Technology

So much about "expensive weaponry", so little about "effective weaponry". If your tool (in this case, of war) is described in terms only of its cost and not of its effectiveness, you may have a commodity fetishization issue going on there.

There's a reason the AK rifle is the most popular in the world, and it's definitely not its massive price tag.

Sources said Ukrainian troops had repeatedly abandoned Javelin missile command launch units (CLU), which can be re-used and reportedly cost more than $100,000 (£80,000), on the battlefield as Kyiv’s military allegedly retains a Soviet-style, semi-disposable outlook towards its equipment and weapons.

This reminds me of gun nuts being in more danger than normal folks in countries where guns are illegal because they're so valuable.

Russian doctrine

Emphasis on massive firepower over manoeuvrability and precision attacks. Although units do support each other, they do not prioritise coordinating assaults with rapid, spontaneous cooperation. Troops are often of lower quality, who will push forward frontally in order to probe weak spots or get masses of cheap artillery into a better position to grind the enemy down gradually.

Nato combined arms

Troops are trained to a high-level to be able to understand the entire battlefield and operate in coordination with air, armour and artillery on the fly Commanders get troops in flanking positions by using fast communications and high-tech weapons to rapidly and accurately strike threats as they appear. Emphasis is on speed, aggression and outmanoeuvring the enemy.

I may be completely ignorant on battle tactics and doctrinal differences between modern armies, but on a very shallow read I don't see the advantage of needing to train troops to a "high-level to be able to understand the entire battlefield" "on the fly" compared to a doctrine that supposedly relies on less training for troops and mass produced heavy weaponry. Not saying one is necessarily better than the other, but this framing is not helping NATO.

If one were to be snarky about this, they could say that basing your strategy and tactics on the unfounded belief that your people are inherently superior is not a healthy idea.

They still think they have some cool one of a kind tactics and equipment that would win this war. Impressive how far down they manage to shove their heads.

Blaming the proxy when it doesn’t work out, and claiming the issue is cost is just cope to make NATO countries feel confident it’s the dum dum Slavs fault and not the reality that NATO has little to no tech or strategic advantage over anyone who is actually a rival military. NATO doctrine during the ‘war on terror’ involved using as many munitions as possible in “shock and awe” attacks but maybe NATO wasn’t willing to extend the use of that tactic to a lowly proxy. Or maybe NATO doctrine only applies to farmers with 1950s weaponry defending their homes

Reminds me of the Business Insider article a few years ago which was extremely positive about the Nazi tactics on the eastern front.

This is my favourite part of the article. Western logic distilled.

“The Russian army probably has more Javelins than the British Army now,” a British source said, adding that although he and his colleagues supported Ukraine’s fight against Russia, the effort to support Kyiv “was built around lies”.

But I've read a few articles about how NATO tactics just don't work. It's hilarious to me that after 3 years, they are still insisting that their methods are the best, even though Russia has proven very effective at dealing with western materiel. The sheer arrogance, even though they haven't fought against a peer in well over half a century, much less won a major war.

"Sources also described instances of corruption when training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine. Lorries carrying equipment would occasionally go missing and shipments of vehicles would arrive at units stripped of parts, “including seatbelts”."

Why would that be?

Quantity is a quality on itself

Turns out that cheap and reliable weapons that Russia is able to pump out in mass quantities work a lot better than fancy artisanally produced NATO weapons.

apparently we need to re-learn this every so often
1000 dudes with half-decent pikes will beat 50 dudes with fancy swords
500 stamped out tanks will beat 10 over-engineered tanks
100 cheap speedboats loaded with explosives will beat an aircraft carrier
etc, etc.

Good enough is good enough.