Russo-Ukraine war has entered its third month, a war that we all hoped would be averted. When Russia invaded on 24th February 2022, most pundits predicted that it would be a short war of may be a week or two. The Russian President Vladimir Putin had demanded a completely neutral Ukraine with a regime that is “de-Nazified and demilitarized”.  Despite last minute assurance from the Ukraine President Volodomyr  Zelenskyy that his country will not join NATO or EU, Putin decided to invade. While Putin, and in fact much of the world, expected a quick fall of Kyiv and a new Pro-Russian government installed there, the Ukrainian forces, despite being out-gunned and out-numbered, fought on. The Ukrainian forces, armed with the western anti-tank weapons, caused heavy loss of Russian armour. Soon the Russians had to retreat under fire from Kyiv front. Despite constant shelling and bombing, President Zelenskyy in his T-shirt, kept giving outdoor interviews seeking military and humanitarian assistance from the world community. I will try to give a commentary of events and lessons learnt so far, i.e. till 08 May 2022.

At the outset, both sides made serious miscalculations of each other’s intentions and capabilities. The Ukrainians didn’t take the Russian warning seriously that they were crossing the “Red Line” as they engaged in talks to join the EU, and NATO. The Russians, on the other hand, grossly underestimated the strength of the Ukrainian forces and the impact of the military aid from the NATO countries. 

The Russians, on the first day of invasion, dropped para troopers to occupy the Gostomel airfield at the outskirts of Kyiv. The aim was to establish a bridgehead where reinforcement would be flown in from Russia and eventually launch a quick attack to occupy the capital. Things went wrong soon after the first batch of paras landed. The Ukrainians quickly encircled the small Russians forces, retook the airfield and prevented further reinforcement being flown in. Meanwhile, the main Russian column coming from Belarus faced stiff Ukrainian resistance. The advance also stalled because the mile-long armoured columns ran out of fuel. The Ukrainians could easily pick up the fuel bowers and destroy them with various anti-armour weapons. Once out of fuel the tanks were like sitting ducks for the Ukrainians to take out one by one. Meanwhile, the Russians forces in Gostomel suffered heavy casualties, some were taken prisoners while others managed to track back to the main line.  The lessons learned here is that the Special Forces can hold on for a limited time only; unless they are quickly reinforced and replenished. 

The Ukrainians, armed with NATO-supplied ‘Javelin’ anti-tank missiles, for the first time, gave an advantage to the infantry man in his fight against the enemy armour. Another game changer that appeared in the war was the Drones, inexpensive, easily operable and highly lethal. We have seen extensive use of drones in anti-ISIL war in Syria-Iraq and anti-Taliban war in Afghanistan. Drones provide real time picture of the target areas, and when armed with bombs or missiles, can carry out accurate pinpoint attacks. The Ukrainians have been using the drones, both for reconnaissance and attack, while controlling them from remote locations with data-link, sometimes using Personal computers. Thus, an ordinary citizen, with a knowledge of computers technology, could become a tank or artillery killer. Application of Drones in warfare opens up many new possibilities.

The destruction of so many Russian tanks in so short a period raised questions about the vulnerability of Tanks in the face of anti-tank weapons. In the past, the main weapon to fight a tank was another tank. But now, an infantry soldier carrying an anti-tank missile can challenge the dominance of tank. While in the past, the soldier had to get very close to the tank, and in many cases, he would be incapacitated before he could bring the tanks within his weapon’s range, now with weapons like the Javelin, he could fire from a distance while remaining out of detection and then quickly move away to a more secure location,. The missile would guide itself autonomously on the Tank. The Javelin climbs up as it approaches the target and then comes down with a high angle of attack on the tank turret, the most vulnerable part of the tank.  The way the Russian tanks blew up after the Javelin hit, raised new questions about the tank design. There are inherent design flaws in the Russian tank that contributed to total destruction of the tank and instant death of all tank crew. One of the principle of deployment of armour is that it must be closely supported by infantry. Long columns of tanks in the open is easy prey for the infantry with its anti-tanks weapons and the Ukrainians took full advantage of it.

