Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to copy NATO and money has no role in supplying Russian troops in the battle in Ukraine. What can he do about this?
In a speech today, Putin instructed the Defense Ministry and the General Staff to copy NATO’s martial art and integrate it into its own military.
“All information about NATO troops, the means that are actively used during the special military operation (in Ukraine, ed.) and the opposition to us are known. All of this must be carefully analyzed and used in the development of our armed forces,” Putin said. With his sensational announcement, the Russian leader acknowledges that NATO is doing better than the Russian military. But he also implied that the trained Ukrainian forces largely by the alliance, were essentially superior to Russian forces.
Sincere obsession
It must not have been easy for Putin, given his fervent obsession with and hostility towards NATO, to admit that Russia has much to learn from the alliance. But it also indicates that Putin has realized that this is necessary.
The question is, however, whether “copying” NATO will be successful. And whether Russia will be able to successfully continue the fight against the Ukrainians, who have seized the initiative in recent months.
The Russian military may be huge, but the command structure is top-down: only the top generals determine what happens on the battlefield. Junior officers must await orders from above and have little or no decision-making power. And that tradition of decades, if not centuries, is not easy to break.
No financial limits
Putin has also indicated that Russian troops should lack for nothing and that there are no financial limits to achieving this. But the question is where does Moscow get that money from. The costs of war are already frighteningly high. According to Forbes, Russia has already paid an estimated $77 billion to bankrupt the Ukrainians.
Moscow has amassed huge reserves in recent years, some 600 billion dollars. But half of it is in foreign bonds, and they’re frozen. Meanwhile, revenues are declining due to sanctions. Bloomberg reported this week that Russian oil exports have already fallen 54% since the boycott introduced by the European Union on Dec. 5.
If the Kremlin doesn’t actually save a kopeck (a Russian coin) on Russia’s military, education and health care – already struggling sectors – will have to bleed even more. With all the social unrest that this entails.
Weapon of deterrence
Putin also boasted again with the new Sarmat missile (Satan-II in NATO terms), which would soon be ready. The missile is the successor to the 1980s SS-18, is incredibly fast and can cover a distance of around 6,000 kilometres. In April of this year, Russia successfully tested it.
Transferring warheads from SS-18 to Sarmat takes several years, so the US doesn’t see the missile as an immediate threat. It is a deterrent that not even Putin will use lightly.
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