Comments by "Henriikka K" (@henriikkak2091) on "Why did experts fail to predict Russia's invasion of Ukraine?" video.

  1. ...And still be called an expert
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  2. I can't stand Mearsheimer. Just look at him celebrating "Putin winning". The same issue with Chomsky. He denies Russia's democratic neighbors' right to self-determination. This really grinds my gears as a Finn. Galeotti continues to deny that Russia is imperialist or poses a threat to any other country than Ukraine, which he obviously can no longer deny. He has a dismissive attitude towards the Baltic countries and Poland which isn't unique to British Russia experts. He does get things right about the inner workings of Putin's mafia regime, though. The thing that Finns got wrong in February 2022 was that we didn't think that Russians would try to take the largest country in Europe with only 100,000 troops. The Russian soldiers didn't seem to think so either. They had sold their ration packs and fuel while they were waiting for the Beijing Olympics to end. Conventional wisdom says that you need at least 3:1 troops. This is relevant to us because we rely on large land army reserves ourselves as a deterrent against an invasion. We knew that Ukrainians would defend themselves but we underestimated how high on their own supply Putin, Patrushev, and their propagandists were.
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  3. It looked likely when the first part of Putin's speech was published, on Monday if I recall correctly. The Russian security council meeting and the second half of the speech made it clear, of course. Thursday was the first day of the full-scale invasion. We already had reporters in Ukraine because they had been covering the war in Luhansk.
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