This war once again showed the vulnerability of manned aircraft, especially helicopters, to man portable surface to air missiles (SAM).  In future wars, while manned aircraft will continue to be useful against high value targets, we shall see increasing use of unmanned drones and cruise missiles taking over much of the traditional roles of manned aircraft. Especially for countries with small defence budget, Drones offer a wide range of possibilities. Russian’s loss of the ‘Moskva’, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, on 14 April, apparently hit by two land based anti-ship missiles fired by the Ukrainians, once again raised the question of vulnerabilities of large warships to relatively inexpensive missiles. Subsequent enquiries raised the question of Russia’s Anti-missile defence system on board the ship, as well as serious questions of training of crew and their ability to fight fire on board.  We have witnessed another new weapons system in action – Hypersonic cruise missile, called ‘Kinzal’ that the Russians launched against Ukrainian targets. We saw in the two Gulf Wars, as well as in Afghanistan, the use of subsonic cruise missiles, such as Tomahawk, that can be launched from air, surface and from the submarines while under water. As cruise missile detection and countermeasures became available, the emphasis shifted to developing extremely high speed cruise missile that travel up to 7-times the speed of sound. The Russians used Kinzal to attack underground weapon storage depots as well as large surface installations. The Americans, for sure, will now develop a hypersonic missile of their own, as well as a counter measures to defeat the Kinzal; another race will be on. 

Once Putin realized that he cannot get to Kyiv and cannot bring about a regime change, he went for ‘Plan ‘B’ - to intensify attack from south and east to seize eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.  In fact, Russian troops were in the southern and eastern Ukraine since 2014 when they occupied Crimea and was covertly helping the Anti-Ukraine separatist forces in Donbas region – “Donetsk People’s Militia” and “Lugansk People’s Militia”. These militias enjoy support of the local people of Russian origin. Ukraine considers these forces as terrorists and had been fighting them for years, whereas Russia recognizes them as freedom fighters and accuses the Government of Kyiv of large-scale human rights violation in the region. One of the pro-Ukraine irregular forces operating in the region is Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi group of Ukrainians, who have often been accused of committing atrocities on ethnic Russians in the region. Now that Russia has recognized the two secessionist republics, these two militias can operate as regular forces. As of today 08 May, fighting is going on throughout the eastern Ukraine and Russian Army is making slow but steady progress. Putin’s aim now, it appears, to take control of Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. Once that happens, Ukraine will lose half of its coastline and it will be left with Odessa, as the only port. If Russia can capture Odessa, Ukraine will become a land-locked country and its economy will be in serious jeopardy. However, Russian forces will find the going increasingly difficult while the Ukrainians are able to acquire more sophisticated western weapons. 

Meanwhile, the Russians have been using their massive artillery and armour firepower to indiscriminately bomb the Ukrainian cities and towns. These are reminiscence of the destruction of Groznyy in Chechnya (1999) and in Aleppo in Syria (2012-2016). In both cases, the Russians simply flattened the cities in order to demoralize the defenders. The video footage emerging out of the eastern port city of Mariupol, is truly shocking. However, the lessons learnt from WWII or Vietnam and in more recent times in Syria, Afghanistan or Yemen is that mass bombing of civilian targets rarely break the national morale, rather it strengthens the national will to fight. 

As the fighting is entering into a long drawn affair, Russian President Putin will find it increasingly difficult to continue the war. After all, Russian economy, mostly based on the export of oil and gas, is smaller than that of South Korea. With western economic sanction slowly tightening, how long will he be able to bear the extra defence burden? In 1991, the West won the Cold War without having to fire a single bullet, mainly because the Soviet Union with its much smaller economy could not match the defence expenditures of the West. Almost the same situation may arise now – Russia may go bankrupt just to put up with the Ukraine war. And there lies the danger.

Recent warning of a nuclear response coming from President Putin and his foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is more out of frustration rather than a deliberate strategy. Even at the height of Cold War, no Soviet leader ever uttered these words, knowing fully well that a nuclear war will destroy everything that the humanities, including the Russians, have achieved over centuries. There will be no winner, only Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Why is the warning then? Putin would have to show some gains out of this war to his people before he goes to negotiating table. If he can hold on the eastern Ukraine and Crimea, he can be seen as a winner in this conflict. 

