RUTHLESS REPORT ⟩ What the West Got Wrong About the Russia-Ukraine War—and How to Avoid Future Mistakes

Overestimating Russia, Underestimating Ukraine

Western intelligence and military analysts were fixated on one overwhelming narrative: that Russia’s military had undergone a dramatic transformation since the embarrassing failures of the 2008 war with Georgia. Russian defense spending had ballooned, and military reforms — the so-called “New Look” under then-Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov — were supposed to have turned Russia into a force capable of swift and decisive operations.

This belief was widespread. Just weeks before the invasion, Foreign Policy confidently declared that Russia’s forces could execute a "devastating air and missile strike" on Ukraine, overwhelming its defenses within hours. A report in The Economist described the Russian army as “fleet-footed,” capable of deploying 100,000 troops to a European hotspot in just 30 days. The assumption was that Russia had the technology, the numbers, and the logistics to swiftly capture Kyiv.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s prospects were painted in grim tones. The consensus was that its military, still equipped with leftover Soviet-era hardware and suffering from underfunding, would crumble within days. The Economist predicted in January 2022 that Ukraine’s forces would be overrun in weeks. The portrayal of Ukraine’s armed forces as a ragtag group unable to withstand a modern Russian blitz became the default assumption in think tanks, government briefings, and media reports alike.

But the reality was entirely different. Ukraine’s military, far from collapsing, launched a fierce and highly effective defense. Using clever tactics, they harassed Russian armored columns with Javelin missiles and Bayraktar drones, while surface-to-air missiles like the S-300 systems shot down Russian aircraft, leaving the Russian air force unable to achieve dominance. Within weeks, Russian forces were retreating from Kyiv, their logistical failures exposed, their morale in tatters.

So how did the experts get it so wrong?

The Pitfalls of Quantitative Metrics

One major problem, according to Cohen and O’Brien, was the overreliance on quantitative military metrics — counting tanks, troops, and aircraft — while neglecting the more qualitative aspects of warfare that ultimately shape outcomes. Western analysts frequently referenced the size of Russia’s military: 900,000 active-duty troops compared to Ukraine’s 209,000, and a vast superiority in combat aircraft and tanks.

In 2020, the RAND Corporation even conducted war games predicting that Russia could deploy 27 battalion tactical groups to crush Ukrainian defenses within days. The belief that sheer numbers and sophisticated technology would win the day led analysts to ignore the fundamental weaknesses lurking within the Russian military — especially in logistics and morale.

When the invasion began, it wasn’t the size of Russia’s army that determined outcomes but rather its shocking logistical failures. We saw the results in the abandoned Russian tanks lining the roads to Kyiv, stuck without fuel or support, as Ukrainian forces picked them off. Those highly touted Russian battalion tactical groups turned out to be poorly coordinated, struggling with basic tasks like feeding and supplying their troops.

Western analysts, with their eyes on the numbers, failed to see these weaknesses coming. They assumed Russia’s military modernization was real and substantive—on par with NATO forces. But this wasn’t NATO. This was a Russian army riddled with corruption and hollowed out by years of kleptocracy.

Ignoring Corruption’s Corrosive Impact

One of the most glaring oversights in pre-war analysis was the near-total neglect of corruption in the Russian military. Despite clear evidence that Russia’s defense budget was being siphoned off into the pockets of officials, Western experts continued to view Russia as a formidable opponent with a well-oiled military machine.

In reality, corruption was everywhere. Cohen and O’Brien highlight that, while some reports acknowledged the issue, it was mostly brushed aside. The Economist, in 2020, touched on the fact that 2,800 Russian military officials had been charged with corruption that year, but quickly moved on to praise Russia’s modernization efforts. The narrative was that corruption had been cleaned up since the disastrous invasion of Georgia in 2008. The truth? Not even close.

This oversight had real consequences on the battlefield. Tanks and artillery, praised in Western analysis for their sophistication, frequently malfunctioned or lacked proper maintenance. In some cases, soldiers were sent into battle without adequate food, water, or even proper uniforms. Logistical chains broke down as Russia’s military was bogged down by inefficiencies and poor leadership, exposing the lie that modernization had solved its underlying problems.

And while Western analysts talked up Russia’s T-14 Armata tanks and hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, what showed up on the battlefield were aging T-72s and T-80s — vulnerable to Ukrainian ambushes.

