XPost: alt.war.vietnam

Well,,,, here is one opinion.

Symon Jemčenko
Lived in Ukraine Sun

How long will it take for Russia to capture the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv?
In 1999–2000, Russian military spent more than 2 months capturing
Chechen capital Grozny, then a city with a population of less than 200 thousand, from Chechen paramilitary forces. In this battle, Russia lost
more than a thousand soldiers[1]. Despite capturing the capital, the war
in Chechnya lasted for the whole next decade, with Russian troops losing thousands more people. Even today, there is sporadic resistance of
Chechen militants to Russian rule in Chechnya.


Grozny after the battle in 2000

Ukraine is dozens of times bigger, more populated and economically
powerful than Chechnya. Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is a city of
almost 3 million people, 20 times bigger than Grozny was during the war.
It stands on the Dnieper river, and has a strategic hill location, which
makes it very hard to conquer. If Russia invades Ukraine, its troops
will first need to reach Kyiv and break the resistance of Ukrainian professional army and paramilitary forces. Even if they reach Kyiv, the
Russian losses would be huge. To capture Kyiv, the would have to break
the resistance of not only the regular army, but also civilians, who are
likely to use the city’s topography to destroy Russian invaders. Even if
the city falls, Russia is to get a ruined place with lots of partisan
activity, which will be a drain on both the personnel and economy. So
many troops would be needed just to control the city and its outskirts,
which are mostly forests, suitable for guerrilla activities, that
further invasion of Ukraine would hardly be possible. This is why even a
top Russian general warned Putin, that an invasion of Ukraine would be a disaster for Russia in the first place.


Ukrainians in Kyiv training to resist a possible Russian invasion in 2021[2]

To sum up, conquering Kyiv would be a very hard task for a Russian army,
much harder than the Chechen campaign in the 1990s, even though Russian
army is currently in a better condition. Attacking the city would mean
death for many thousands of Russian troops, it would destabilize the
situation inside of Russia, and it would make Ukrainians even more
devoted to protect their country and resist the Russian invasion.
Invading Kyiv would likely be the last thing Putin would do in his
political career.

Footnotes

[1] Battle of Grozny (1999–2000) - Wikipedia
[2] Training Civilians, Ukraine Nurtures a Resistance in Waiting
95.4K viewsView 917 upvotesView 8 shares

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and others

A.M. Wilkinson
· Tue
Its also important to remember that the Russian army only faced between 3000–6000 Chechen fighters in the second battle of Grozny in 1999. And
these are Russian estimates.

Brian Mead
· 18h ago
The First Chechen War was horribly run from the start.

Insufficient supplies, barely trained conscripts, people who didn’t want
to fight it, half of the general staff quit rather than prosecute it,
and home field advantage for defenders who were overwhelmingly combat
veterans against mostly green boys.

The Russian military of 2022 is unimaginably different from the Russian military of 1996.

Steve Cooper
· 8h ago
Their equipment might have improved but I doubt the conditions or the
will of the soldiers has changed much. I read an interesting suggestion yesterday that Ukraine leaflet the Russian soldiers with an offer of
100,000 euro's to surrender.

Might cost Ukraine and the west a few bllion dollars but it's cheaper
than war.

Michael Burnet
· Tue
Not to mention the bloodbath in 1994–95….


Jack Spektor
· Sun
Russian general's boasted they would take Grozny in 4 hours and with 1
special ops battalion

Dobromir Prigorski
· Sun
I find it comical how they say “Go to Donieck and you will see how cruel
the Ukrainian army is randomly genociding civilians”. Meanwhile they
made Dresden v2. in Groznyj in 2000.

Yuri Khaizar
· Sun
But they took Crimea without turning it to Drezden v3.

Ion Lazar
· Sun
Crimea had a considerably large Russian military bases complex operating
there already, since kinda always. Under a rather lengthy lease contract
with Ukraine. One can wonder why Russia really needed to seize that
place. Routinely easy task, however it looked like shooting in the leg
in the aftermath.

Cem Cakim
· Mon
Ukraine will show big resistance that will end the war between the two countries with a stalemate. But this will signal the start of Putin’s downfall which should take place in late 2023.

Joseph Admire
· Tue
As they say, from your mouth to God’s ear. There have been rumbles for a while of increasing discontent in Russia, I know that, though so far
it’s all still subterranean.

Cem Cakim
Putin is ill; he has Parkinson and his left hand is shaking. Next year (probably), he will leave the office in the grounds of health.

Robert Justinoff
· 22h ago
There are other views that Putin will carry on into the 2030s with his
inner circle in a much changed world. He will carry on to Putinize
eastern Europe.

robably), he will leave the office in the grounds of health.
Profile photo for Robert Justinoff
Robert Justinoff
· 22h ago
There are other views that Putin will carry on into the 2030s with his
inner circle in a much changed world. He will carry on to Putinize
eastern Europe.

Brian Mead
· 18h ago
Putin already knows conquering Ukraine is a self defeating move; it
would give him a border with NATO instead of a buffer state. He lived
the Chechen embarassment and would not repeat it. You overestimate the
state of Ukraine’s military.


I have a full answer on the subject, but, TL;DR: Russia has twice as
many professional full time volunteer troops as Ukraine has troops.

Besides, Ukraine’s economy is pathetic. It would be too expensive to
develop.

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