The reasons for the extreme aggravation of the situation in Ukraine
Ukraine cannot be accepted into NATO. Firstly, because of unresolved territorial problems. Secondly, due to the fact that many NATO member countries are categorically not ready to commit themselves to the military protection of this country.
No "offensive weapons" of the United States - missiles and anti-missiles - can also be deployed in Ukraine. At the moment, there is simply no such weapon. However, even when it appears, it is pointless for the United States to place it in Ukraine.
No one will send such a significant, valuable and at the same time very vulnerable weapon "to the front line". Moreover, to a country whose loyalty is not at all obvious: modern Ukraine cannot be truly loyal to anyone at all. It is much easier and safer to place missiles in Germany, Poland, Romania.
Weapons redevelopment
Talking about "pumping up Ukraine with modern weapons" today is just as frivolous: the Anglo-Saxons supply there exclusively with small arms or light tactical infantry weapons. Moreover, the total volume of these supplies is not even 1% of the Soviet arsenal that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have even now, after all the sales and losses.
Of course, the West will never, under any circumstances, give Ukraine nuclear weapons. She is not able to create it herself, having squandered her huge scientific and technological potential.
In addition, for Russia, even the maintenance of the Crimea and partly Donbass is quite burdensome in economic terms. The maintenance of other territories of Ukraine, especially those destroyed by the war, and even under heavy external sanctions, may be very difficult or even impossible for the Russian economy.
The reason for Russia's current behavior may be the Kremlin's inadequate assessment of the military-political situation in Europe, that is, an exaggerated perception of the threat from NATO. Another option is the opposite – Moscow decided to take advantage of the weakness of NATO, which became especially obvious after last year's events in Afghanistan, "knocking out" the recognition of the former USSR as its sphere of influence.
Perhaps the United States and Great Britain deliberately pushed Russia to take decisive action, believing that it would get a "second Afghanistan" in Ukraine. At the same time, it can be recalled that the information campaign of the West about the buildup of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine began almost a year ago, although there were no special grounds for it at that time. Moscow could perceive this campaign as an operation of information cover for the upcoming attack of Ukraine against the DPR and LPR, after which it really began to transfer troops to the borders of Ukraine.
As a result, a classic escalation situation arose. And we have what we have.
A serious opponent
If we do not consider Russia and Turkey, a significant part of whose military potential is located in Asia, but compare purely European countries, then the Ukrainian army (that is, ground forces) is actually the strongest in Europe, especially given the psychological readiness for military action. This is not the merit of Ukraine, but the shame of Europe, but the fact is obvious.
Moreover, the strongest in Europe (in this case, even taking into account Turkey) is the ground air defense of Ukraine (" How terrible is the Ukrainian air defense ", "HVO", 11.02.22). Even the Ukrainian Air Force would be the strongest in Europe if at least half of their "pilots" could take off. Only our neighbors have zero fleet, but this is definitely not the main thing.
On the other hand, we should not pray for our Iskanders and Calibres: there are quite a few of them and they are very expensive. We cannot afford to fight in the NATO style, flooding the enemy with ammunition that is more expensive than the targets they hit. In fact, as practice shows, NATO members themselves can no longer fight in this style, and another style is now fundamentally impossible for them.
Accordingly, the hat-making sentiments towards the Armed Forces of Ukraine are extremely dangerous and have already turned into considerable trouble for us. It is possible, however, that an even more important reason for our troubles at the first stage of the operation was the senseless belief of the country's military and political leadership that the "fraternal people" of Ukraine are languishing under the American-Bandera yoke and will meet our troops in the same way as the Crimeans in 2014.
In fact, even in the south and east of Ukraine, the attitude towards Russia is not so positive. And in the center of the country, not to mention the West, it is generally unambiguously negative. Because of this, the resistance from the Ukrainian army and territorial defense turned out to be very significant.
Eight years ago, everything would have gone completely differently, but during this period, propaganda has done its job. And now we are paying with our lives for the mistake of 2014.
Resistance or flight
While it is too early to sum up the results of the military campaign (the failure of the information campaign, however, is already evident, but this is a separate topic). Let's imagine that the victory has been won after all. Is partisan resistance waiting for us?
In fact, it can be assumed that this threat to Russia is not too great. Although Russophobic sentiments in this country are much stronger than many of us would like to think. That's what we're seeing right now.