While the war goes on there are efforts to end this crisis, both within UN and outside it. While the world was just recovering from two years of debilitating Covid Pandemic, the Russo-Ukraine war has set the economic recovery process into a spin. The oil price has hit the ceiling and so are the commodity prices. The poor and under developed countries of the South are the worst affected. Bangladesh too is paying a steep price. Both Russia and Ukraine are important trading partners of Bangladesh. Both are important destinations of our readymade apparels and they are also important source of our grain and edible oil import. We can ill-afford any long time disruption of the supply chain. So far, it appears that the war must first enter into a stalemate before any meaningful negotiation could start. The only practical solution will be an international guarantee of Ukraine’s neutrality and sovereignty, a declaration of no further eastward expansion of NATO. In return, Russian forces must withdraw from eastern Ukraine, if not from Crimea. Ukraine must guarantee autonomy to the eastern Ukrainian states of Donetsk and Lugansk and ensure civil liberties and human rights of all Ukrainian citizens of Russian origin. As we stand today, common grounds for negotiations remains a mirage. 

As the Ukraine-Russia war runs well into its 3rd month with no end in sight, its long-term impact on the global geo-strategy and politico-economic situations are clearly visible. The world will probably never be the same as it was on 24 February 2022.  The warring nations, as well as those directly or indirectly involved in the war, are facing major socio-economic disruption. Even countries, located thousands of miles away and with no interest in the war, are being subjected to enormous economic difficulties.  Global economy that was already in a recession, may soon head into a depression. Developing counties, such as Bangladesh, face new challenges of reduced foreign aid and investment, shrinking export market, rising price of imported commodities, job loss and many socio-economic issues. There is a danger of global economic meltdown that may cause serious socio-economic and political upheaval across the globe. 

Russia invaded Ukraine as it felt that Ukraine has crossed what Mr. Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, had termed as the “Red Line.” Russia viewed westward expansion of NATO at the end of Cold War as a direct threat to its security. Whereas during the Cold War, the NATO border was nearly 2000 Km away from Moscow, today, because of countries such as Poland and Lithuania joining NATO, the distance is less than a thousand kilometers. Historically Russia had suffered external invasions for centuries. From the east came the Huns (4th century), Mongols (13th century), from the south came the Tartars (14th century) and Ottoman Turks (19th century). More recently from the west came Napoleon (1812) and lastly Adolf Hitler (1941-45). Russia considers her geographic depth as the most significant advantage of her physical security. Both Napoleon and Hitler could reach the outskirts of Moscow, but when the Russian counter attack finally came the invading forces were so exhausted and their supply lines so depleted that they were forced to retreat that soon turned into a rout. 

The Russians were looking for a way out into the open sea for centuries, but were denied the access. The outlet from the Baltic Sea is bottled up by NATO forces in Germany, Demark and Norway, the Black Sea fleet has to pass through Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, controlled by NATO member states - Turkey and Greece. Russia’s access to the Pacific is also guarded by Korea and Japan and the US Pacific fleet.  Russia is essentially a land power that always views its enormous depth as an essential component of its defence safeguard. It is from that point of view Putin had repeatedly warned against further NATO expansion and Ukrainian decision to join the NATO was the proverbial “last straw on the camel’s back”. 

