When coupled with counter battery radars the 155mm can out range the Russians and is more like a sniper rifle. They can drop rounds on them in seconds from diverse locations and shoot and scoot if required within minutes and use a computer-controlled fire control and management system of their own design. It all adds up to lots of dead Russians and few loses for them, quality counts, so does training and morale.
That recognition, and Western guarantees of it, were the conditions for Ukraine surrendering the considerable amount of nukes stationed on their territory.
They are living in the past, but it is emblematic of a people occupying a vast country with few natural defenses or much cultural unity. National unity was enforced by the secret police for centuries and it is how imperial power was maintained among the many nations making up Russia/ Soviet Union at various times. It's the major impediment to democratization, European Russia's sense of imperial entitlement over other ethnicities. This is just part of a historical trend, and the ideas are deeply embedded in Russian society at all levels. Even at home they are trying to defend more territory than they can hold in today's world, as central Asian cultures discover their roots and own nationalism, just like everybody else is doing around the world when free to do so.
www.bbc.com
Looks like you have official support for your position of bombing the shit out of the Russian power grid, but there are still good reasons not to.
The Russians have so few precision missiles left and they have to launch them in swarms at individual targets to get through, that it's mostly the large power transformers outside the generating stations and larger distribution ones that are getting targeted. They don't need to protect the smaller substation transformers too much except in fought over areas and Kherson. There are a limited number of targets worth going after for them and areas and point defenses are increasing. Protecting a city like Kyiv means protecting many of the substations in the area. As I said, some limited steps can be taken to harden these targets so that nothing short of a direct hit will do and they often come in at a shallow enough angle. Russia will soon have to expend many missiles to get through to them and drones will do even worse against point defenses like machine guns on trucks.
