These days, the Russian army began to attack Ukraine, the war has become a hot topic of people's attention, for this war, how strong are the two sides? Can the Russian army win in a short time, and can Ukraine block the Russian attack?
Let's talk about the Russian army first, the biggest shortcoming of the Russian army at present is actually money, because modern weapons are piled up with money.
Let's take the SU-27 of the third-generation aircraft, Russia's purchase price is as high as 33 million US dollars, and just to equip a powerful air force, it often needs hundreds of fighters, and every time the fighter flies, it also costs a lot of money, so launching a modern war, the cost can be imagined, a country does not have a strong economic strength, it can not support a modern army.
The problem of lack of money has been with the Russian military since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but sometimes, when the Russian economy is better, the problem is lighter, and sometimes, especially in recent years, the Russian economy has fallen into a downturn, and this problem has become serious.
The peak of the Russian military's combat strength in recent years should be during the 2008 Georgian War, when the Russian army experienced two wars in Chechnya and Georgia, accumulated a lot of combat experience, and the Russian military expenditure at that time was relatively sufficient, because the international oil price was at a historical high at that time, and Russia, which was dominated by the energy industry, also made a lot of money in those years, and the military expenditure naturally rose.
At the same time, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited most of the weapons and equipment from the Soviet Union, which was still in use in 2008.
However, since 2008, the strength of the Russian army is actually declining, on the one hand, the international crude oil price in 2008 to a historical high, these years have been falling, once fell to the Russian cost line below the 50 US dollars, which makes for a long time, Russian oil refining not only can not make money, but also lose money. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, which led to the beginning of economic sanctions against Russia by Western countries, so after 2008, Russia's economy also declined.
With the decline of the Russian economy, the military expenditure of the Russian army has naturally decreased a lot, and without the support of funds, the equipment level of the Russian army will gradually fail to keep up with the mainstream of the world.
At present, the Russian army mainly contains 3 branches, namely the army, the air and space force and the navy, as well as the airborne army and the strategic rocket force, which together have a total of about 1 million people.
In addition, the Russian army also has the Border Guard, the National Guard and the Railway Army, which sometimes participate in various military operations, but these units are not the main combat strength of the Russian army, which is ignored here, we will only say that the russian army's conventional army, navy and air force.
As far as the Russian Navy is concerned, the Russian Navy currently has five major fleets, namely the Black Sea, baltic, northern, Pacific and Caspian Sea fleets, with a total force of 150,000 people, more than 200 ships and more than 300 aircraft.
This family base looks like a lot of scale, but in fact it is full of holes. At present, the warships with a displacement of more than 5,000 tons in the Russian Navy are all old ships of the Soviet Union, and due to geographical isolation, these fleets are not next to each other, and it is difficult to move together. For example, during the Russo-Japanese War, when the Russian Pacific Fleet fought against the Japanese Combined Fleet in the east, russia's other major fleets could not immediately support the Pacific Fleet, and later had to send the Baltic Fleet to support, but this fleet drove at sea for half a year to the Far East, and was finally annihilated by the Japanese Combined Fleet. Geographical isolation is therefore a major weakness of the Russian Navy.
Of course, the isolation of these fleets in the ground is not the worst, the worst is that the current Russian army lacks long-range strategic projection capabilities.
Northwest Wind amphibious assault ship
In order to enhance its long-range delivery capabilities, Russia thought about buying a French northwestern wind amphibious assault ship, but after the Crimean crisis, the matter was yellow. Russia's two north-westerly class were sold to Egypt by France.
In fact, for a modern country, as long as the industry is slightly more developed countries can build amphibious assault ships, such as South Korea's Dokdo amphibious assault ship, which is built by South Korea itself, even countries like South Korea can build amphibious assault ships, from which we can also see how bad Russia's shipbuilding industry is.
The reason why Russia cannot get an amphibious assault ship is mainly because Russia does not have a suitable dock and related supporting technology. During the Soviet period, the production of large ships, including aircraft carriers, was usually concentrated in Ukraine.
At present, Russia's latest amphibious assault ship is 23900 amphibious assault ship, and the construction of this type of ship will not start until 2020, and the manufacturer is the "Gulf" shipyard located in Kerch, but for Russia, there is no three or five years, and the Type 23900 attack ship should not come out.
Secondly, the Russian Navy also lacks the corresponding regional air defense capabilities, since World War II, naval aviation has dominated the naval battle battlefield, so regional air defense capabilities are the core combat strength indicators of a fleet.
Aegis destroyer
When we talk about the US military, we usually say how many shield ships the US military is equipped with, and this shield ship is an air defense destroyer equipped with the Aegis combat system, and the United States currently has more than 70 Arleigh Burke class and more than 20 Ticonderoga class air defense ships, so how many air defense ships does Russia have? The answer is 0, not a single one. Of course, some Russian ships are equipped with some medium- and long-range anti-aircraft missiles, such as Kirov, Honorable, Modern class and the like, but these ships are all products of the Soviet period, the technology has been very backward, and they lack the ability to warn and react to the sea and air around the fleet.
In the Russian Navy, the current large ships of the modern level or above are also decommissioned, and the only slightly modern combat capability may be the 22350-class frigate, but the displacement of this ship is more than 4,000 tons, which is not much to say here.
Relatively speaking, the only thing worth mentioning in the Russian Navy may be the submarine force, the so-called water surface is not enough, underwater.
North Wind God nuclear submarine
Russia's latest nuclear-powered submarines, the North Wind God class and the Yasen class, are still pulling wind, and the main force of conventional submarines is the Kilo class, which has not changed for thousands of years, and the performance is not bad, and Russia's underwater power still has a great deterrent.
