1. Fantastic interview in French with General Michel Yakovleff about the performance of the Russian military in Ukraine. Some highlights:
https://twitter.com/IRSEM1/status/1584820130919239680
2. First, who's Yakovleff? He's one of the French Army's luminaries. He wrote this book, which is something of a strategy and tactics manual. He puts a lot of thought into what he says. Ahem @PrincipeDebase 
3. He freely admits that he didn't think Putin would go to war, as he was convinced that he had already achieved what he wanted, which was to destabilize and discredit Ukraine/Zelensky and make a clear statement to the West. He only had to wait for all this to yield fruit.
4. Once the war started, it was clear that, he said, Russia had made bad assumptions and would never get Kiev. The multipronged offensive only made sense if there was no real resistance. But there was.
5. Nonetheless, he expected the Russians to perform better because since Grozny Russian military reforms had ostensibly included a strengthening of joint and combined arms maneuver capabilities.
6. He also had seen evidence that the Russians could learn and improve.
7. What he saw instead was NO joint maneuver. In fact, the Russian Air Force had been largely useless, when that should have been a major advantage.
8. He saw little to no proficient use of combined arms maneuver. Indeed, there was little maneuver of any kind. He compared the situation to France in 1940, which though still huge could not maneuver in the face of the German offensive.
9. He saw no evidence the Russians were learning and getting better.
10. He was also struck by the fact that the Russians didn't seem to have trained in the lead-up to the war. He compared this to the French army in the run-up to 1991. They had worked hard; they were ready. The Russians in contrast "had no culture of training."
11. Why? Because a culture of training requires a "culture of truth." Training can't happen in an army where people can't speak the truth.
12. He said the Russians had already lost the war (again, the comparison with France in 1940). The "first army" currently engaged is already broken and dying.
13. The newly mobilized "second army" is not being subject to a training program. It's not being trained. And the Russians aren't pulling officers out of the first army to provide a framework (encadrement) for the new one. Plus the new recruits have terrible morale.
14. He also said that Russia's tending to throw the recruits into the broken units piecemeal rather than form new, whole maneuver units. (Reminds me of Pershing's refusal to let France feed Americans into French units to plug holes.) Russia's wasting them.
15. Yakovleff went to great lengths to credit Ukrainians for doing things right: He insisted NATO training helped, but really only a few received it, and for brief periods of time. Meaning, it's the Ukrainians.
16. They, for example, dispersed their air assets to keep them safe. They have figured out how to homebrew drones and use them. They have integrated new, foreign weapons systems far faster than anyone believed possible. They have maneuvered.
17. Crucially, Ukrainians trust subordinates and encourage them to improvise. They value them. The opposite of the Russians.
18. Yakovleff also rejected the idea that anyone but Ukrainians themselves planned their big operations. Certainly not Americans. Why not?
19. Because Americans, he said, are fundamentally incapable of planning operations that do not assume air superiority. Let that sink in for a moment.
20. Bottom line: Ukraine has already won the war.
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