Five reasons why Russia is stuck in Ukraine
A month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conflict on the ground appears to have reached a stalemate. Few would have thought that Russia’s so-called “special military operation” would last so long. After all, Russia has an overwhelming military superiority over Ukraine in terms of active troops – 9 million to 2.1 million – and a lethal arsenal.
Despite the ongoing Siege of Mariupol, have Russian troops failed to capture any of Ukraine’s largest cities? Here’s a look at five mistakes or miscalculations that Russian President Vladimir Putin made in ordering a military invasion of Ukraine.
mirage of quick victory
Russia began its campaign largely by targeting Ukrainian military sites, but has recently been bombing civilian areas inside Ukrainian cities. This indicates that the campaign has not gone as planned.
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While Moscow mobilized 1.5 million to 1.9 million troops for the Ukraine operation, the posture and composition of the force indicated a shorter duration of the campaign. That is why the capture of a large number of Russian troops by the Ukrainian army has surprised military experts.
Soldiers are not well trained and certainly not equipped for long lasting military action. The videos of Russian mechanized units trapped in mud pits created by melting ice are also shocking. This again points to a lack of preparedness for a long campaign of factoring in theater conditions. Therefore, there is reason to believe that Putin was hoping for little resistance and banking on the thawing of the Ukrainian military.
NATO support for Ukraine
The main reason Ukraine’s military is holding back is the solid support of the US and the European Union. Russia should have guessed it, but it probably underestimated the unity of NATO. It is possible that the US exit from Afghanistan last year and Europe’s reliance on Russian energy contributed to Moscow’s miscalculations.
Putin may be counting on the belief that the US has no appetite for new foreign intervention. Furthermore, given how poor relations had become between the US and its NATO allies under former President Donald Trump, Moscow may have considered the West a divided camp unable to establish a meaningful joint stance on Ukraine.
Putin may have perceived US President Joe Biden as a risk-averse, status quo leader. But Biden has managed to unify the American establishment and society behind his punitive economic and diplomatic actions against Russia, and to an extent reunited NATO over the past five years.
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International response
The kind of international response Putin is facing at this time was not expected. The withdrawal of major Russian banks from the international SWIFT payment system was always on the cards.
But the freezing of Russian foreign reserves, the widespread Western targeting of Russian oligarchs and the mass exodus of multinationals deal a major blow to the Russian economy. More than 400 corporations, including energy majors BP, Exxon and Shell, have abandoned or substantially withdrawn their operations.
Additionally, countries such as Germany – which is heavily dependent on Russian energy and was initially cautious about criticizing Russia – are now changing their stance. This shows that their governments are under pressure from their own citizens to act. In this sense, the Ukrainian resistance movement is inspiring worldwide public opinion.
False narrative
In the course of the invasion, the Russian leadership tried to portray the operation as a step to free Ukrainian citizens from a neo-Nazi regime, but this pitch was reversed because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself is a Ukrainian Jew. , whose family had survived the Holocaust. , Early in the conflict, Zelensky easily won the War of Assumption by putting out personal videos and successfully creating the story of the Ukrainian resistance against an unjust invasion.
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This is surprising as Russia is a past master in disinformation campaigns and cyber warfare techniques. Its messaging blunders could be the result of deep intelligence failures or a blatant autocratic system where Putin trusts and listens to no one.
Hard resistance
The Ukrainian army has left itself behind in this conflict. It was always given that they would be highly motivated to defend their motherland but their strategy has been right. Relying on mobile units equipped with anti-tank weapons such as US-made Javelin missile launchers and Turkish Beraktar combat drones, Ukrainians have managed to intercept or stabilize large Russian mechanized convoys. In addition, the Ukrainian military has been facing Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass since 2014. This means that they were not only familiar with Russian military strategy but had also been preparing for a possible Russian offensive for the past eight years. He was receiving training from Western countries before the Russian invasion began.
These factors have left Russia to wage a war that it cannot win without huge costs.
Five reasons why Russia is stuck in Ukraine
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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