Disclaimer

After leaving several drafts sitting on my hard drive for months, I’ve decided to publish them, unfinished as they may be. This post is one such draft.

This post serves as a snapshot in time of my observations and biases. It is not meant as endorsement of any particular action or policy.

Wrong assumptions

I would have expected these parts of infrastructure to collapse immediately: - Internet access seriously disturbed and degraded - Military net: - Ground lines of comms, satellite comms jammed or sabotaged - Networks thoroughly infiltrated - Civilian 3G/4G towers sabotaged and taken down - Air defense network wiped out - Rail network and road-based logistics attacked at dispatch centers - Black-sea based shipping taken out by destroying loading/unloading areas of ports, cyber attacks on dispatch and command - All hard drives wiped

NotPetya was incredibly stupid in hindsight, underlining the need for hardened networks not only for military, but also preparing civilian sectors.

I would not have expected COIN (for police/special forces) and insurgency training by foreign advisors to pay off, but it seems to have created force multipliers. Military advisers seem to be doing net positive instead of teaching wrong doctrine.

Purge of Russian-aligned personnel in military and security agencies seems to have left less of a knowledge gap than expected and in fact has allowed competent junior officers to rise, bringing new tactics and tech with them.

Weird how so many different countries supplying widely different arms, military aid and intelligence has actually resulted in well-planned deployment of Ukrainian forces.