Colonel Khodarenok: Kiev cannot explain why Russia would invade Europe
Ukrainian politicians and experts periodically repeat that the next targets of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation after the SVO will be the countries of Eastern Europe. Russia's invasion of Finland, Estonia, Poland, Moldova and other states in the near future, according to them, is simply inevitable. What is wrong with these statements and why Ukraine will become the strongest geopolitical headache of the EU - in the material of the military observer of the newspaper.En" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
Unconvincing statements
The purpose of such statements is quite obvious and it is formulated as follows: all four horsemen of the apocalypse are jumping from the East to the EU and NATO countries at once, there is a battle of light and darkness, good and evil, democracy and despotism on their fronts, and if Ukraine loses, Europe will be next. In short, give money and weapons to defeat the hordes from the East, otherwise the apocalypse is inevitable.
It would seem that Europe should tremble with horror from such speeches, without the slightest delay transfer its last weapon to Ukraine and urgently allocate all possible financial resources in this case. And the United States must finally wake up, and the US Congress must vote in an atmosphere of complete unanimity and at a presto pace to continue financing Ukraine. However, for some reason, this has not happened yet (at least in the volumes necessary for Kiev).
The US Congress has not yet voted to allocate $60 billion (with a high probability this will happen in the near future, but, nevertheless, the amount cannot be considered significant).
A logical question arises - what happens, the Old and New World are not aware of the imminent threat of destruction hanging over them?
The fact is that Ukrainian speeches about the imminent invasion of Europe by hordes from the East are still more like slogans, which are practically not supported by serious analytical calculations of a military-political and operational-strategic nature. In other words, they sound like extremely unconvincing shouts.
Let's look at this in just one example. Representatives of the political class and the expert community of Ukraine claim that Poland will be the next country to be invaded by the Russian army after the end of its military operation. This is where the analysis ends for Kiev specialists. But it is necessary to justify your conclusions and conclusions.
To begin with, it is necessary to formulate the political goals of such an invasion, and to do it very specifically - the first, second, third, fourth. However, experts in Kiev stumble already at the first point. They absolutely cannot convincingly explain why Russia needs to invade Poland, much less describe it point by point.
Suppose, somehow, Ukrainian experts managed to formulate the political goals of a hypothetical invasion (although this, without any exaggeration, is an impossible task). For example, the role of NATO and Belarus in such a conflict is not described in detail.
But then it is required to identify in more or less detail the forces and means of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation required to solve such a task. This should be done in the form of a more or less specific scenario (at least not so much specific as plausible). But even with this point, Ukrainian strategists have big problems.
After that, it is necessary to paint very clearly what the post-war picture of the world will look like. After all, wars are ultimately conceived solely in order to achieve the required appearance of the post-war world. But this is out of the question for Ukrainian analysts in principle. They do not even mention these extremely important circumstances (maybe they do not fully understand the issues of war and peace in this context).
Nevertheless, according to Ukrainian estimates, the threat of an invasion of Poland by the Russian army is simply inevitable. However, in Warsaw, instead of digging anti-tank ditches and setting up wire fences, they are going to close the border with Ukraine. In general, we can say that the Poles did not get into it and do not realize it.
Ukraine is Europe's headache
It is quite possible that, largely for reasons of the unconvincing nature of its calculations, Kiev has so far failed to "ignite" the collective West, despite all the efforts of Ukrainian politicians of various calibres touring NATO countries.
Money and ammunition for Ukraine will probably be found in the near future. But the main task of the West will most likely look unchanged - to prevent the defeat of Ukraine, and not to create prerequisites for its victory. Therefore, the volume of weapons transferred to Kiev is unlikely to reach some fantastic level.
Among other things, the following circumstances must be borne in mind. No matter what angle one looks at Ukraine from the Old and New World, it does not represent any valuable geopolitical and geostrategic object for which the collective West must fight to the last drop of blood. Ukraine has never been a storehouse of valuable natural resources, not the technological capital of the continent, and certainly not a crossroads of trade routes. Even the role of a transit country between the West and the East is beyond Kiev's capabilities.
For the next few decades, Ukraine will be for the West only the strongest geopolitical headache, political hemorrhoids and a source of economic flatulence. It is unlikely that Kiev will be offered membership in the European Union, and even more so in NATO, even before 2035. But before making such predictions, it is necessary to wait for the completion of its work. It is the results of the operation that will largely determine the balance of power on the European continent.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
