it's not surprising it's because of that specific terrain plus the fact that both sides are not just not democracies, but despotisms that gain by military action even if it wastes population, and both states are considered fully sovereign by the international order, but the side that's getting stomped doesn't have treaty protections with a nuclear power. you're not going to get a similar result anywhere else because those conditions don't exist anywhere else.
I don't think that's the entire story, whatever the political aspects may be
this is a full blown war. They're fighting, and that fighting has basically reverted back to WW2 era mixed unit engagements. I don't know a single person in any nation that predicted that.
We've learned:
-Drones ENHANCE infantry, more than they hinder it.
-Air and artillery dominance can help soften positions but it can't take them outright, and certainly can't hold them.
-Defensive AA networks are far better than we expected
As long as used properly.
-Vehicle dominance is probably the thing most hindered by drones, we haven't seen any real large scale tank engagements.
-None of these are particularly good against urban warfare, infantry still dominates here.
-Precision weapons are great but not as easy to mass produce as artillery.
Everything matters but it's not as one sided as we assumed. It always seems to come down to a dude with a gun. Missiles run out, jets run out of fuel, drones are not infinity and they don't do great in woods or cities, tanks don't do well in cities trenches,
I think the main thing that sets ukraine apart is that
it isn't being fought by gargantuan retards. Our assumption that war is all tech based from here on out came from the results of Iraq and the initial invasion of Afghanistan, and various other wars in the middle east and africa where the hierarchy was clear: Infantry<Vehicles<Helicopters<Jets. There was no fighting
up this later. Turns out modern infantry weapons can do well to at the very least stall vehicles and air as long as they're in the hands of people who aren't completely retarded.
What remains to be seen is: are china and iran populated by retards like the middle east? Or competent people like ukraine/russia?
