May 10, 2022
image source,AFP
British defence expert Michael Clarke believes that Russia’s Victory Day commemoration, regardless of Putin and the Kremlin’s propaganda, will not be celebrating any kind of victory in Ukraine.
This is a war in which Russia cannot achieve any meaningful victory.
After 2008, Putin’s foreign-related military operations were successful only when a small number of elite troops, mercenaries and local armed groups cooperated with Russian air power.
This model allowed Russia to intervene in Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria, Libya, Mali, and Ukraine twice in 2014, first with the illegal annexation of Crimea, and then with the Two Russian vassals, Donetsk and Luhansk, were established in Ukraine.
Every time Russia conducts foreign-related military operations, it is carried out at lightning speed. Western countries have no time to respond. They can only take gradual sanctions after the event, but they are not enough to restore reality. Putin is creating a “fait accompli”. ‘s master.
In February 2022, he tried to do the same against Ukraine, taking power within 72 hours of a country with 45 million people and the second largest land area in Europe, a startlingly reckless gamble, in the first Completely failed.
Putin now has no choice but to continue and expand the war even beyond the borders of Ukraine. The current situation may escalate further at any time, and Europe is at a very dangerous moment in recent history.
Putin’s plan A was to seize power in Kyiv before the Ukrainian army or the international community could react. After this plan failed, Russia turned to plan B, trying to surround Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities with military force, eliminate the Ukrainian military resistance, and force Kyiv to surrender. .
This plan also failed, Kherson is the only major city under Russian control, but has always resisted Russian management, the Russian army is not enough to control such a large country, for various reasons the Russian army is poor, lacks effective leadership, military The power is scattered and there is no overall command.
image source,Getty Images
Moreover, the Ukrainian army they encountered not only had the determination to protect the country, but also knew how to use “small and big” to adopt “dynamic defense” to make the enemy’s attack deadlocked. The most vulnerable place to fight back.
With no progress, Russia is now turning to Plan C, leaving Kyiv and the north aside, concentrating its forces on the Donbas region and southern Ukraine, as far as Odessa in the southwest to launch the main offensive, trying to attack on land Block Ukraine.
This is the development of the situation that we are now seeing in the eastern part of Ukraine,
Russia’s goal is to encircle the Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation, which has fought in Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014. The main capture targets include Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. , both of which are important strategic strongholds for control of the entire Donbas region.
image source,Getty Images
Now the war has entered a different phase, arduous on a more open field, with better weather, tanks, mechanized infantry, and artillery all attacking the opponent’s lines of defense before the armour can be stationed.
But the process is not easy.
The Russian offensive did not start well. The Ukrainian Joint Forces (JFO) operating in the eastern region successfully contained the Russian offensive, which made the Russian offensive progress less than expected. Ukraine bought some precious time for itself, and the two sides began a “heavy metal race”. Get heavy combat gear out into action before the battle, which we expect to see in the coming weeks.
But the development of the situation in the Donbass made Putin’s choice only to fail.
If the war is still stalemate into the fall, it means Putin has paid a high price but cannot achieve results, and if the war situation changes, the situation will be even worse for the Russian troops. Even if Russia takes the entire Donbas region, even the entire southern region, the Russian army still needs to maintain effective control on these territories for an unknown period of time in the future, and facing them are millions of hostile Ukrainian.
In other words, any major Russian military victory in any region will likely have to face the stubborn Ukrainian resistance for a long time. Putin’s all-or-nothing invasion of Ukraine in February, plan B, plan C, or any other successor plan after plan A fails. , need to suppress part or the whole very large country, there is no guarantee of success, but everything is lost.
In any case, Russia will continue to encounter resistance in Ukraine, whether by the Ukrainian army or the Ukrainian people, and most likely both at the same time. As long as Kyiv sticks to its current position and demands that Russia retreat to its pre-invasion state, Putin will have no choice but to bite the bullet and continue.
Western countries will continue to provide Ukraine with arms and financing, and there will be no lifting of strong sanctions on Russia anytime soon. Once Europe’s reliance on Russian energy is significantly reduced, there is nothing in Russia that Europe really needs, and the US and Europe will be able to maintain sanctions without hurting their own economies too much.
image source,Getty Images
Russian unexploded bombs near Kyiv
For Putin himself, there is no way out. He may even be prosecuted for war crimes. His only political way out is to turn the Ukrainian war into a struggle between Russia and the “Nazis”, or to take the opportunity to bring Russia down. Western “imperialism”.
That’s why Putin came up with the dangerous idea of ”Great Patriotic War 2.0″, and promoted it on Russia’s “Victory Day”, proclaiming to the Russian people that the darkness is about to end, and the light is coming. coming soon.
*Michael Clark is Visiting Professor of Defence Studies at King’s College London.