Retired Gen. David Petraeus said that it's "not entirely" surprising to see Russian military forces encounter difficulties while invading Ukraine, pointing out that the Russians are "just surprisingly unprofessional," according to CNN.

"There are many reasons for the Russians' abysmal performance. ... [T]hey're fighting against a very determined, quite capable Ukrainian force that is composed of special ops, conventional forces, territorial forces and even private citizens, all of whom are determined not to allow Russia to achieve its objectives," he told the network.

"They clearly have very poor standards when it comes to performing basic tactical tasks such as achieving combined arms operations, involving armor, infantry, engineers, artillery and mortars," he said in describing the Russian forces to CNN. "They are very poor at maintaining their vehicles and weapon systems and have abandoned many of them. They are also poor at resupply and logistical tasks."

He emphasized: "We have known for decades that the Soviet system, now the Russian system, has always lacked one of the key strengths of US and Western militaries, which is a strong, professional non-commissioned officer corps."

"The Russians just have relatively unimpressive equipment, given the investment supposedly made over the past decade or so," he told CNN. "They certainly don't have equipment comparable to what the United States has."

"We can also see this with the sheer frequency of the Russians hitting civilian infrastructure, like the hospital in Mariupol, other medical facilities and the government center in Kharkiv — unless they truly meant to hit those targets, which obviously would be nothing short of horrific," he told the network.

The former intelligence chief also said that Russia's cyberwarfare capacity this year was "unimpressive," adding that the country has "been unable to take down the Ukrainian command and control system."

"In every single area of evaluation, the Russians, starting with their intelligence assessments and understanding of the battlefield and their adversary, and then every aspect of the campaign, all the way down to small unit operations, have proved woefully inadequate," he said.

He added: "Much of the population also hate the Russians, and that hatred is being deepened with every strike on civilian infrastructure. Not only are the Russians not winning hearts and minds, they are alienating hearts and minds."

https://ca.yahoo.com/news/former-cia-director-says-russia-125829336.html