blueUkraine

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The resistance

Wishful thinking has the upper hand in the battle to shape Western perceptions of the war in Ukraine.

Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind.

A more than sober analysis shows that Russia may take sought a knockout blow, merely e'er had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient.

The earth has underestimated Putin earlier and those mistakes take led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine.

Nosotros must be clear-eyed at present that the war is underway. Yet even the professionals at the Pentagon are letting sympathy cloud their judgement.

Just two days into Russian federation'south invasion of Ukraine, U.South. Department of Defense briefers were quick to claim that failing to take Kyiv in the opening days of the war amoun ted to a serious setback. DoD briefers implied that Russia'southward offensive was well behind schedule or had even failed considering the capital had not fallen.

Merely U.Due south. leaders should have learned to restrain their hopes after their catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. One time over again, U.S. and Western officials are falling into the trap of declining to empathize the enemy and his objectives.

Map Ukraine

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Russian invasion plan

Allegedly, Putin believed that the Ukrainian government would collapse once Russian troops crossed the borderland and pushed to Kyiv, and that the functioning has failed considering the Ukrainian government remains in place. Putin certainly hoped for a swift victory, but he clearly was not relying on his opening salvo as the only plan for success.

Rather, the Russian war machine was prepared to have the land by force if a swift decapitation strike savage short. This kind of programme should exist familiar to Americans who think the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the first hours of the state of war, the U.S. Air Force launched its 'daze and awe' entrada in an attempt to impale Saddam Hussein and other primal leaders and bring downwardly the authorities. Saddam survived, but the U.S. armed forces was fully prepared to follow up with a ground assault.

A wait at the Russian military offensive demonstrates in that location was a plan for a full-scale invasion, which Russia is now executing.

Conventional, mechanized warfare is a time and resource consuming enterprise, and an operation of this scope isn't cobbled together in days.

The Russian offensive is taking identify on four split fronts. On a fifth front, in eastern Ukraine, which Putin alleged independent last week, Russian forces are tying downwardly Ukrainian troops that are needed elsewhere.

The majority of the Russian forces are advancing southward from Belarus to Kyiv

Russian advance forces, including air, mobile and reconnaissance troops, have been engaged with Ukrainian troops outside of Kyiv since the outset of the war. A massive column of Russian troops, estimated at over forty miles long, is just 20 miles northward of Kyiv, and is likely assembling to surround the upper-case letter.

If Russian forces tin take Kyiv and button southward to link up with forces on the Crimean forepart, thus splitting Ukraine in two, it would exist a major accident to the Zelensky government.

What matters more than a handful of setbacks is that Russian forces have pushed seventy miles into contested terrain in less than a week and are on the outskirts of the uppercase.

Ukraine map convoy

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This is not a sign of a disorganized, poorly assembled, and failed offensive.

The southward push from Belarus to Kyiv is supported past another Russian column, launched from the east in the vicinity of Kursk.

If this column can link up with Russian troops well-nigh Kyiv, it volition envelop Ukrainian forces in most of Chernihiv and Sumy provinces, depriving the Ukrainian military of much needed soldiers and war material needed elsewhere, and cutting off the government from two northern provinces.

Further eastward, Russian forces have launched a broad offensive aimed at Kharkiv, Ukraine's 2d largest city, which is at present under siege.

In the southward, Russian forces, supported by amphibious assaults from the Sea of Azov, have poured into Ukraine from Crimea.

On this front, Russian forces have branched out along ii main axes, one northwest along the Pivdennyi Buh River, and another northeast along the declension and inland towards the Donbas region, which Russia declared independent shortly before the invasion. If Russian columns from either southern front can link upward with forces farther due north, they would cut off many Ukrainian troops from reinforcement — ane of the two columns has already avant-garde roughly 160 miles.

Russian generals accept often chosen to bypass towns and cities that are putting up stiff opposition and isolating them to deal with later.

In that location are reports that Russian forces have escalated attacks on civilians, especially in Kharkiv. At the moment, the artillery and rocket attacks at that place take been limited, perhaps to send a message to the citizens equally a warning of what may come up.

Putin appears to want to have Ukraine intact, only volition not hesitate to increase the level of brutality if needed.

The systematic nature of the Russian assault is at odds with speculation that Putin has lost control of his senses. Nobody knows for certain, but Putin's deportment appear to be that of a cold and calculating adversary. Dismissing his decision to invade Ukraine as a form of madness is effectively an excuse to ignore Putin's likely motivations and future actions.

Strategically, Putin's advance on Ukraine began well over a decade agone, when he invaded and Balkanized Georgia by recognizing the Kremlin'southward puppet regimes in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Map Ukraine

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In 2014, Putin occupied and annexed the strategic Ukrainian region of Crimea, which served as a launchpad for the electric current invasion. Putin paid footling price for either activity. The Us and Europe imposed limited sanctions but continued to engage with him on the Iranian nuclear bargain and other superlative issues.

Today, Putin has calculated that taking Ukraine past force is in his and Russia'southward interest. He no doubt anticipated that the West would impose diplomatic and economic sanctions, which U.S. and European leaders threatened beforehand.

Putin may have miscalculated Ukrainian resistance and the intensity of the Due west's opposition, but it doesn't mean he is crazy, or didn't consider the possibilities and chose to invade regardless. It remains to be seen if Putin'due south program volition succeed or fail, but what is clear is that there was a plan to invade Ukraine in force, and that plan has been executed since solar day one.

Ukrainian troops are putting upwards a valiant fight facing long odds and difficult weather condition. Russia holds near if non all of the advantages. Information technology can, and has, attacked Ukraine from iii different directions. The Russian armed services holds a decided advantage in manpower, likewise as air, naval and armor superiority. It has vast resources to depict on. While Ukraine has the support of much of the international customs, which is providing weapons, Ukraine is fighting lone.

Believing Russia'southward assault is going poorly may make us feel better but is at odds with the facts.

We cannot help Ukraine if we cannot be honest about its predicament.

About the Author:
Bill Roggio is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of FDD's Long war Journal. From 1991 to 1997, Roggio served equally a signalman and infantryman in the U.S. Army and New Bailiwick of jersey National Baby-sit