A significant escalation, and not just in terms of firepower.

Like this video, of bombardment from Kharkiv. We have determined that it is in the northeast part of the city: pic.twitter.com/e4jC2JRUVp

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) February 28, 2022

Already Kharkiv civilians were suffering. Sofia, who left there yesterday, said there was no food. People waiting in line for so much as a potato

Today images of body parts, dead bodies and bits of human flesh emerging. These two don’t have that, via Ukraine Ministry Interior pic.twitter.com/sUGjZCoJl7

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) February 28, 2022

В Харькове огромный снаряд оккупанта попал в квартиру, и к счастью, не взорвался. pic.twitter.com/sb0OKrsbg0

— Аслан (@antiputler_news) February 28, 2022

I’m going to give you these two clips as well with a warning that they’re graphic. But most war videos are sterile, capturing bombs exploding at a safe distance. Watch these to grasp that Ukrainian civilians are now in the crosshairs.

A deliberate rocket attack on residential areas of Kharkiv, carried out amid the Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Belarus, has caused “dozens of deaths,” according to local reports.
GRAPHIC
📹 via @EuroMaydan pic.twitter.com/ZQHuGIohOc

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) February 28, 2022

This lady lost her leg today in Kharkiv. And a couple of hours later – her life. Journalists of the world, does she deserve mentioning in the news? #standwithukraine #PutinWarCriminal #PutinHitler pic.twitter.com/JM5Ce4kOsR

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) February 28, 2022

What makes this significant is Kharkiv’s Russian identity. The city is located close to the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine. A majority of its residents speak Russian. It’s Exhibit A in Putin’s argument that Ukrainians are Russians at heart, one people united.

And now here he is dropping cluster bombs on them to subdue the city.

The fact that the city still needs to be subdued is also significant. If the Russians might have expected to be “greeted as liberators” anywhere in Ukraine, it’s Kharkiv. Instead the city has held out, a glaring rebuke to Putin’s theory that Russian-speaking Ukrainians would leap at the chance to be reintegrated back into the homeland. The fact that he’s targeting Kharkiv, of all places, for an escalation in the conflict feels like a concession that his theory was wrong. Ukraine won’t submit. It can only be bombed into submission.

Which brings us to one last significant aspect of this. Why can’t the fearsome Russian military subdue a city located right on their border? They have should have no trouble supplying their troops there given Kharkiv’s proximity to Russia. Why are blunt instruments like aerial bombing needed to weaken the locals’ resolve?

To put that differently: Just how good is the Russian military, really?

Surveying the army’s difficulties over the past week, experts are split on that question. Some warn that we shouldn’t assume Russia’s troubles against Ukraine would translate into similar troubles against NATO. For one thing, Putin is fighting Ukraine with restraint so far, aware that a bloodbath could turn Russian public opinion against him decisively. One third of the Russian troops stationed at the Ukrainian border have yet to advance. A U.S. defense official told Bloomberg that Russia has used only 50 percent of its available firepower so far. A Russian official claimed that their timeline for a successful operation was one to two weeks and that they’ve deliberately avoided sending infantry into cities for fear of the carnage that would result. To some extent, Putin is pulling his punches. He wouldn’t pull his punches in a war with NATO.

Other experts note, though, that the punches he’s throwing often aren’t landing — to a shocking degree. WaPo surveys the scene:

Lightly armed units propelled deep into the country without support have been surrounded and their soldiers captured or killed. Warplanes have been shot out of the skies and helicopters have been downed, according to Ukrainian and U.S. military officials.

Logistics supply chains have failed, leaving troops stranded on roadsides to be captured because their vehicles ran out of fuel.

Most critically, Russia has proved unable to secure air superiority over the tiny Ukrainian air force — despite having the second-largest air force in the world, Pentagon officials say. Its troops have yet to take control of any significant city or meaningful chunk of territory, a senior U.S. defense official said Sunday.

It’s inconceivable that Putin approached this war with so much restraint that he would deny himself immediate air superiority. That’s a case of Russia failing to execute its battle plan, not the military holding back.

There are stunning tactical failures too. Mark Antonio Wright explained a few days ago that when the U.S. military attempts an armored advance, it sends mechanized infantry to escort the tanks. When the enemy’s anti-tank units engage, the infantry liquidate them. Russia, however, seems to be advancing without the infantry component, Wright marveled, turning its armor into sitting ducks for Ukrainian troops armed with Javelins. That’s not “restraint,” it’s incompetence.

Other analysts are also arriving at the conclusion that the Russian military just isn’t as good as it’s cracked to be. It’s lethal, yes, in the same way that any army that commands huge amounts of firepower can rack up a body count. But it hasn’t behaved in Ukraine with the sort of tactical discipline you’d expect from a top-tier force:

It's right in one sense to say that Russia wouldn't fight NATO this way: they wouldn't. Ukraine might not have the ability to punish this mistake but NATO does. Against NATO, all of these people would be dead and all those vehicles coffins. Period. It wouldn't be a fight. pic.twitter.com/wkB4cmHlxn

— B. A. Friedman (@BA_Friedman) February 28, 2022

It’s hard to call an army that struggles to supply its troops in a fight on its own border “top-tier.” Another analyst believes it’s possible Russia will actually lose this war on the battlefield for reasons he states (at great length) in this thread. Part of the problem is that Putin simply has no experience prosecuting wars against a country the size of Ukraine. He’s used to fighting small enemies like Chechnya and Georgia and tends to follow a “special ops” approach that would naturally appeal to a former KGB hand. He’s elevated military officers who are good at palace politics but maybe not so good at strategy, and he’s plainly underestimated Ukraine’s ability and determination to resist. He may be in over his head.

“Russia is actually showing the world they are not as strong as we thought they were. This is bolstering NATO’s confidence,” said one specialist in urban warfare at West Point’s Modern War Institute to WaPo. “It’s not showing a superpower military, that’s for sure. It’s showing major weakness.” You’re left to wonder if part of Putin’s calculus in brutalizing Kharkiv is to rehabilitate the Russian military’s reputation as a supremely dangerous force at a moment when the west is beginning to doubt that.

I’ll leave you with this. Remember, Putin’s most basic gamble in invading was that Ukrainian civilians would roll over once Russian troops arrived.

One more video of the brave people of Berdyansk chasing away the invaders. A reminder: just yesterday invaders shot a man in Berdyansk dead, because he refused to give over his cell phone. The guts of these civilians.#RussiaGoHome #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/K511NIGcJY

— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) February 28, 2022