'Shock and Awful'

Russian forces, fully prepared and operating from Russian soil, were able to move just tens of miles into an adjoining country. What Putin's military weakness means for the west.

- By William M. Arkin

Russia's military is weak and backwards. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine produced this paradigm-shifting surprise one that should transform the West's view of Russia's prowess, the threat that the country represents and the Kremlin's future in the global arena.

After just one day of fighting, Russia's ground force lost most of its initial momentum, undermined by shortages of fuel, ammunition and even food, but also because of a poorly trained and led force. Russia began to compensate for the weaknesses of its land army with more long-range air, missile and artillery strikes. And President Putin resorted to a nuclear threat—a reaction, U.S. military experts say, to the failure of Moscow's conventional forces to make quick progress on the ground.

Other military observers are flabbergasted that a Russian invasion force, fully prepared and operating from Russian soil, has been able to move just tens of miles into an adjoining country. One retired U.S. Army general told Newsweek in an email: “We know that Russia has a plodding army and that Russian military force has always been a blunt instrument, but why risk the antipathy of the entire planet if you have no prospect of achieving even minimal gains.” The Army general believes that the only explanation is that the Kremlin overestimated its own forces.

“I believe that at the heart of Russian military thinking is how Marshal Zhukov marched across Eastern Europe to Berlin, a former high-level CIA official told Newsweek in an interview. Zhukov's orders were to “line up the artillery and...flatten everything ahead of you, he says. “Then send in the peasant Army to kill or rape anyone left alive.' Subtle the Russians are not.