Russia’s nationalists are fuming over a slew of attacks on Russian territory which exposed gaps in its defenses and put it on the back foot in its invasion of Ukraine.
The prominent anonymous blogger Rybar said a recent strike on Russia’s Pskov airfield suggests Russia’s air defenses haven’t adapted to stop drone strikes. It criticized authorities for not protecting the valuable aircraft there with hangars, and compared their defenses unfavorably to those in Russian-occupied Crimea, closer to the fighter.
The Russian journalist Alexander Kots said that recent attacks showed there would be no safe place in the parts of Russia that are close to Europe, and that Russia would need to adapt.
Another blogger said that Russia’s airfields should be better protected, and another said Russia should admit the attacks as soon as they happen, rather than be forced into acknowledging them after Ukrainian sources report them.
How “well” are we talking? A few months, sure, but further back it’s pretty easy as an autocrat to just not tell people what you’re planning, and the West appears to have fundamentally misread Putin’s motives to start with.
Probably months in advance, but before that it was difficult to predict when it was gonna happen. Russia warring into the west has been predicted by NATO military for a good while (a few years at least), they have also been preparing since then.