It’s fair to call the Cape Tarkhankut site the linchpin of Russian air and naval defenses across the Black Sea. Which is why the Ukrainian armed forces blew it up.
Historically, in Russia one guy with a grudge and a shoulder-fired missile launcher would have dropped the grudge in favor of selling the launcher for personal gain.
It takes a certain measure of belief and optimism to go against a distant enemy so physically removed from you and protected at every step, like Putin’s government. It takes even more to make a rogue soldier think one shoulder launcher would make any difference at all. But it takes no faith or hope at all to sell whatever can be sold and live like your commanders for a day.
That’s not to say it would never happen; I think it’s far likelier now than it ever has been in my lifetime. But the Russian mindset is completely different than our own in the west, they’ve had many more centuries of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” than we have, and at the end of the day it’s just much easier, safer and more profitable to sell out.
Historically, in Russia one guy with a grudge and a shoulder-fired missile launcher would have dropped the grudge in favor of selling the launcher for personal gain.
It takes a certain measure of belief and optimism to go against a distant enemy so physically removed from you and protected at every step, like Putin’s government. It takes even more to make a rogue soldier think one shoulder launcher would make any difference at all. But it takes no faith or hope at all to sell whatever can be sold and live like your commanders for a day.
That’s not to say it would never happen; I think it’s far likelier now than it ever has been in my lifetime. But the Russian mindset is completely different than our own in the west, they’ve had many more centuries of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” than we have, and at the end of the day it’s just much easier, safer and more profitable to sell out.