dpaPutin watches a military parade on May 9, 2023, in honor of the victory over Nazi Germany
Comparisons with the Second World War quickly miss the point, but when Sir Lawrence Freedman makes one you can be fairly certain that it is an accurate similarity. The British historian has been studying wars his entire career and is an influential authority in his field.
Two years after the Russian invasion speaks News hour extended to him. He concludes: Russian President Vladimir Putin underestimated Ukraine as Adolf Hitler underestimated the Soviet Union.
The Russians are not losing, but the problem is that they cannot win.
Lawrence Freedman
Putin, Freedman suspects, didn’t really know what he was getting into in February 2022. Invading Ukraine was reckless and occupying the country was quite hopeless. “During the corona period, he kept himself isolated; he hardly consulted his Ukraine experts. He probably read too many history books and convinced himself that Ukraine would fall apart.”
The idea that Ukraine is “a country that you just subjugate” never seemed very likely to Freedman, he says. “Before the war, I was skeptical that Russia would try this, because it was never clear to me how to keep Ukraine occupied for a longer period of time.”
Mislukt blitzkrieg
Just as Hitler thought he could defeat the Soviet Union with a short surprise attack, Putin thought he could force Ukraine to surrender with a quick, aggressive attack, Freedman said. “Both underestimated the opponent. And both suffer as a result.”
The failure of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union marked the beginning of the downfall of Nazi Germany. Now, Ukrainian troops are unlikely to reach Moscow, but “a defeat could still endanger Putin’s regime,” according to Freedman.
“Don’t assume that your first moves will bring you the win.” Freedman draws a number of important lessons from two years of the Ukraine war:
Where does Putin’s ‘arrogance’ come from? ‘His previous wars were quite successful’
A crucial part of Putin’s miscalculation, according to Freedman, is his perception of the Ukrainian population. “He saw Ukraine as a fake country with an illegitimate government and an eastern half full of Russian speakers who actually felt more Russian.”
Freedman thinks Putin did not take Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian/actor, very seriously. But Zelensky proved to be able to inspire his people and rally them en masse to support the fight against the Russians.
Meanwhile, in Russia little enthusiasm for the war. “The Ukrainians have no choice: they are fighting for the survival of their country. Russia does have a choice; it does not have to be in Ukraine. The Russians continue to fight largely because Putin does not want to lose face.”
According to Freedman, the fact that Putin did not expect serious Ukrainian resistance is also evident from the continuation of the war. He doesn’t seem to have thought about a serious long-term strategy. Russia has often hit Ukraine hard with massive artillery and rocket attacks over the past two years, but “Russian tactics on the ground don’t go much further than just throwing a lot of troops at it.” Experts also regard the fact that the Russians have not been able to achieve superior power in the air as a major blunder.
Russians will always realize: this did not go as intended.
Lawrence Freedman
In addition to aircraft, the Russians have many more tanks and other military vehicles than the Ukrainians, but they have only been able to exploit that advantage to a limited extent. Early in the war, a small team of Ukrainian special forces, armed with, among other things, cheap drones, managed to capture a huge Russian convoy on its way to Kyiv to put a stop to it.
Freedman sees drones as the biggest new development of this war. They use both sides frequently. “The drones that previously played a major role were large and expensive to transport and had their own weapon systems. In this war we mainly see cheap, small drones that are used as weapons of war. Soldiers control them up close and use them to collect images and, for example, to drop a grenade somewhere.”
Furthermore, Freedman mainly sees a fairly classic war with many similarities with the two World Wars. “Obviously the trenches, the artillery, minefields, men advancing quite hopelessly towards well-defended lines.”
‘Eastern Ukraine is not a big final prize’
The front line has been quite quiet for a while, although there are many casualties on both sides. A clear victory for either party is not possible, Freedman expects, although victory is furthest away for Russia. The Russian army makes crucial mistakes. “You realize again how important the basic things are in a war: good training of soldiers, logistics, intelligence and good leadership.”
But there are more fundamental reasons why the Russians can’t win, says Freedman. “They will not succeed in subduing a nation as large as Ukraine. Even if they settle for the territory they now control, it is not a great prize. The east of Ukraine is largely empty, battered, full of ruins and is full of unexploded mines.”
Freedman sees a ceasefire or a situation where the war slowly fades out as the most likely scenarios. The goals of Ukraine and Russia are too far apart for peace talks. Zelensky continues to promise the liberation of all occupied territories, while Putin must retain at least the Donbas and Crimea in order to present the battle as a victory.
But even if he succeeds, Putin won’t really have won, Freedman believes. “He promised to demilitarize Ukraine, but Ukraine is now one of the most militarized countries in Europe and has the prospect of membership of the EU and NATO.”
“This war has already seriously damaged Putin’s legacy and Russia. The war costs enormous amounts of equipment, human lives and trade. The end of the war will be like the West left Iraq and Afghanistan. Russians will always realize: this did not go as intended used to be.”
This month marks two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Nieuwsuur analyzes the current state of the battle with international experts and looks ahead. Earlier we spoke with journalist Simon Shuster, who regularly spoke to Ukrainian President Zelensky and followed him to the front. Zelensky also made major errors of judgment, Shuster says. Watch that interview here.
2024-02-18 09:00:01
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