Ukrainians hide in a Kyiv bomb shelter, Feb 27, 2022. Royalty-free photo courtesy of depositphotos.com.
The ongoing war in Ukraine passed the one-year mark on Feb. 20. Damage has been wrought across the country and destabilized the already strained relationship between Russia and many countries across the globe. The relative post-Cold War peace in the West – termed “the end of history” by political scientist Francis Fukuyama – has been upended.
In February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the assault against Ukraine – under the guise of “denazification” and “liberation” – hoping to swiftly capture its capital city, Kyiv, and annex the nation into the Russian Federation. Putin also pointed to the shared histories of Russia and Ukraine as a catalyst for the invasion which he calls a “special military operation”.
For years, military leaders, politicians and international policy experts feared such Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and the world at large.
Some feared a lackluster response by the NATO Alliance while others were concerned that too much force by Western nations could result in the escalation of a conflict with Russia.
The world braced for a catastrophic Russian victory over Ukraine as the invasion began.
More than a decade of discourse surrounding Russia’s capabilities, a weakened West and the general lack of stability in Eastern Europe seemed to point toward the same dire conclusion: Russia would defeat Ukraine.
Ukrainian war efforts, however, have hit Russia harder than expected and revealed a disheveled Russian military that is much less capable than once believed.
To discuss the first year of the war, UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research and the UAA College of Business and Public Policy co-hosted a webinar featuring Chad Briggs on Feb. 27.
Briggs was a professor at UAA from 2019 to 2022 and has years of experience studying and teaching in Eastern Europe and has performed contract work for the U.S. government in the region. He gave an overview of the war in which he highlighted Russian losses, the surprising successes of the Ukrainian military and the West’s unexpectedly strong response to the war.
According to Briggs’s presentation, as of Feb. 22, Russia has lost at least 145,060 troops, 3,334 battle tanks, 2,345 artillery systems and 299 warplanes among numerous other losses. In a Feb. 7 Forbes article, David Axe predicted, based on expert analysis, that total Russian troop casualties likely stand at 270,000.
Briggs said that the Russian invasion has faced many setbacks due to a strong Ukrainian resistance. Russia failed to capture Kyiv and Odesa and never seized air superiority over Ukrainian skies. Briggs said poor Russian troop organization and undermanned battalions were two of the main culprits in Russia’s failure.
In an email to The Northern Light, Briggs further explained Russia’s weaknesses:
“Russia lacks training and organization. Its military long relied on using overwhelming firepower, but unlike Western militaries it never invested in making sure its troops could operate independently. … Ukraine has taken advantage of these [shortcomings].”
Briggs also described Russia’s lack of proper security measures:
“For example,” he wrote, “Russian generals would use cell phones for communications, allowing Ukraine to zero in on the command groups and [kill] a surprising number of flag officers.”
Ukraine has sustained losses of its own. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 8,101 civilian deaths and 13,479 civilian injuries in Ukraine as of Feb. 27.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the war had dealt between $2.2 billion and $6.4 billion in damages to the Ukrainian agricultural sector by June of 2022 – a concerning statistic because of Ukraine’s position as one of the world’s leading grain exporters.
Ukraine’s infrastructure has been severely weakened by Russian attacks – with Russia having placed special emphasis on damaging Ukrainian power supplies through attacks on power plants and substations. Rolling blackouts have become common across Ukraine as electricity production and transmission capabilities dwindle.
The unified stance of NATO nations against Russia’s assault has been another of the war’s surprises. In an era marked by social upheaval in many western countries – especially within the United States – the NATO response against Russia came as a startling development in favor of Ukraine.
The United States alone has pledged roughly $75.1 billion in aid to Ukraine.
President Biden in Poland on Feb. 21 gave a speech in which he said that Putin “thought he’d get the [Finlandization] of NATO. Instead, he got the NATOization of Finland – and Sweden. He thought NATO would fracture and divide. Instead, NATO is more united and more unified than ever.”
Much of Ukraine’s success in the war can be attributed to the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy grew to fame in Ukraine as the star of the hit Ukrainian television show Servant of the People in which he portrayed a history teacher turned president. The role propelled Zelenskyy into the political limelight for its anti-corruption stance. A remarkable chain of events led to the creation of a new Ukrainian political party also called Servant of the People with Zelenskyy as its presidential nominee. In April of 2019, Zelenskyy won the presidential contest with more than 70 percent of the vote.
Under Zelenskyy’s leadership, Ukraine has thus far been able to galvanize Western support and fend off Russian occupation. The Ukrainian president has refused to go into hiding and has actively worked with countries around the world to receive much-needed aid.
According to Aljazeera, Breakaway factions in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions have threatened the internal peace of the country for years but have not yet proven burdensome enough to weaken the global community’s support for Ukraine. In fact, the recognition of these two regions by Russia as independent republics further stimulated anti-Russian sentiment in the West.
According to Reuters, the September 2022 Russian-backed annexation referendums in Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine are “seen as paving the way for Russian escalation of the war”.
Fears that the conflict will spill beyond Ukraine’s borders prompted Finland and Sweden to opt out of their historical policies of neutrality and apply for admission to NATO.
Ukraine has itself begun the process of further allying with the West. According to Reuters Ukraine applied for fast-track admission to NATO last September and has been granted European Union candidate status. While Ukraine cannot join either organization until it meets a multitude of requirements – the moves toward further allyship have cemented both Ukraine’s and the West’s commitment to an agenda that opposes Russian authoritarianism.
While Western support for Ukraine remains strong, some question how long support will hold out. In his presentation, Dr. Briggs said that a war of attrition – a war in which one or both sides attempt to wear down the other to the point of collapse – would be in Russia’s favor.
Although Russia has performed poorly, it has the power to hold out longer than Ukraine because of its larger population and greater access to resources. The aid sent to Ukraine from around the world has been largely responsible for keeping the country afloat. Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian leaders must continue to prove competent and trustworthy to maintain the flow of money and resources coming into the country.
Some 8 million refugees – the vast majority being women and children – have flooded out of Ukraine in search of safety from Russia’s violence – hundreds of which have found sanctuary in Alaska according to Alaska Public Media. Alaskans are working with programs such as Uniting for Ukraine to provide refugees with resources and support.
How much longer the war goes on is anyone’s guess. Sooner or later, the billions of dollars in aid, strong Western rhetoric and the resourcefulness of Ukrainian troops and leadership will prove effective or not against Russia, and this war will come to an end.
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