Time to show Ukraine who we are now...
OUR MUNICH moment has arrived again – let’s not blow it this time. Ukraine is on the brink of a defensive fight for its life.the Western alliance is to be tested as never before sincevietnam but in a European war with stronger analogies with the run-up to the Second World War than the Gulf or Asian wars of the past 60 years.
The Russians have even done an eleventhhour deal with an ambitious neighbour, this time China rather than Germany, to suit her own short-term ambitions.
There are unavoidable prompts in Robert Harris’s film adaptation of his book on the 1938 Munich crisis. Harris puts up a good case that the British people were just not up for war until Chamberlain had tried every last avenue for peace.
Geo-strategically, though, the case for Britain standing with France and Czechoslovakia against German invasion in 1938 is strong: a well-armed country, with strong hill borders and a large domestic arms industry. A much better bet than Poland a year later, which Hitler was understandably incredulous we would seek to defend.
But the case for standing today with Ukraine is stronger than for Czechoslovakia then. It is at the main Eu/nato border, not a hostile country far away.we do not risk cataclysm for ourselves but only saving an allied country from one about to befall it; and from a clear enemy of ours, Russia, a country which has repeatedly murdered British citizens on our own soil.
I recently spent a week in beautiful and welcoming Ukraine, catching the last plane out of Kyiv just before Foreign Office advice switched to discourage all but essential travel. Our embassy staff had been leaving for some time already.
Disconcertingly, the Russian mission was already emptying out pretty quickly too.
I spent most of last autumn in Kyiv researching commercial requirements in AI and software for various civilian organisations. I have had extensive dealings with Ukrainians and never have I met a people with such a belief in their country.
Polls suggest up to a third say they would join any partisan resistance, in the event of invasion.
Ex-military, of whom there are 900,000, say they have no choice, as all the evidence from the Russian-occupied East is that their comrades there are hunted down and “disappeared”. Many say they will leave their families behind on the basis that the Russians would not quite stoop to the nadir of its treatment of Ukrainian women and children in the Secondworldwar.
We must hope they are right.twenty per cent of the current reserves are women.
Ukrainian reservists put the odds of urban warfare quite high.we may be about to see the world’s last-ever tank battle.
The UK has sent 2,000 fire-and-forget, easy-to-hide anti-tank missiles, a nightmare for an invading power in a semi-destroyed urban environment. Every street window an enemy. Nowhere to manoeuvre.
The maths is far from being in the favour of the Russians, should they move against Ukraine. Malcolm Gladwell, the statistical narrator who brought us Thetipping Point, David & Goliath and Outliers, notes that in matched strategies, the weaker contestant in a war loses 70 per cent of the time. In asymmetric warfare, the weaker party wins 70 per cent of the time.
Thinkvietnam, arguably Libya postgaddafi, or even Britain in 1940 where our one great thing, the RAF, was enough to see off German invasion, and our next great thing, the Royal Navy, secured our supplies well enough to win with our allies.
At no point did we (nor anyone) do well taking on Germany’s best thing, its army, head-to-head. Our special forces have a proper respect for the Russian capability in cyber, already at work with an attack two weeks ago against Ukraine infrastructure, but equally one we more than match.
MUCH is made of the threat of 115,000 Russian troops, recently reinforced in miles-long columns being pulled off China’s border, evidencing a backdoor understanding there, and 12,500 tanks, of which maybe a third are on the various borders of Ukraine, including Crimea in the south.
How many will actually work in the thawing ground we will see, but they will be taking part in the last tank battle, in the view of many analysts. Ukraine doesn’t need more tanks. It can swarm the invaders with cheap disposable drones and missiles – which thewest can supply endlessly – without firing a shot themselves.we do not have to worry that they will be used well.
Of course, Ukraine is not unused to invaders from East andwest.this can be seen in the preternatural calm of many of the civilians I met. No panic shopping for loo roll or baked beans. One wry older mother said of her concerns for her daughter:
“I do not worry, she will either fight with partisans or find a Soviet three-star general to look after her. She will be fine.”
The UK is one of only four signatories to the 1994 Budapesttreaty (with US, Ukraine and Russia), which guaranteed its independence in return for the repatriation of its nuclear silo to Russia.
We have a clear stake in the ground to deliver on that accord.
Ukraine will fight like no invaded nation perhaps we have ever seen. Its people know this is their only chance in a thousand years to secure their future in freedom.
Global Britain cannot be defined by our ignominious exit from Kabul.we must show who we are too, now, and take our water to our neighbour’s burning house, as Roosevelt defined the Lend-lease programme he brought to us in 1940.
There is a very good chance the Americans will be with us all the way on this too.
THE reality of invasion is not new to Ukrainians, who have lived with Russian-backed troops on their soil for the last eight years.
Despite their stoicism, however, there are signs the current crisis carries a much greater risk which could leave Eastern Europe’s largest country a failed state.
While the cafes in Kyiv were still bustling last night, sources told of increased stockpiling of petrol and food in anticipation of an attack.
