Putin’s aggression meets Europe’s weakness

In retrospect, a long-cherished plan is recognizable: At the latest when Vladimir Putin lashed out at his annual press conference in December 2020 and announced an in-depth analysis of the country, he was preparing for its obliteration as an independent state. Then, on June 12, his essay “On the Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” was published. There he recognizes Ukraine’s statehood – argues the same arguments as in his almost hour-long speech justifying his military action against Ukraine.

On Thursday night, Putin began attacking Ukraine from three sides: Belarus from the north, Russia from the east and Crimea from the south. “The military disposition of the Russian troops allows only one conclusion: an occupation of large parts of Ukraine, at least for a short time,” says Franz-Stefan Gady, military expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

The attacks began with massive rocket launches on the headquarters and sensitive points of the Ukrainian armed forces and on military airports, and with the destruction of the Ukrainian air defense systems. At the same time, parachute troops landed behind Ukrainian lines, accompanied by attack helicopters. It is very likely that Russia already controls Ukrainian airspace, Gady said. In addition, there are attacks with armored units by tactical battalion groups of 700 to 900 infantrymen each.

“The situation is escalating rapidly,” says Gady. “Russia will try to end the campaign quickly. The question is whether the Ukrainian armed forces will manage to retreat slowly and in an orderly manner and build up new defensive positions.” If they succeed, they could become entrenched in the cities and bloody house-to-house fighting could ensue.

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The German retired brigadier general, Klaus Wittmann, also sees the danger of great bloodshed. “The forces of the Russian military are not sufficient to occupy Ukraine in such a way that it can really be annexed,” he is convinced. If Ukraine were to be militarily defeated by Russia, Putin would have to prepare for an underground struggle and ask himself how many dead Russian soldiers he could afford.

Technically and militarily, the Russian army is superior to the Ukrainian. Russia has around a million soldiers and hundreds of tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, air force and landing ships.

Although Ukraine only has 200,000 soldiers, it can mobilize up to 900,000 reservists and has already started to call them up. Although the Ukrainians have mostly outdated military equipment, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the undeclared war in Donbass, the Ukrainian army has evolved and acquired new military equipment.

Putin has been preparing his campaign of conquest since the end of October. NATO watched the deployment of more and more troops and heavy military equipment from satellites. At the same time, Putin reassured Western heads of state. Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine, he let politicians like Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, who made the pilgrimage to Moscow, or his telephone contact Joe Biden know to the end.

The Bundeswehr, the army that I am allowed to lead, is more or less blank. Army Inspector Alfons Mais

He took a very similar approach in 2014, when he claimed that the undesigned soldiers who annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula were not Russian units. At the same time, he drew the attention of western politicians and the general public to bogus debates such as whether the collapse of the Soviet Union – promoted by Russian President Boris Yeltsin – was unjust. And whether the demarcation of the borders of the former Soviet republics – recognized by Russia in numerous treaties – is legitimate or the eastward expansion of NATO in consultation with Moscow.

Putin said in 2002: “Ukraine has its own relationship with NATO. Ultimately, the decision should be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is up to these two partners.”

How far does Putin’s aggression reach?

Wittmann assumes that Putin wants to destroy Ukraine and then control it in order to prevent democratic success in neighboring countries. “Nobody believes that Putin is afraid of NATO,” said the former Bundeswehr officer. “But he is afraid of the democratic virus that has emerged in Belarus and Ukraine because it poses an immediate threat to his system of power.”

Should Putin not only want to occupy Ukraine, but also want to advance further west, the Western alliance would once again only be “conditionally ready to defend itself”. NATO only activated its defense plans for Eastern Europe on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, Russian tanks are already rolling. The only thing that is unclear is how far?

“We all saw it coming and were unable to get through with our arguments to draw and implement the conclusions of the Crimean annexation,” Army Inspector Alfons Mais wrote on LinkedIn on Thursday. He would not have believed that he would have to experience another war in his 41st year of service, wrote Germany’s top army soldier, adding in exasperation: “The Bundeswehr, the army that I am allowed to lead, is more or less blank.”

The Bundeswehr is currently expanding its presence in Lithuania – and could quickly come under fire if Putin continues to expand: For a long time, the military at NATO headquarters and especially in Eastern Europe have been pointing to the so-called Suwalki gap in the four-country corner between Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia’s Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.

Experts such as the commander of US forces in Europe, General Ben Hodges, have been warning for years that it is one of the potentially most flammable military locations in Europe. Should Moscow want to take over the border corridor from Belarus and its Kaliningrad exclave, NATO would hardly be able to stop them. There is a lack of Alliance soldiers and weapons.

Conventionally, as former NATO generals concede, Russia has long been superior to the alliance in Eastern Europe. New tank models such as the “Armata” were put into service. Nuclear-capable Iskander missile systems stationed in Kaliningrad and recently shipped to Belarus as well. Novel Russian missiles have led to the US terminating existing arms control treaties. And Moscow’s armament with super-fast hypersonic missiles went completely unanswered.

The great reflection is only now beginning: “The operational readiness and cold start capability must be further improved so that the Bundeswehr can act quickly, flexibly and effectively,” said the Bundestag Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Eva Högl (SPD) to the newspapers of the Funke media group.

“We cannot stop Russia purely economically. There must be a military response in the form of deterrence and preparedness,” agrees Gustav Gressel of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday evening that NATO would defend the eastern alliance area in the event of a Russian attack. “Putin should not underestimate NATO’s determination to defend all of its members.”

As long as the capacities on NATO’s eastern border are only being built up, there are two hard but unavoidable conclusions according to the opinion of the NATO military: As of now, NATO should escalate fairly quickly to a Russian attack on the Suwalki corridor because of its inferiority there and use nuclear weapons. In addition, the West needs retrofitting as an answer to Putin’s armaments programs.

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So nuclear armament could happen again. “The use of tactical nuclear weapons is part of Russian military doctrine,” says expert Gady. It is quite possible that Putin is openly threatening nuclear strikes. However, he considers it unlikely that he will actually attack the Baltic States as well. “Putin does not have the military capabilities to wage a two-front war,” said the military expert.

Former Bundeswehr officer Wittmann sees the albeit small presence of NATO as a deterrent. “It demonstrates the effectiveness of Article 5 of the NATO treaty: an attack on one would be an attack on all,” he says. Russia would therefore not dare such an attack. Alone NATO member USA would be superior to the Russians in every respect.

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