>>51284
Admittedly, I thought Ukraine would collapse on the first day too. But not because of Russian strength but rather I thought the Ukrainians would not fight back, that they would be too disorganised and demoralised to want to fight such a war.

But I think Russia has been over estimated for a long time, Russia is Russia, it's always had to rely on numbers but it doesn't actually have the numbers in this war, Ukraine does, Russia just has more equipment. It's essentially a war between two Soviet armies, only one has more men and the other has more tanks.
So it kind of makes sense when you look at it that way.

The Ukrainians have the infantry to hold any part of the front, but they don't have enough material to launch major offensives given how costly they are in terms of material. The Russians have the tanks but they don't have enough men for such a large front, so they can go on the offensive they just have to be specific about it and they use Mercs and Chechens to do the bloodiest fighting.