PRAVDA 6 June 2022: The deputy head of the State Duma Committee for the Development of Civil Society, Colonel General and former commander of the Airborne Forces, Vladimir Shamanov , said the main miscalculation, “was that we will be met with flowers.” “This is one of the main mistakes that we felt very keenly in the first five days. Today we have already overcome this issue,” Shamanov said.
The Russians also did not expect the Ukrainian military to hide behind civilian human shields. “When conducting defensive operations in cities…The soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine occupy the upper floors of high-rise buildings, and hold the civilian population below,” explained the former commander of the Airborne Forces, retired Colonel General Georgy Shpak.
Significantly, the Russian military did not expect the NATO officer corps to coordinate the military operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in addition to providing Kyiv with full intelligence information.
The Russian military also lacked training and experience in conducting main force operations against a similarly equipped opponent, emphasis in Russian military training having focused on anti-terrorism operations.
The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov , said that at the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine, there were certain “mistakes” and “shortcomings”, but in the second half of May, the development of hostilities is fully consistent with the original plan.
Blog Editor Patrick Cloutier is the author of Mussolini’s War in the East 1941-1943.
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