The Russians assumed they would defeat Ukraine in a two- or three-day "hot" war phase, and another six-eight weeks would take them to pacify Ukrainian society. The invasion began, 3 days passed, and Ukraine continued to defend itself. In the Kremlin, they wiped their eyes with amazement, but the planet was besides surprised. “The question is not: Will Kiev fail, but when?” was discussed in CNN. Respectable guests in the studio – uniforms, civilian specialists with technological titles and experts of Russia and the East – nodded with sadness and seriousness. At the same time, the Ukrainian army nodded Russian.
And despite the hard situation, he's inactive nodding. At the end of 2024, the balance sheet of the "three-day peculiar military operation" on the Russian side is as follows: land troops took blows that weakened the over a decade-long modernization. In actual figures, this translates into 750,000 killed and wounded soldiers and 25,000 pieces of lost dense equipment. This is the current price of conquest of respective percent of Ukraine's area (together with the 2014 conquests, Russia controls little than 20% of its neighbour's territory).
Let us leave Ukraine and current events for a moment. In late 1939, the USSR held 2.5 million people, 75 times more than Finland. Józef Stalin's army underwent a ten-year intensive modernization, resulting in 15,000 tanks and 8,000 aircraft. Only part of this possible was allocated to attack a neighbour from the north – 6.5 1000 tanks, over 3,000 aircraft. The Finns could put out only 80 tanks and 160 aircraft. Even after the full expansion of the mobilization of the Finnish army – with 330 1000 soldiers at the time – the Soviets waged war in conditions of gigantic individual and method advantage. Theoretically, they had everything to "eat" Finland in a fewer weeks.
Meanwhile, on the first day of the invasion – November 30, 1939 – it turned out that the Red Army was a giant on clay legs. That her officers are poorly trained and incapable to command in combat, that soldiers are poorly motivated and completely unprepared – mentally, tactically and hardware – to fight in hard forest terrain, under harsh winter conditions. It rapidly became clear that logistics could not cope with the current supply of troops, and that aviation could not interact with armored units. Moreover, the intelligence has fatally identified the opponent, suggesting impacts in narrow and well-established sections where there was no anticipation of developing an attack. And that the extended agency misjudged the Finns' moods – Stalin was assured that Finnish socialists would support the intervention, but they would join the Soviets' side. And yes, they joined their own army, shooting at ideological people.
The Finns mastered the art of asymmetric war to perfection – erstwhile they could, they avoided regular fighting, but they ruthlessly paralyzed russian facilities, destroying field kitchens, warehouses and transport columns. Finnish gunners killed thousands of red-armists, causing a permanent fear of abrupt hit in the ranks of the enemy. erstwhile there was an open clash, fewer of Bofors' perfect cannons were easy pierced by armor of tanks with stars. Many of them were burned by the courage and inventiveness of Finnish infantrymen, from whom the thought of “Molotov cocktails” originated. On thoughtful and solidly executed fortifications, russian attacks crashed. The defenders fought for their fatherhood due to the fact that their army was completed on the basis of territorial selection. Motivation and cognition of the area were assets of power not available to the aggressor's troops.
We know that from somewhere, don't we?
As a result, after 3 months of struggle, the Soviets had 200,000 corpses – 7 times more than the Finns. Many years later, Nikita Khrushchev admitted that the combined losses of the Red Army including the wounded besides reached a million (!), thus being 12 times greater than the Finnish. But it wasn't the number of casualties that stopped Stalin from trying to proceed fighting until Finland fell. This was due to the hazard of French-British intervention and to the fear of the Kremlin dictator that Germany would besides emergence against the USSR. Under the peace treaty signed on 13 March 1940, 11% of Finnish territory (35 1000 km2) – previously occupied by russian troops – passed into Moscow.
The Finnish example – apart from a number of another similarities to the war in Ukraine – makes it possible to see a crucial repetition of behavior The Kremlin rulers. First of all, their tendency to overestimate their own capabilities and underestimate their opponent's possible and absolute determination. And fear of the cumulative strength of large players and their coordinated action. These factors should be taken into account in the reflections on the future of Natovian Europe.
Firstly, the presumption that the Alliance's advantage over Russia is apparent must be rejected. The fact that this advantage exists does not exclude a script in which the Russians misinterpret something again, consider a trait or attitude to be weakness. For example, they will conclude that the US's interior policies will not engage in defending 1 of the European countries. A akin presumption was based on aggression against Ukraine – at the turn of 2021 and 2022 the Kremlin calculated that the United States, after the Blamash in Afghanistan, would at most drop a finger, but they would actually do nothing.
Secondly, the thought of Russian pain threshold must be rejected. "This was my mistake," said General Valery Deserved in a celebrated interview with "The Economist" of November 2023. ‘Russia has at least 150 000 dead. In any another country, specified a number of victims would have stopped armed action," said the then chief commander of Ukrainian armed forces. Thus he explained himself from the defeat of the counteroffensive in Zaporozh, suggesting that 1 of its targets was the maximum bleeding of Russians. but the Kremlin didn't care about the piles of corpses.
And they inactive don't. What is happening on the front deserves the name hekatomba – Russians die “on an industrial scale”. I have no thought how much more he has to urge to Moscow that further war be considered pointless. Half a million? A million? Of course, if a fresh war breaks out in Europe, it may be different from Ukraine. Furthermore, it is possible that the Kremlin – equipped with the cognition it presently has – would not launch a ‘special military operation’ at all. And now he is taking the warpath, due to the fact that since he has already invested so much, he cannot withdraw. For our own safety, we should presume that the hazard of advanced losses may not be sufficiently dissuasive for the Russians.
What should these recommendations mean in practice? Firstly, capacity building that puts Russians at hazard not so much as very advanced losses. The failure they will endure immediately erstwhile they first effort to initiate a "hot" conflict. Secondly, this justifies the request for a more assertive and active attitude towards Russian actions, especially provocation. Scare? Let's scare them, too. Are there hybrid actions going on? Let's do the same! The Russians realize only the language of force, any hesitation they see as weakness. Finally, thirdly, let us reduce the scope for discussion on the quality of allied guarantees. It is in the interests of NATO countries, especially those smaller and weaker, to return to the realities of the Cold War, erstwhile the conviction of the monolith of the Western community was considered hard to challenge the paradigm.
I know it is not easy to implement the council, but on a wave of holiday-new year hopes I want you and I can enjoy their implementation. After all, this is about “holy peace”.
