Why Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a “catastrophic failure”

I think it's a omnishambles to be honest. Russian. I mean did they underestimate the. Ukrainians yes did they overestimate. themselves yes were they blinded by as I. wrote in the economist of hubris Yeah. chauvinism racism yes. Ukrainians are lesser a lesser people. >> Yeah they are. what they are Malorossiya you know. they're little Russians quote unquote we. are the great Russian people they're the. small Russian people you know we are the. heirs of Zhukov they are just a bunch of. country quote unquote country bumpkins. who are corrupt and inefficient can't.

run their own country I think there was. a role of. you know this sort of quote new. generation warfare you know this is the. thing I the indirect. espionage sabotage. destabilization of operations. >> don't need large. infantry formations because by attacking. the key nodes of Ukrainian power by. undermining them through subversion. covert action they'll crumble they'll. crumble for decades. >> Yes they'll just Ukraine's a house of. cards you know Yeah and basically we'll. put lock on the door Yeah. We've already. done all this work and then the whole. country's going to collapse the.

leadership will flee will surround the. army in Donbas force them to surrender. bring on a puppet leader so Lukashenka. type figure. eradicate the. Ukrainian intellectuals and those people. who were getting in the way and then. move on and I think that was the plan. but I think you know there so there was. problems in the in the concept of the. plan. there were problems in the intelligent. preparation. especially the intelligent services. passing information up that Putin wants. to hear Yeah. not sending bad news up.

the chain Yeah like you know all our. troops have got COVID and they're not. prepared they haven't done any. rehearsals boss we haven't got enough. troops or the Ukrainians are going to. fight and that wasn't heard because you. know that's the way it's done but I. thought also in the execution. the fact they had four parallel thrusts. into Ukraine at the same time no overall. commander no logistics no rehearsals as. I said so when my colleagues were. driving around the border in the winter. of 2022 they just sat there getting. drunk getting COVID and doing nothing so.

suddenly they like rung up and said well. lads you've got to invade tomorrow so. well there's no plans nothing the plans. are out of date the maps are out of date. so I mean I think it's just catastrophic. failure of the Russian state I think. it's a symbol of how much Russia's been. institutions like the armed armed forces. Ministry of Defense have been eaten away. by corruption and incompetence.