On Thursday, Russia invaded Ukraine with a large army, with the main goal of ousting the government. After almost four days of fighting, the capital Kiev has not fallen and President Zelensky is still in control. The Russians are becoming “frustrated,” an anonymous US government official told Reuters news agency. Are we seeing David holding off Goliath here?
It is clear that the first days of the raid were more difficult than the Russians had hoped, says Mart de Kruif, retired general and former commander of the Dutch Army. According to him, they had counted on the Ukrainian government to give up the fight after only limited clashes.
Pressure on the population
‘You saw, for example, that the Russians were conducting a major airmobile operation north of Kiev. As a result, you have a presence close to the capital and you can sneak into the city with small groups of infiltrators’, he explains. ‘In this way you increase the pressure on the population to create so much fear that the government will fall or flee.’
It turned out not to be enough. The Ukrainian army resists and tens of thousands of rifles have been distributed to civilians. The reaction of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the Americans offered to help him flee is now famous: ‘I need ammunition, not a lift.’
Meanwhile, Russia faces challenges in the inhospitable Ukraine in supplying fuel, food and spare parts and transporting the injured, says De Kruif. Although Ukraine itself has to deal with this as well. At some point, the anti-tank grenades and anti-aircraft missiles will run out, so the question is whether the weapons from the Netherlands, among others, will arrive at the front quickly enough.
‘Battle pause? that’s gossip’
Peter Wijninga, defense specialist at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies, also sees that the Russian invasion is not proceeding smoothly. ‘The Russians stated on Saturday that they would take a fighting break. That’s crap, if you’re in a hurry to overthrow a so-called Nazi government, you don’t take a break.’
The question is how it continues. De Kruif: ‘I notice that a kind of optimism has arisen this weekend about Ukraine being able to hold out. I’m not quite there yet myself.’
The Russian army is far from unloading its full arsenal on Ukraine’s cities, he says. Large columns of heavily armored vehicles are on their way to Kiev. ‘When they arrive, you have a very different situation. A dark scenario is still unfolding.’
Russia may even deploy its air force to flatten cities with massive bombing raids, as it did in the 1990s with the city of Grozny in Chechnya. ‘Then you get large numbers of civilian casualties,’ says Peter Wijninga.
brother people
Although he wonders whether Putin wants to go that far: he has portrayed the Ukrainians as a brother nation that needs to be rescued from a Nazi regime, which is difficult to reconcile with such devastation. “I think the Russian soldiers, especially those young boys, are already taking a mental blow. They came to liberate the population and now see that same population taking up arms against them.’
Ukraine does not have to win the armed struggle, he emphasizes: it is about persevering. ‘For the Russians, the lack of profit is in fact a loss. The longer this goes on, the worse for Putin: then the home front can start grumbling.’
In the short term, the Russians can probably break the Ukrainian resistance, he expects. But with Ukrainians defending themselves so fiercely, he says Russia must take into account that local armed groups will continue to resist for a long time.
‘Then they end up in a situation in which Russia has to allow Ukrainians to be oppressed by boys who have nothing against Ukrainians,’ says De Kruif. ‘They can do that financially and I don’t think they can last for many years from a military point of view. If local militias continue to fight, this could turn into a second Afghanistan for Russia.”