Western analysis has been quick to dismiss Russia’s campaign as badly planned, overly optimistic and bogged down by determined resistance.
Despite such setbacks, Moscow may still have a blueprint for salvaging its objectives. Precipitated by Stalin’s desire to grab strategic Finnish territory north of what was then Leningrad, the Winter War of 1939-40 is today little remembered outside Finland.
Now, with a Russian offensive again struggling despite outgunning the neighbour it is invading, the war, in which the Soviet army performed poorly while doing enough damage to allow the Kremlin to scrape a favourable peace, hints at an outcome for Ukraine.
In both conflicts, a much smaller neighbour defied a heavily armed Kremlin by shifting to innovative small-unit tactics, and using foreign-supplied weapons to foil Russia’s hopes for a quick, emphatic victory, even if it couldn’t defeat the superpower outright.
In an analysis yesterday the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said: “Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war. The Russians could hope to break Ukrainians’ will to continue fighting under such circumstances by demonstrating Kyiv’s inability to expel Russian forces or stop their attacks, even if the Russians are demonstrably unable to take Ukraine’s cities.”
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With Russian troops bogged down outside Kyiv for three weeks, Kharkiv still in Ukrainian hands and Russian progress halted in the south, the offensive seems to have run out of steam.
However, this does not mean that Russia cannot win. Ukraine has been adept at publicising its gains and is regularly updating the numbers of Russian troops killed, planes shot down and tanks destroyed. President Zelensky’s political addresses are must-watch events and Ukrainian figures are more readily believed.
Western intelligence assessments suggest that both sides have lost a tenth of their total combat capabilities. But although Russia’s losses are numerically far larger, so too is its capacity to replace them.
Next month Russia’s present cohort of conscripts complete their mandatory year of service. Many are likely to face pressure to sign on as professional soldiers, potentially adding tens of thousands of new troops. Ranks are also likely to be bolstered by redeployments from the Far East, Armenia and occupied regions of Georgia, as well as by 40,000 Syrian fighters said to have been made available by President Assad. Even though those units are unlikely to fill the void left by high casualties among Russia’s paratrooper and special forces divisions, they will provide much-needed relief for an army that has sustained far higher losses than expected.
The Wall Street Journal and Germany’s Deutsche Welle have reported that hospitals in Belarus, which is providing logistical support for the invasion, are flooded with wounded Russians.
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However, Russia’s overwhelming firepower could yet let Moscow bleed Ukraine dry while cutting its own losses.
Though mass shelling has not compelled contested cities such as Kharkiv or Mariupol to surrender, Russia has shown increasing ability to inflict major losses on Ukrainian units through precision strikes.
In recent days, Russia has appeared to target Ukrainian airports and arms factories, possibly to erode its ability to resist in the long term.
Elsewhere, Russian strikes on a military base just short of the Polish border and on a marine base in the southern city of Mykolaiv have inflicted dozens of military casualties at once.
Such tactics may hint at a new approach — to accept that large-scale offensives have failed and focus on grinding down Ukraine’s defences. Much like Josef Stalin in 1940, Moscow could then demand better terms. And given that Helsinki managed to preserve its sovereignty, even as it accepted territorial losses, this may not be the worst possible scenario for Ukraine.