Although Ukraine joined as a member state of the Soviet Union (1922), it retained a separate seat in the League of Nations and the UN, recognizing its special status.  In fact, Ukraine and Russia shared a love-hate relationship for centuries.  Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital is considered the birthplace of the Slavic statehood that ultimately became the Czarist Russia. Russian Orthodox Church, too originated from Kyiv as it broke away from Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Soviet official efforts to promote an all-encompassing Russian identity in Ukraine met with only mixed success.  During WWII, dissident Ukrainians joined Nazi forces and fought against the Soviets. After the end of WWII, Soviet strongman Josef Stalin took grave revenge on the Ukrainians by sending ten millions of them to exile in Siberia where millions perished in the Gulag (prison camp). These are in the collective memory of the Ukrainians. Despite efforts of reconciliation in the 1950s, especially by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who was of Ukrainian origin, the Russians overwhelmingly consider separate Ukrainian identity as a western conspiracy. Even Nobel Prize winning novelist and Philosopher Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who bitterly criticized the Soviet system and claimed himself a half-Ukrainian, termed Ukrainian nationalism “a recently invented falsehood.”    Solzhenitsyn called for the formation of a “Russian Union” composed of the Soviet Union’s Slavic core—Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and northern Kazakhstan. Mr. Putin, it appears, believes that he is ordained to reunite the greater Slavic Russia and the Ukraine invasion is a part of that grand design.

Mr. Putin has some public support amongst the Russian-Ukrainians concentrated in the Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Some of this area had been under Russian occupation since 2014. Crimean peninsula that had belonged to Russian Federation till 1954 when it was handed over to Ukraine by the Soviet PM Nikita Khrushchev, was re-occupied by Russia in 2014. While Putin’s ‘Plan-A’ of occupying Kyiv has failed, he is vigorously pursuing ‘Plan – B’, i.e. to take control of Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. After the fall of Mariupol, Russians are now controlling the whole of eastern Ukrainian coastline. Mr. Putin’s next target would be the capture of Odessa, the biggest seaport of Ukraine with large population of Russian origin. If Russia can capture Odessa, Ukraine will become a land-locked country and its economy will be in serious jeopardy. However, Russian forces will find the going increasingly difficult while the Ukrainians are able to put up stiff resistance with their newly acquired sophisticated western weapons. With the stiff sanctions now enforced, holding on to the territorial gains in Ukraine will be a difficult proposition in the long-term. One must remember that although Russia is a major military power with huge conventional and nuclear-armed military force, yet, the size of its economy is smaller than even South Korea. West won the Cold War without having to fire a single shot, only because the then Soviet Union, in order to match the West’s military might, just went broke. Once Soviet economy collapsed, the state itself broke up. Mr. Putin is keenly aware of this fact of recent history. 

Invasion and occupation of Ukraine has sent a chilling message to Russia’s neighbours who feel more threatened now than ever before. Application by Finland and Sweden, who had hitherto been neutral, to join NATO and EU is a case in point. Sweden had been a neutral state from the 19th century and had stayed away from all European wars. Finland, which lost a part of its territory in the two Finnish-Russian Wars (1939 and 1941-44) and was forced to sign a Peace Treaty with Moscow, had the old fear reignited. The invasion set a bad precedence for the world community where a major power could invade and occupy a smaller neighbour’s territory under the pretext of national security. For the developing world, this war brought further economic blows. Russia and Ukraine were major suppliers of wheat, maize and edible oil. The disruption of the supply chain has already caused serious food shortage and economics chaos in many Afro-Asian countries. The poor are the hardest hit. While the oil producing countries in the Middle East are filling their coffers, the countries such as Sri Lanka ran out of fuel just because they went broke. “The New World Order” as was visualized at the end of Cold War in 1991, a world where there will be no arms race, no nuclear weapons and where democracy and human rights will thrive, have all proved to be a chimera. The conflicts in the post-Cold War period has cost more lives than those lost during the Cold War. 

As it stands today, 24 May 2022, Mr. Putin has declared a victory by occupying Mariupol and most of the Donbas region. Now is the time for him to call for a ceasefire and start serious negotiation. Both sides must have a face saving situation before they can talk peace. The Russian can rejoice over their victory in Donbas and the Ukrainians too can be proud of defiantly standing up to a powerful invading army. The first step, as the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Gutiérrez pointed out is the cessation of hostilities, return of the refugees and resumption of international trade and commerce. This is important not only for the warring nations, but for the world. The West must respect Russia’s genuine security concerns and refrain from encircling Russia. Russia, on its part, must recognize the international boundaries and renounce the use of force as a means to settle inter-state disputes. Let us hope that the war comes to a peaceful end and we live to see a better world tomorrow.