However, as far as the navy is concerned, half depends on the equipment, half depends on the training, the so-called training, the main thing is to practice, if you do not practice for a long time, even the best martial arts will be abolished sooner or later.
But once the navy is trained, it means that the ship will go to sea, and once the ship goes to sea, it will burn money, and in recent years, the Russian Navy has also contracted various accidents on large ships, including the Kursk nuclear submarine accident in the early years, and the two fires of the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier in recent years.
Aircraft carrier Kuznetsov
However, the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is not a fire, usually there are many small problems, when the Syrian crisis, Kuznetsov went to support, in the middle of the road fell off two planes.
The large ships in the Russian Navy basically have a lot of problems, so almost every time they go out to the ocean to conduct exercises, Russia always has to send an ocean-going tug to follow, afraid that a certain battleship will drop the chain in the middle of the road.
So in the current situation of the Russian Navy, it is very reluctant to enter the second class in the world.
Speaking of the Navy, we say the army, in terms of scale, the size of the Russian army is still very strong, about 300,000 troops and more than 10,000 tanks, but more than 10,000 tanks, although the number is very scary, but many of them are T-72, which has long been equipped with backward T-72, and the current Russian tanks are really useful in the T-80 and T90 models.
T14 Amalta main battle tank
In recent years, Russia has also developed the next generation of T14 Amalta main battle tank, which is equipped with a 125MM unmanned turret, which also shows that Russia has a strong strength in equipment design.
In terms of individual combat effectiveness, the Russian army is still OK, although in the early years the Russian army fought very hard in Chechnya, but after all, it also saved a lot of actual combat experience.
Taking the army as an example, in the case that there is no generation difference in equipment between the two sides, the difference between experienced and inexperienced on the battlefield is very large, after all, real knives and guns to fight and shoot targets are not the same thing at all, really face to face fighting, who has more combat experience, who has the advantage.
At the same time, coupled with the various auxiliary units of the Russian Army, so in terms of combat strength, the Russian Army is still OK.
Finally, let's talk about the Russian Air Force, which currently has more than 4,000 aircraft of various types, including nearly 600 fourth-generation aircraft and more than 150 long-range bombers, in addition to auxiliary aircraft such as tankers, air command aircraft and early warning aircraft in the Russian Air Force.
Different from the Navy, Russia's aviation research and development capabilities are relatively strong, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Mikoyan, these famous aviation design bureaus and production sites are also in Russia, and Russia is also one of the few countries in the world that can independently develop and mass-produce high-performance turbofan engines.
At present, the most advanced fifth-generation fighter in the Russian Air Force, the Su-57, has been put into active service, although the stealth performance of the Su-57 is not satisfactory, but its super high mobility, we can only use ghost animals to describe.
Su-57 fighter
In addition to having high-performance fighters, Russia also has a large number of high-performance long-range bombers, which greatly enhances the long-range bombing capability of the Russian Air Force, can carry out large-scale long-range bombing against opponents, paralyze the opponent's industrial production capacity and economic strength, and even carry out devastating strikes on opponents' military targets.
At the same time, Russia can produce high-performance aero engines, which enables Russia to replenish the lost aircraft in time through its own military industrial system after the war, which also greatly enhances the combat strength of the Russian Air Force.
Finally, the Russian Air Force is still one of the few air forces in the world with full combat experience, and for many years, the Russian Air Force has always been confronting the NATO Air Force.
After talking about Russia, let's look at Ukraine's military strength, since the Crimean crisis in 2014, Ukraine began to expand its military strength, the strength of the troops has also expanded from the original 110,000 to 210,000, and military spending has increased significantly, accounting for 6% of GDP.
In terms of equipment, Ukraine has not improved much, and is still using a large number of former Soviet-era weapons, and a small number of Western weapons, and the air defense capabilities are extremely scarce.
Ukraine's navy, which had only recently been rebuilt, was largely unattainable after the outbreak of war, and its air force was comparable to that of Georgia in 2008, which was almost negligible.
At the same time, with the continuous escalation of the Situation between Russia and Ukraine, Western countries have also urgently provided a large amount of weapons assistance to Ukraine, including Javelin and Stinger missiles from the Baltic States, NLAW light anti-tank rockets from britain, and M141 attack rockets from the United States.
Therefore, as far as the comparison of the military strength of the two sides is concerned, Russia and Ukraine are not at the same level at all, after the outbreak of the war, Russia directly pounded Kiev, it is not difficult to capture comedians alive, and the outcome of this war may only be a matter of time.
Ukrainian comedian President Zelenskiy
But time has become the key to this war, for Russia, the war needs to be quickly resolved, after all, war has always been a burning money, and in the current state of Russia's economy, it is difficult to support a protracted war.
And with the outbreak of war, Western sanctions followed, which made Russia's economy even worse. For example, on the day of the outbreak of the war, russia's RTS index plummeted by 38%, and Germany immediately stopped the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project, these economic problems will not have much impact on Russia in the short term, but if it is long, Russia's economic situation will be worrying.
At the same time, even if everything is going well now and the Russian army can take Ukraine in a short time, the problem is that even if Ukraine is taken, if there is continuous resistance throughout Ukraine, the War in Ukraine will be prolonged.
Moreover, when Russia attacked a small Chechnya, it also fought back and forth for several years, Ukraine and Chechnya are obviously not at the same level, how much time is it necessary to completely solve the Ukrainian problem?
Time is a factor that cannot be predicted by both Russia and Ukraine at present, for Russia, it is necessary to solve the problem quickly, and for Ukraine, it is naturally unrealistic to defeat Russia, but to drag the Russian army and extend the time of the war as long as possible is what Ukraine can do at present. As long as time is stretched, and the longer it is pulled, it will be more beneficial to Ukraine.
So time is the key to this war, and how long time will last, we can only look at the follow-up situation of the war.