It is kind of interesting seeing the ukraine war tiptoe from actually striking the tail in earnest. We see some attacks on moscow refineries in recent days, yes, but why not full scale targeting of total industrial collapse of the russian state? Similarly, why doesn't Kyiv look like Gaza?

I guess ukraine doesn't want to be slapped equally hard. We see this in the iran war too. Small scale, targeted attacks to some cherry pieces of infrastructure to make headlines and perhaps bring people to the negotiating table, while all the power and capability is there to wipe Iran back to the stone age if so inclined.

I think there are complex factors at play that prevent an actual total annihilation attack on the tail, even though it seems like it should be well within capabilities.

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dgacmu an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think you're over-estimating the capability of both sides of the fight (absent nuclear weapons on the part of Russia). Both sides appear to be using drones and missiles as fast as they can manufacture them. One could argue Russia could be more selectively targeting industrial infrastructure - I don't know if their attacks on residential areas are an inability to target well or some kind of hope that demoralization will be effective - but Ukraine is, I believe, doing as much as they can to Russia's oil & defense sectors as they are able.

example: "CAR’s analysis, based on physical examinations of marks on the remnants, shows that the missile that struck Okhmatdyt hospital was produced at most three months before the attack. Or perhaps even eight days before. " [1]

Sanctions and limited parts availability are limiting Russia's ability to manufacture weapons [2]

[1] https://global.espreso.tv/russia-ukraine-war-car-researchers...

[2] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/warstudies/assets/kcl-fasi-paper31-win...

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asdff an hour ago | parent [-]

Russia has been able to target Kyiv and destroy arbitrary apartment buildings the entire war. I've just spent a few mins searching through news articles over the years, there's a story of a destroyed Kyiv apartment in 2022 and one from 3 days ago now in 2026 of course. So why the stayed hand? Clearly Russia then and now is capable of reaching out and destroying Kyiv arbitrarily. I still believe they could have turned it into Gaza within mere days or weeks 4 years ago if they really wanted to. But clearly there are factors beyond their capabilities that prevent them from using their capabilities to the fullest extent. One might wonder what the US response would look like if Kyiv was actually destroyed and some 3 million were now refugees——american boots on the ground perhaps? Yugoslav war style joint coalition?

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dgacmu 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Russia's inability to have a decisive victory against Ukraine is at odds with the idea that it has sufficient stockpiles and launch capability to reduce kiev to rubble any time it wishes. If it had that capability, it would have the capability to destroy Ukraine's defense manufacturing sector - or simply its entire manufacturing sector - which it clearly does not. It's also at odds with the evidence that Russia is launching missles roughly as fast as they can build them.

	▲	asdff 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I guess the question becomes then why did putin start the war without sufficient buildup of missile reserves to flatten Kyiv in the first few days? And why not contract with israeli defense companies for precision missile technology? It doesn't seem like their relations are really that severed even with the whole Iran issue. One would also think China might also appreciate a client willing to battle test their precision military hardware.

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nradov 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

You're missing the point. Russia simply lacks the conventional missile production capacity necessary to flatten Kyiv. They used up most of their missile reserves early in the war and are now firing them off about as fast as they can build new ones. And it's not clear that they're able to accurately target individual buildings; some of those strikes appear to be random collateral damage. Russia is simply no longer capable of large-scale precision manufacturing; it's a relatively poor country with a broken tertiary education system and most of the foreign experts left years ago.

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siriusastrebe an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Moscow could only accomplish this with nukes, and only early in the war. By this point Ukraine has dug underground for most of its crucial war-sustaining industry.

Ukraine, well they don't have nukes but as I understand it, much of the USSR's nuclear arsenal was built in Ukraine. I suspect Ukraine could respond tit for tat.

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asdff an hour ago | parent [-]

Why can they not use firebombing and other conventional munitions? If they can deliver a nuke surely they can deliver a conventional warhead. That is enough to level an urban area as we see in Gaza.

	▲	siriusastrebe 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Russia fires conventional warheads into Kiev all the time. Thousands of civilians have been killed and injured. The city survives. Buildings in Kiev aren't made out of wood. Firebombs would do very little damage.