Quote Originally Posted by wiggin View Post
I agree that the preparations were badly bungled (and frankly their timing wasn't great either - most countries launching wars of choice wait for better weather/ground conditions), likely due to aforementioned miscalculation about Ukrainian resistance. But I'm not sure that translates into a heavily limited capacity to sustain operations going forward. Russia's armaments industry is largely self sufficient, their fuel capacity is effectively limitless, and they have a large reservoir of manpower they can bring to bear (heh, bear). As I understand it, the Russian military is actually in much better shape now than it was in the late 90s during the Chechen campaigns, though I am not an expert on their logistical capabilities.
Overall the Russian military may be in much better shape than during the Chechen campaigns. I'm not going to make a statement one way or the other there. But they do have substantially less invested in power-projection than we do, and Russia is so big that they have to tie up a fair amount of what capability they do have just maintaining their ability to project power in their own territory. They did not prepare for an extended campaign and my understanding is they can't just reorganize and reallocate to provide the all resources, support and maintenance they need for one on the fly. There's a limit to their capability to divert from their other requirements in the medium-term which I think you're failing to recognize.

I will note, by the way, that the Ukrainian regular forces will be facing a lot of the same difficulties there. And while they get some advantages from being the defender in this regard, they also gain some disadvantages. Shorter supply lines, but more vulnerable supply sources, for instance. Western support mitigates that to an extent but doesn't eliminate it in the same medium-term.