Corruption plus dictatorship equals disaster
The New York Times publishes a devastating report on Russia's failures in Ukraine, and in the process shows why "legacy media" is still essential.
This weekend I could have obsessed over the latest goings-on with Mad King Elon and Twitter - as if enough of the world’s most annoying very online people weren’t already caught up in this mess, this weekend brought the media’s worst grandstander and crybully into the mix1 - but instead I decided to pay attention to the most insane football weekend in recent memory.
That’s both kinds of football.2 I think I made the right choice.
This weekend I also settled in to read the massive New York Times story about Russia’s spectacular failures in Ukraine, and it’s a truly remarkable piece of journalism.
It turns out that when your underlings are afraid to say “no” to you, and when most of your military budget ends up as a stimulus package for the mega-yacht industry, your “special military operation” is going to go extremely poorly.
There’s too much to excerpt, but here are some highlights:
Russian soldiers weren’t old until the day before the invasion that they were actually going to invade, which they revealed to loved ones via cell phone, which in turn alerted the Urainians to their positions;
they were given so little training that some turned to Wikipedia to learn how to use their weapons;
Putin orchestrated that big televised meeting with his oligarch pals just before the invasion so the rest of the world would see them all inexorably tied to his regime and its war, making it that much harder for them to oppose it;
Russia’s handpicked would-be puppet ruler of Ukraine openly admits the war is lost;
when top brass visited a Russian base they’d been told was completely renovated, officers covered up scenes of decay with giant banners and prevented their visitors from visiting the bathrooms, which I presume made Trainspotting’s worst toilet in Scotland look like Sanifair;
Russians sabotaged their own equipment, including pouring sand into the gas tanks of brand new vehicles, so they wouldn’t have to fight; and,
one of the people leading the military operation is Putin’s caterer.
It’s an absolute must-read. And, it must be said, this is the kind of thing that only a big media outlet like the Times could pull off.
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