Reason why Russia hasn’t used its most advanced weapons in Ukraine

The newest and most common points are that

1. Russia is “holding back” its men and best equipment
2. Russia’s attack on Kyiv was a diversion
3. Russia is actually winning if you look at casualty figures

All of these are wrong. For our purposes, we will focus on the 1st myth- that Russia is holding back men and equipment.

If you look up the size of the Russian military you see that it’s 1,000,000 strong with 2,000,000 in reserve. Then you see that only 200,000 are engaged in Ukraine and this lends itself to the notion that Russia is holding back. Here’s the thing though

• Of those 1,000,000 men around 400k are in the Airforce, Navy, or internal security
• Of the remaining 600,000, at least half are logistical or specialized personnel
• Russia still has to occupy Georgia, protect its cities, station troops along the NATO borders, and station troops along the Chinese border

Overall Russia has thrown just about everything it has at Ukraine. The vast majority of the active “ready right now” Russian Army is involved in this invasion.

Sure Russia could mobilize and call all its reserves up. The problem is that this takes an immense amount of money and time. Even if more men are called up Russia is struggling to supply its currently engaged forces. Adding more men to the mix will only make matters worse.

Now let’s talk about equipment.

The most modern Russian tank is the T-14 Armata and it’s a decent tank on paper. So why isn’t it in Ukraine? Well because there are only 100 of them in existence and they are still undergoing testing.

Russia didn’t get any foreign production contracts which meant it could never mass-produce the T-14. Therefore only a handful of prototypes were ever built.

Russia’s most modern tank in active use is the T-90 and these tanks are actively deployed in Ukraine. Additionally

• The Russian Navy has deployed some of its most modern assets to the Black Sea
• The Russian Airforce has been using its more modern Gen-5 Aircraft but similar to the T-14, there just aren’t very many of them.
• The best Russian military units- like SpecOps guys and Paratroopers have been deployed and were involved in the earliest strikes against Kyiv

Russia has thrown everything it has at Ukraine. In order to bolster their forces, they’d have to increase their military spending, call up reserves, and undergo an economic shift to a total wartime economy. Taking these steps would be tantamount to admitting failure which Putin will never do.

This isn’t a war remember? It’s a “special military action” or some other nonsense. Why would you need to fully mobilize for a minor defensive military operation?