Moscow’s response to demands by both the US and Nato did little to allay fears.
“There is no positive reaction on the main issue,” said defence minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday.
“The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of further expansion of Nato to the east and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.”
Recent disclosures, such as the transportation of Russian blood supplies to the front and the movement of 40 mobile radio stations in Voronezh caused one Ukrainian last night to say: “I don’t know whether Russia is preparing for war but, if it were, it would look a lot like
‘This could be world’s
last-ever tank battle’
‘I’m sure the Ukrainians will fight to keep their independence, but it could be a bloodbath’
BOB SOPEL
this.” Meanwhile, UK sources in Ukraine have described the “rising tempo”.
“I asked someone in Kyiv if they were OK. They said yes, as long as there’s no war – that’s a stark departure from even two years ago,” said one last night.
Sergej Sumlenny, a Russianborn analyst who recently spent six years in Ukraine, said he was being inundated by calls for advice. “People have been living in a state of war for eight years and most are trying just to continue as normal,” he said.
“But I am getting many calls from friends in Ukraine who are very worried.
“One, a 30-year-old mother of a seven-year-old daughter, asked me what she should stockpile and whether she should leave her apartment in a western city to live with her mother in the provinces.
“Others have asked me whether they should empty their bank accounts.the fears are very real.”
With borders in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania expected to close in the event of an invasion, Ukrainians will have little option but to stay put and face what may come.
Mr Sumlenny, who served with Russian forces before joining a think-tank critical of Vladimir Putin’s policies, added: “My advice was to stay put but to stock
up on petrol and water – petrol will be the first thing to go, and once the pipes go, her apartment will have no water to flush the toilet. You don’t need 20 kilos of supplies if you can’t stay in your flat because it has no water.”
Ukrainians in Britain spoke of their concerns for loved ones.
“We are very worried about the troops to the north,” said Petro Rewko, chair of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, adding that it was “difficult to remain optimistic”.
There could be a massive humanitarian disaster if Mr Putin invades. “I’ve spoken to my relatives and it’s true that people are getting ready with their suitcases to flee if the Russians invade.
“Ukraine and the West don’t want a war, and I’m sure the Russian people don’t want a war.
“We are hoping the diplomacy that is taking place to avert a major conflict is successful.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was last week criticised for his reaction to Western help.
During a call with US president Joe Biden, he is said to have reacted to warnings that invasion was imminent by responding that the threat remains “dangerous but ambiguous”, and it is not certain an attack will take place.
In a public statement later, he added: “We are grateful to the US for the support for our independence and territorial integrity, but I am the president of Ukraine, I am here and I know more details and have deeper knowledge than any other president.”
He had already objected to the drawing down of US and UK embassy staff, calling it “a mistake, wrong overreacting steps that do not help us”, and adding: “It is not the Titanic here.”
But sources in
Kyiv confirmed his main concern was the collapse of Ukraine’s economy. According to many Ukrainian government officials, borderline “hysteria” has already squeezed Ukraine out of market borrowing, prompting Kyiv to call for a $5billion aid package from friendly countries and institutions.
“The extra billions we can spend on the army won’t help if we lose balance and economic stability,” defence minister Oleksii Reznikov told parliament. Mr Sumlenny said: “Putin has already won in this regard.”
Though there are concerns that a 240km stretch of Ukraine’s frontier with Belarus, at Chernihiv Oblast, remains defended by just barbed wire, Mr Putin has options at his disposal other than a land invasion. Mr Sumlenny, a reservist with the
Russian
army specialising in psychological warfare before he left the country, said: “Ukraine’s forces have never been better prepared for ambush.
“Knowing Russian military doctrine as I do, I believe they won’t risk giving the Ukrainians the opportunity to use US Javelins and British next generation light anti-tank weapons to burn their tanks. But Russia knows Ukraine has little in the way of anti-air defences.
“They could adopt techniques they employed in Syria, to use air power to carpet bomb cities, destroy dams, chemical plants and vital infrastructure.
“The destruction of just one dam on the Dnieper river would be enough to obliterate a couple of cities. And let’s not forget its nuclear power plants.
“I am worried. It would just take 100 Kalibr missiles to destroy Ukraine’s economy. It would be
devastating. If Putin’s aim is to reduce Ukraine to a failed state, what better way is there?”
Bob Sopel, 70, who chairs the Manchester branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, said: “What Putin is doing is crazy. When we became independent we were the third-largest nuclear power in the world. Then negotiations took place for the removal of our nuclear deterrent with the UK, France, USA and Russia in return for our sovereignty being respected. Now we have the Russians doing this.
“We’ve just celebrated 30 years as an independent country and we celebrated our Christmas just weeks ago. We’ve had threats hanging over us over a long time.
“No one wants to go back to being in the Soviet Union, and I’m sure Ukrainians will fight to keep their independence, but it could be a bloodbath.”
‘It is difficult to remain optimistic’