The Classic Trap of Groupthink

Another crucial factor behind the West’s failure was groupthink — the tendency of experts to echo each other’s views without sufficiently questioning underlying assumptions. In the lead-up to the war, a small, insular group of analysts dominated the conversation. The Center for Naval Analyses and Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), along with a handful of prominent think tanks, consistently reinforced each other’s assessments of Russia’s overwhelming strength and Ukraine’s inevitable collapse.

This consensus created a feedback loop. As Cohen and O’Brien point out, dissenting views were largely ignored. A prime example of this came in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) prediction, shared just days before the invasion, that Kyiv would fall in 72 hours. Senator Angus King publicly confronted DIA Director Lieutenant General Scott Berrier in May 2022, criticizing the agency for not just missing the mark, but for failing to even consider that Ukraine could hold out longer than expected. “We were told Kyiv would fall in 72 hours,” King said. “And that Ukraine would fall in two weeks.”

This is a textbook case of groupthink, where divergent perspectives and critical voices are sidelined, and the analytical community becomes an echo chamber, amplifying a narrow view.

Russia Was Assumed to Fight Like NATO

Perhaps the most damaging assumption made by Western analysts was what Cohen and O’Brien call mirror imaging — the projection of Western military values and standards onto the Russian army. The belief was that Russia, having undergone modernization reforms, had evolved to resemble a Western military in professionalism and effectiveness.

Analysts assumed that Russia’s top brass had the same level of competence and flexibility seen in NATO forces, and that Russian troops were trained and motivated in much the same way. But that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, Russia relied heavily on poorly trained conscripts, who often lacked basic morale and discipline. The Russian military’s rigid command structure left it vulnerable to Ukrainian forces that were more agile and decentralized in their operations.

This mismatch between expectations and reality was most starkly illustrated in the chaotic Russian retreat from Kyiv, where Russian forces, far from being the efficient and professional military analysts had envisioned, were disorganized and panicked. The assumption that Russia’s military had Western-style efficiency led analysts to misjudge the conflict at nearly every turn.

Real Life Impact of the Analytic Failures

These analytical mistakes had profound consequences. In the weeks leading up to the war, pessimism about Ukraine’s chances caused hesitation among Western governments to supply Ukraine with advanced military equipment. The belief that Kyiv would fall quickly led the U.S. and its allies to delay the shipment of crucial systems like HIMARS rocket systems, Stinger missiles, and Javelin anti-tank weapons — systems that would later prove essential in Ukraine’s defense.

Even after the invasion began, this hesitancy persisted. Countries like Germany and France, fearing that advanced weapons could escalate the conflict or fall into Russian hands, were slow to send heavy weaponry like Leopard 2 tanks and long-range artillery. This self-deterrence delayed Ukraine’s ability to mount a robust defense and prolonged the war, as Russia was given time to regroup.

How to Avoid Future Failures

The lessons from this analytic failure are clear, but preventing a repeat will require significant changes in how Western intelligence and military assessments are conducted.

According to Eliot A. Cohen and Phillips O'Brien the overreliance on quantitative military assessments — counting tanks, troops, and jets—needs to be replaced with a deeper understanding of qualitative factors like morale, leadership, and organizational culture. In Ukraine, national unity and a deep sense of existential struggle galvanized the defense in ways that numbers couldn’t predict. Future analyses must integrate these human factors into their models.

Corruption can cripple a military from within, and this was certainly the case with Russia. Future assessments need to seriously consider how deeply corruption runs in adversarial militaries and how it impacts everything from maintenance to battlefield effectiveness. Similarly, logistics should no longer be an afterthought in military assessments. A military’s ability to feed, fuel, and supply its forces is just as important as the number of tanks it fields.

To avoid the trap of groupthink, intelligence agencies and think tanks need to actively seek out dissenting opinions. They must cultivate an environment where alternative perspectives are encouraged and valued, rather than sidelined. In the case of Ukraine, more weight should have been given to the voices of military officers who had trained with Ukrainian forces after 2014 — they could have provided valuable insight into Ukraine’s preparedness.

Finally, Western analysts need to recognize that not all militaries operate like NATO forces. Russia’s rigid command structure and reliance on conscripts created vulnerabilities that a NATO-style military would not have had. Understanding the cultural, structural, and operational differences in adversaries' militaries is crucial for accurate predictions.

The Western misreading of the Russia-Ukraine war was not just an intellectual error — it had real-world consequences that prolonged the conflict and cost lives. But by learning from these failures, analysts can better prepare for the complex military challenges of the future. As Cohen and O’Brien remind us, humility in the face of uncertainty, a willingness to challenge assumptions, and a commitment to understanding the enemy on their terms are essential to avoiding similar mistakes in the future.

The stakes are too high to get it wrong again.