Opinion | Reality crashes down on Ukraine - Don't say I didn't tell you so
By Tom Fowdy
When Russia unleashed its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, I was quite honest in my calculation that Kiev would not defeat Moscow, despite the twists and turns which came along the way because of Putin's own miscalculations. On social media, I was ridiculed and attacked for sticking to this position, especially as I doubled down on what I saw as the absurdist nature of Ukrainian-led military propaganda amplified by the Western press, which grossly exaggerated Russian casualties and painted the misleading picture of a one-sided Ukrainian victory which was destined to drive Russia out of the country in a heroic and fairytale-like fashion.
As a British person, public opinion had been completely captivated by this performative circus, but one might have assumed it was realistic enough following Russia's many setbacks which would see them fail to capture Kiev, caught off guard in Kharkiv and ultimately be forced to retreat due to strategically unfavorable conditions in Kherson. Such of course speaks a testimony of the unpredictable nature of war, the role that miscalculations often play within it, and the hubris of underestimating your opponent. Yet despite this, I maintained the position that Ukraine did not have the capability to impose a total defeat on Russia and those who assumed such were either naïve or even wilfully lying.
Why did I argue this? Because it is a recurring theme of history that when countries find themselves in a protracted war against Russia, whether it be Moscow starting it or not, they quickly discover that they do not have the means to impose an absolute defeat on them owing to the reality of geography. Russia, in all its various forms, is the largest nation on the planet. It has never of course been in real terms, the most "powerful", but this is a country whose scope stretches an entire span of the globe from Poland and Norway to Alaska and Japan. This makes it logistically impossible to destroy, conquer or occupy the country with the view to imposing a "strategic defeat on it."
Now, history also shows that Russia's military has a record of starting off incompetently, but ultimately rising to the challenge. Whether it be wars they initiate, or ones started against them, Russia tends to perform poorly but then because of geographic realities, last the longest and win ugly. Hitler attained some devastating early victories against the USSR which were far more drastic than anything Ukraine achieved, whilst even a thinly populated nation such as Finland held its own against the Soviet Union in the Winter War. Yet in many respects, the outcome was the same, because they had no actual means to impose an absolute defeat over Moscow which would end those respective conflicts on their terms, locking them into protracted wars Russia would not conclude until it got what it wanted.
The same story is now emerging in Ukraine. As much as Russia started the war on its own count, the hubris amplifying the Kiev side lost touch with reality, mainly because the Western media lied incessantly about Moscow running out of men, and armaments and on the verge of economic collapse. The Wall Street Journal and The Economist have since come clean that it was all a fantasy. Now, as of December 2023, this year has been an effective stalemate that has seen Ukraine's overhyped "counteroffensive" fail to make headway, their last success was driving Russia out of Kherson and they've never been able to replicate it since.
I calculated around January that their offensive was their last strategic gamble to be able to win the war on terms amicable to them and would likewise call into question the level of financial and military commitment the West would be willing to invest in Ukraine without risking serious escalation with Moscow. All that has come to fruition. It was following their setbacks that Russia mobilized, entrenched their defenses, learned from their failures, and switched into a war of attrition with the short-term goal of holding out on the territory they had seized. This has worked.
Now, Russia has started to grind forward again and capture new territory. As this has taken place, doubts and divisions within Ukraine's own leadership have started to grow, stories of public assassinations amongst high-level officials are growing, while some Western media outlets, including Reuters in a recent piece, have also acknowledged that public support for the war in Ukraine is falling, the population is increasingly disaffected with its leadership, and that manpower is running low. In line with this, the fanfare that promoted Ukraine on Twitter is disintegrating as morale begins to sink. Reality has finally arrived. I had devoted a lot of time to warning about this and naturally got accused of supporting the invasion, but in my estimation, I was only ever being realistic as to what was to come. Reality has now arrived in Ukraine, which will exacerbate internal tensions as they have to face the frightening prospect of conceding territory for peace when Zelensky promised that Ukraine would unequivocally win. I didn't buy it then, and neither should you have.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | How the China 'disease' scaremongering made a comeback
Opinion | Canada's chickens come home to roost - the truth comes out about the 'Two Michaels'
Comment