THINK TALK: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Rush to Failure

MATALAM, North Cotabato (MindaNews / 21 March) – United States military analysts were of the view that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ill-advised by his generals and high-ranking military intelligence officials by giving him false hopes that a Ukraine invasion will be a walk in the park; that Ukraine may put up a fight but will raise the white flag in less than a week. And knowing Putin as stubborn and hot-headed, his generals and intelligence men may just have opted to say what he wanted to hear.

Now, Putin’s war has entered its fourth week and, even with the slow incremental advances, nothing is certain for the Russian army. Due to these apparent miscalculations, Putin was reported to have fired some of his generals and had some high-ranking intel officers under house arrest.

For now, what we see are Russian tanks, armored vehicles and military convoys stuck on the main roads leading inside Ukraine or more specifically towards the Ukraine capital of Kyiv, and the cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kherson, Mykolayiv and Odessa. The Crimea region has been annexed by Russia in 2014 and the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk controlled by Russian-backed rebels since last year.

The first thing that any military officer does when confronted by a tactical problem is to consult the map. Looking at the Ukraine map above, the first thing that catches the military eye is the long and wide Dnieper River that divides Ukraine into two. This is a formidable obstacle to military progress. Crossing this river will require a massive amount of combat engineering support.

The Ukrainians biggest advantage is they are defensive, well-positioned, and therefore they are not exposed to enemy fire. In the case of the advancing Russian forces, they are open targets of the Ukrainian forces.

The Russian invaders came from the north and entered Ukraine through Belarus; from the east through the rebel-occupied regions of Luahnsk and Donetsk, and from the south through Crimea, a Russian-annexed region in 2014.

The general situation in all fronts is that most of the Russian military convoys are stuck on the main roads. They cannot go off-road because the ground is too soft during winter for those heavy tanks, armored vehicles, military trucks and other heavy equipment. It was Putin’s added blunder by ordering the invasion one month too early. This is the primary reason why Putin has to rely on the air force for most of the bombing operations in Ukraine.

Now, Putin is employing these twin tactics to gain the upper hand by all means: one is by using a modern weapon such as the hypersonic missiles which are pretty much beyond the reach of any available missile killer in the hands of the Ukrainian army now. The other one is by continuously targeting civilian population centers. Putin has been using this strategy hoping that massive civilian casualties will break the Ukrainians’ fighting spirit and force them into submission. Unfortunately, this is not yet happening.

Putin’s biggest mistakes are shown by the following:

1. He had believed his generals that the “special military operation’ in Ukraine will be short and easy;
2. The anti-tank “javelin” missiles supplied by the U.S. to the Ukrainian army have effectively stalled the Russian army’s advances; something that was not anticipated by the Russians in their tank-led invasion;
3. Green troops were used by the Russian military officers for their assault groups which are often disorganized on the battlefield; some of them were isolated from the supply lines;
4. Russian forces hesitate to enter the city streets knowing that urban warfare would favor the Ukrainians who are waiting to strike from their hideouts inside buildings, rubbles and maybe even bomb craters;
5. Putin is trying to silence dissent at home but those who understood this Russian aggression are finding creative ways to have their voices heard.

As the economic sanctions begin to bite, coupled with the massive flight of foreign companies leaving thousands of Russians jobless, Putin will have a hard time deciding between engaging a protracted war at the expense of the Russian people or swallowing his pride by discontinuing his “special military operation” to save the Russian economy from approaching an irreversible situation.

The longer the Russia-Ukraine war goes, the shorter are the chances of a Putin victory.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews.