Putin's Invasion turns 90 days old
and it's clear Russia is losing
On May 9th, Vladimir Putin gave a televised address to commemorate the Russia’s (actually the U.S.S.R.’s) victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. Putin spent an unusual amount amount of time alluding to Russia’s War in Ukraine1.
Some realism for Mr. Putin.
Ukraine is not and has not been the aggressor, Russia has been.
The argument that somehow Russia needs to reclaim any territory is very close to Hitler’s lebensraum declaration.
And if a country could be compared to Nazi controlled Germany from 1933-1945, Russia is definitely a contestant. No one outside Russia’s sphere of influence (that would be Belarus and Syria) is buying it.
To date, Russia has lost 650 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles, 7 ships, and that’s just the capital side of the losses.
The human losses are worse — over 10,000 Russian soldier have been killed (unofficially of course, although Russian has acknowleded 1,351 which is low since there is a confirmed body count 3 times that size). On the Ukraine side, an estimated 14,000 have been killed — Ukraine, too, has lowballed its number of soldiers killed at about 3,000.
The above numbers are likely to increase on the Russian side as Ukraine wiped out an entire Russian battalion on Friday2.
A recent opinion by Charles V. Peña at Defense Priorities puts a very realist stamp on the long-term outcomes as the Russia-Ukraine war enters its fourth month of post invasion3.
“Ukrainian victory may not be likely, but wearing down Russian forces much like the Soviet experience in Afghanistan isn’t out of the question. However, such a scenario could be long — the Soviets were in Afghanistan nearly a decade — and almost certainly would entail immense physical destruction and loss of life (an estimated 1 million civilians were killed during the Soviet-Afghan war). For the Ukrainians, the question is, what cost are they willing to pay?”
A worthwhile read.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097547054/russia-marks-wwii-victory-overshadowed-by-ukraine
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-loses-entire-batallion-on-blown-up-bridge-says-ukraine
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3487181-whatever-comes-next-the-war-in-ukraine-will-be-a-net-loss-for-russia/