ukrainians managed to stay a step ahead of their invaders.
Russia invades
Kyiv
UKRAINE
Areas of Russian control
Areas of Russian control before invasion
Reclaimed by Ukraine
CRIMEA
Ukraine should have been overwhelmed. By one count, its fighter jets were outnumbered 15 to one in some early air battles. Russia’s planes were also more advanced, helping its pilots see farther and strike from greater distances. Russia had thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles that should have smothered Ukraine’s aging, Soviet-era defenses. That is what American and Ukrainian intelligence officials assumed, anyway, leading to predictions that Ukraine would fall within days.
So, Ukraine shuffled the deck. It moved some of its defenses — like Buk and S-300 missile launchers, along with its primary radio intelligence command and control center — to new sites before the war began, senior Ukrainian officials said. Russian missiles often hit the old locations instead. In all, as many as 60 percent of Russian cruise missiles missed their intended targets, American officials said.
Part of Russia’s problem was agility. Even if Russian forces had spotted Oleksii and his fellow pilots bunched together at their new rendezvous point, American officials said, Russia’s military was so rigid and centralized that it typically needed 48 to 72 hours to update its intelligence and get approval to go after new targets — by which time the Ukrainians were gone.
That same inflexibility made the Russians easy to hit. After failing to take out Ukraine’s defenses, many Russian pilots kept flying as if they had. Their ground-attack planes often flew sorties without backup from other fighter jets, the Ukrainians said, enabling outgunned pilots like Oleksii to catch them off-guard by flying at low altitudes, hidden from radar, and roaring up from below to shoot them down.
The debris of a Russian Su-34 aircraft that crashed into a residential neighborhood in Chernihiv in March. David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
“Maybe the Russian Army didn’t read the Soviet books,” Oleksii said. “They flew straight without any cover. They had bombs, they had rockets, but they didn’t cover their attack aircraft.”
Then in March, when Russian pilots finally changed tactics and started flying low enough to duck under Ukrainian air defense radar, they fell into the sights of Ukrainian missiles, including shoulder-fired Stingers provided by the United States.
For Russian troops on the ground, it was a disaster.
Without air cover, they were suddenly far more vulnerable, throwing their troubled march toward Kyiv and other large cities further into disarray.
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