Opinion | Putin cannot win the war in Ukraine. But he can’t afford to lose it. –

His best chance was a bolt of lightning over Kiev in the early days of the war. But this was unsuccessful, and the Russian military did not demonstrate the ability to constantly supply its armor or coordinate air and ground operations. The Russians have made better progress in the south than in the north, but their advance is now stopped, And they still can’t rule the sky. The Ukrainians defended themselves skillfully and steadfastly, essentially a military task that was easier than carrying out an attack.

The Russian military is trying to compensate for its lack of military prowess with sheer brutality. It hits Mariupol and Kharkov fell into the debris, deliberately targeting civilians as it once did in Aleppo in Syria and in the Chechen capital of Grozny. Kiev is probably next. Putin can even use chemical weapons. But such cruelty is often a boomerang and provokes more violent resistance.

Note that Russia’s ally Bashar al-Assad has not yet put down the Syrian uprising. After seven years of Russian intervention, despite (or because of) all the brutality of the regime. Or imagine how Leningrad withstood the 900-day German siege from 1941 to 1944. Putin should be aware of this story, because now St. Petersburg, his hometown of Leningrad, and his brother were killed in the siege. . People went on hunger strike but didn’t give up.

It’s easy to destroy a city with artillery and missiles; It is much more difficult to stop him. The ruins create fighting positions for the defenders and prevent the movement of armored vehicles. He took over Iraqi forces backed by the US military. Nine months from 2016 to 2017, only about 6,000 Islamic State fighters. Is Putin ready to wait for the long siege of Kiev until sanctions continue to hit the Russian economy and body bags are returned home?

US officials are cautious in estimating that Russia lost 5,000 to 6,000 troops in the first two weeks of the war, or around 400 days. (The effective rate could be equal to: 700 Diary.) Russia has not suffered such military losses since 1945. In Afghanistan, the average for the Soviet Union is approx. 5 soldiers were killed in Operation One day and that was enough to establish the regime. Putin is already feeling the tension: he is trying to recruit Syrian mercenaries and will likely require military equipment from China. These are signs that they don’t have enough soldiers or weapons to make up for a heavier-than-expected loss in a war that didn’t go according to plan.

Finally, the Russians can find their way to Kiev. They could even kill and even capture the brave president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. But he can’t win the war yet. A free Ukrainian government could simply move to Lviv, western Ukraine or Poland and continue to resist.

Putin does not have enough troops in Ukraine to control a country with a population of over 43 million, less than 190,000. In eastern Ukraine and Syria, Putin has chosen to entrust the dirty work of the ground war to local allies. But the prospect of recruiting pro-Russian security forces in the rest of Ukraine is slim. Ukrainians, once friends of Moscow, now also suffer from hatred of Russia. anti-Russian protest Go on Under the arms of the invaders.

In my book, Invisible Armies: An Epic Guerrilla History from Antiquity to the Present, I conclude that a scorched earth counter-insurgency only works when the guerrillas are weak and without outside aid, and the counter-insurgents are numerous and have legitimacy. All of these conditions were in place in Chechnya during Putin’s First War. But none of this is as true in Ukraine as it was in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Putin is making the lives of Ukrainian civilians hell, but fighters Western-stocked Ukrainians could make the lives of Russian troops hell for years to come – and it will take several missile strikes to cut Ukraine’s supply lines from its NATO neighbors.

It was Napoleon who finally convinced me that Russia could not win. Maxim: “Moral strength in warfare is three-quarters physical.” The Russians may have more material, but the Ukrainians have a very important moral and ethical advantage. While the Ukrainians fought desperately for their homeland, many Russian soldiers were not told where they were going and left at the earliest opportunity.

If Putin is to avoid a long quagmire, sooner or later he will have to soften his maximalist goals and put an end to this vicious war. The only logical solution is to admit defeat and call it victory. Fortunately for him, it’s a handy preventative. The great danger is that Putin is not entirely rational when it comes to Ukraine. Thus he can continue to win an invincible war at a terrible cost to both sides.

Source: Washington Post

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