[sofixa]

> There would be a much more massive bombing campaign using the full might of their air force (which is clearly not what is happening in Ukraine)

Why? They've shelled indiscriminately civilian city centres, train stations with civilian evacuations, buildings where civilians have taken shelter. It's obvious they couldn't care less about civilian lives, what is stopping them from using their aviation?

Considering what we saw on the rare occasions they did use their aviation (phones with buttons used to coordinate and communicate, using physical landscapes and maps for orientation, pilots in not the best shape) their air force is probably as good as their army. That is, utterly shit, with terrible maintenance, no morale, missing equipment, etc etc etc.

[throwrqX]

Shelling city centers randomly once a day is completely different to a widespread bombing campaign similar to Dresden in WW2. You can see the obvious differences looking at the casualty rates on Wikipedia (~30,000 in 6 months vs ~25,000 in 3 days). They also have to maintain their aviation in case of an escalation with NATO.

How they are currently going now in the war which was clearly not planned well at all doesn't necessary mean their performance would carry over to a war with the rest of Europe which I doubt would be this poorly planned. Plenty of military commentators have noted such a point (Michael Kofman as an example).

[sofixa]

> Shelling city centers randomly once a day is completely different to a widespread bombing campaign similar to Dresden in WW2

Of course they're different, nobody is arguing the opposite.

> How they are currently going now in the war which was clearly not planned well at all doesn't necessary mean their performance would carry over to a war with the rest of Europe which I doubt would be this poorly planned. Plenty of military commentators have noted such a point (Michael Kofman as an example).

I don't follow. Why do you think that:

a) they have some hidden reserves they're keeping for a potential escalation. It'd be mighty stupid to not use them, or at least some parts of them, for the ongoing war which is going very poorly for them. Their advance is stopped and they're even losing ground on some fronts. What could they be possibly waiting for? It seems unlikely that they've taken Tochkas, T-62s and Mosin-Nagant rifles out of the museums to equip the Donetsk and Luhansk "volunteers" and other cannon fodder, or they'd be buying North Korean artillery shells and pieces, if they really had any reserves left. It's a myth that their best units were kept in reserve.

b) that a war they started, on their terms, and for which they've had at least since 2014 to prepare for, is going to be vastly different than any other conflict. If they can't prepare to invade Ukraine, which is literally a part of the same railway system (which is crucial for Russian logistics), with which they have hundreds of kms of borders to invade through, and which is almost entirely surrounded by Russian and allied land... how could they possibly prepare for anything? Russia doesn't stand a chance against Poland and Ukraine, let alone the whole of NATO.