Why going to war would be an epic mistake for Putin
THE drumbeat of war is echoing across Eastern Europe. As more than 100,000 Russian troops mass on the border with Ukraine, there are mounting fears that President Putin is about to launch an invasion of his neighbour, in defiance of international law and territorial sovereignty.
This has inevitably led to comparisons with the Munich crisis of 1938 when the failure by France and Britain to stand up for democracy against Hitler’s aggression enabled the Nazi dismemberment of independent Czechoslovakia.
But it is too simplistic to make this historic parallel. Putin is not a modern Hitler bent on racial genocide and global domination, nor is Russia the Third Reich. In the late 1930s, the very survival of Britain, along with European civilisation, was directly threatened by the Nazi machine. It would be absurd to make such a claim about Putin’s regime.
That is not to deny that it can be pitiless, as epitomised by lethal incidents such as the Salisbury poisonings in 2018 by Russian agents.
The same contempt for human rights marks Putin’s hostility towards Ukraine, which he believes should still be under Russian control. “Not a country, a mistake, not normal,” was his description of his neighbour in 2008.
APART from Russia itself, Ukraine was the biggest and most prosperous republic in the Soviet Union’s empire. Its embrace of national freedom after the collapse of Communism was a severe blow to the Kremlin’s prestige.
Dreaming of past glories, Putin has long sought to restore Russia’s imperial might by challenging Ukraine’s autonomy. That is why he ruthlessly exploited political upheaval in the country in 2014 by annexing Crimea, now home to his Black Sea fleet, and then backing separatist, pro-Russian rebels in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where longrunning unrest has cost 14,000 lives over the last eight years.
But Putin has two other specific aims. One is to reverse the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe, which he regards not only as a menace to Russia’s security but also a violation of pledges the USA made at the end of the Cold War that the alliance would not encroach on former Soviet territory.
In this respect, he wants both to prevent Ukraine joining NATO and to force Western troops to be withdrawn from Poland and the Baltic states. His other goal is to pressurize Germany into accepting gas from its vast Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would strengthen Russia’s grip on the European energy markets.
If Putin decides to invade, having judged that other options are exhausted, he might feel that Russia’s military power would giver him an easy victory. After all, Russia has 1.154 million active personnel, compared to Ukraine’s total of 255,000. Ukraine has 2045 tanks, compared to Russia’s 12,270. Russia also has 20,000 more armoured fighting vehicles, 5,000 more planes, and 500 more helicopter gunships.
But in reality, Putin would be making an epic mistake if he went to war. The Ukrainians might not have the troop numbers and hardware, but they have a ferocious national pride, allied to a deep antipathy towards Russian oppression, kindled by folk memories of the terrible famine of the 1930s when four million died due to deliberate Soviet policy.
The country’s patriotism was dramatically highlighted in the independence referendum of 1991 when 92.3 per cent of the
population voted to break away from Russia. That same resolve would infuse Ukrainian resistance to any Russian invader.
Putin’s army would soon be dragged into a long, bitter guerrilla campaign, similar to the one that broke the Soviet Union after the invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Today, there is little support in Russia for a military assault on Ukraine, but it would become even more unpopular once the body bags start to return and global sanctions begin to bite.
FAR from enhancing his stature, Putin would see his authority crumble as opposition to the war grows, especially given that much of his Russian army is conscripted.
Despite the prattling of some Washington armchair warriors, it is not in any side’s interests to have a war in Ukraine. Most of the West’s military interventions over the last 60 years have been blood-soaked failures. There is no appetite for another. It would be far preferable to hold further talks, search for a diplomatic solution, and tone down the rhetoric of confrontation.
As Churchill wisely said, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”
‘The Ukrainians have a ferocious national pride and hate Russia’