Comparison with the situation in Western Ukraine after the Second World War in this case is hardly legitimate. Firstly, Russia is unlikely to seize Western Ukraine. Secondly, and much more importantly, the current socio-economic situation is radically different from the events of seventy years ago.
In the 1940s - 1950s, the standard of living of the absolute majority of people and the price of living itself were extremely low, and the level of ideologization of society was very high. Therefore, a brutal long-term war under ideological slogans was quite a natural state of society. In addition, Bandera simply had nowhere to flee from Ukraine: to the west of the border were the Warsaw Pact countries under Moscow's control. In addition, in these countries, Bandera was hated (especially in Poland).
Today's Ukraine is very far from economic prosperity, but the standard of living is an order of magnitude higher than in the 1940s and 1950s. This automatically reduces the desire of its citizens to die in battle at the front or in partisan detachments. The absolute majority of Ukrainians, for whom life under Russian control is an unacceptable option, will simply flee to Europe. Europe will have to accept them both for political reasons and because Ukrainian migrants will be a good counterweight to migrants from Asia and Africa.
Sabotage actions against Russian troops will be carried out only with active support from outside. But even in this variant, their scale will obviously not be comparable to what happened in the 1980s in Afghanistan (or in the 1960s in Vietnam) and will cause Russia only limited trouble.
The situation in Crimea, the DPR and the LPR is very indicative in this regard. Obviously, Kiev has its own agents there. But there is no question of any organized resistance of the population – and not only because of the effective actions of the Russian special services.
In fact, a guarantee against the partisan movement would be the deployment of contingents of the Armed Forces of the LPR and DPR, as well as units of the Rosgvardiya from Chechnya, in the occupied territories as internal troops. Unfortunately, in this case, the Kremlin may be shy again: how not to offend the "fraternal people".
It is not partisanship that is much more dangerous, but the hidden hatred of the "fraternal people" from whom we "took away the European future" (which did not exist, does not exist and will not be - but it is probably useless to explain this). At the same time, Russia will not only be unable to raise the standard of living in Ukraine, but will also lower it at home. As a result, the hidden hatred can already flow to ourselves. At some point it will break through.
In this regard, the most significant question arises – what are the political goals of the special operation in Ukraine?
There is nowhere to retreat
We were obliged to save Donbass not only by diplomatic recognition, but also by restoring its territorial integrity to the borders of the regions, and for a long time. The expediency of going beyond the borders of Donbass, to put it mildly, is not obvious, and from all points of view - political, economic, military. Now, however, it is pointless to be upset about this.
Perhaps the Kremlin will seek to establish a "pro-Russian" government throughout Ukraine (or Ukraine without Galicia). That would be a grave mistake. Since a loyal Ukraine within its current borders is fundamentally impossible, any "pro-Russian" government will become anti-Russian as quickly as possible, having managed to extract the maximum amount of money from Russia.
The best option, apparently, would be the direct annexation of the eastern and southern regions to Russia and the transformation of the central part of Ukraine into a neutral demilitarized state. Moreover, in no case will we have to even partially support it in economic terms.
It may be necessary to hold a referendum in each region to determine exactly whether this region wants to be part of Russia or Ukraine. In this case, Western Ukraine could act as it pleases (up to the return to Poland and Hungary). By the way, Warsaw and Budapest would love to take "their" pieces of Ukraine – but the bosses from Washington and Brussels will forbid it.
It is fundamentally important to understand that it is obviously pointless to negotiate with the West, the Rubicon has been crossed. The "infernal sanctions" already imposed will not be lifted. If we retreat, the sanctions will not only not be lifted, but will also be strengthened in order to finish us off completely and without the possibility of recovery. If we don't back down, the sanctions will remain as punishment for not backing down.
The lifting of sanctions is possible only in two cases: if we can somehow hurt the West very much, or if for some reason it needs us very much. The implementation of any of these scenarios is not at all obvious at the moment.
Retreating is not just pointless, but definitely disastrous. But you also need to advance not too far, so as not to overdo it. Another attempt to buy the loyalty of the "brothers" at the expense of their own people will be outright suicide. In other words, we have to find the only right way between two completely bad options.
Alexander Khramchikhin
Alexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin is an independent military expert.
