“Russia wants to squeeze us this winter.” The Russian army will come out of the war “incomparably smarter”, but they already lack “meat” and iron – a conversation with Dyky

— The commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, believes that, regardless of the results of the war in Ukraine, the Russian army will become stronger after it than it is today. And NATO should have no illusions about Russia’s military power – the Russian Armed Forces are learning, improving, and applying war experience, he said. And he called on NATO to quickly prepare for this threat. Geographically, as a neighboring country, Russia will not move anywhere from us either. Maybe we in Ukraine should not miss such theses? Because to consider Russians complete idiots, in my opinion, is wrong. What do you think about it?

— Unfortunately, they are globally insane, as far as their goals and motivations are concerned. But crazy people and idiots are, unfortunately, not the same thing at all.

To think we are fighting a stupid enemy is two years out of date. Yes, in 2022 they came with a bunch of illusions and really made a lot of very stupid decisions that saved us. But, unfortunately, they really turned out to be quite capable of learning from mistakes, and this did not help them, but on the contrary, they are improving. They continue to learn from mistakes, develop new methods of war, develop how to get us.

Another thing, with all due respect to Kavoli, I would divide his thesis into two parts. But, by the way, he was not addressing us at all, but a completely different audience. To the NATO countries, which today, compared to us, are absolutely not ready for a direct confrontation with Russia. It means Europeans. The US military is a different story, it has such a huge technological and numerical advantage that it is a different matter. But regarding the European armies… Another official, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell, once said about them that they are bonsai armies. It looks like a tree, but tiny and in a tub. European bonsai armies are absolutely not ready for a direct confrontation with Russia. And the fact that Cavoli encourages them to prepare is absolutely correct. He does wise things. Just to be heard.

But if we are really interested in what will happen to the Russian army after this war, then let’s divide it into two elements. The fact that the Russian army will come out of this war incomparably smarter and much better prepared for war in terms of strategy and planning is absolutely indisputable, here Cavoli is right. But, in addition to command experience and command strategy, there is another real resource — both human and iron. But what is the first, what else in Russia by the end of this war, there will be practically none. And here there is a difference.

The Russian army will come out experienced, trained, absolutely not as naive as it was when it entered Ukraine in 2022 for a “special operation”. And at the same time, they will still need several years to replenish their reserves of “meat” and iron to renew their fighting capacity.

Another thing is how many years exactly will they need? It is now a thankless task to predict, because we do not know how long this war will last and in what condition each of the parties will come out of it.

– If they are already hiring people from different countries, they have already largely run out of prisoners, now the story with the North Korean army – they say 11, then 12 thousand personnel, then I also think that this is not from a sweet life.