What is happening in Europe today is the most critical military situation I have ever seen in my life.
make no mistake: Vladimir PutinPutting Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrents on alert is tantamount to threatening to use nuclear weapons.
We must hope that these threats will not materialize, not least because Russia maintains the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world.
But could Putin’s threat be a strategic bluff? After all, despite his enormous military capabilities, Russia’s progress in Ukraine’s cities is much slower than he would like.
Russia’s battle plan appears to be a tripartite attack, striking south from Belarus to Kiev, west of the Donbass region and north of Crimea, all aided by diversionary strikes across the country.
So, if this is the plan, why haven’t Russian forces made faster progress towards their operational goals?
It is clear that Russia has invested heavily in its ground warfare capabilities in recent years, and although the West has helped Ukraine with weapons and training, there is, at least in theory, a kind of mismatch in common ground warfare capabilities between the two protagonists.
But below the nuclear threshold, winning the war is not just about the number of troops and tanks. In military doctrine, it is believed that there are three components of effective combat power – physical, conceptual and moral.
The physical component is only for the amount of strength and what it is equipped with, while the conceptual component is for the skill involved in planning a maneuver scheme, but the third component – the moral component – can be the eventual winner in battle.
Vladimir Putin in the photo during a visit to the construction site of the National Space Agency on the premises of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in Moscow on Sunday
Napoleon Bonaparte, who knew a thing or two about the struggle against the Russians, glorified the view that “morality is for the physical, as three are for one.”
In this statement, he prioritizes the will of individual soldiers to fight and win the mathematics of numbers and the cunning of plans.
For now, it seems that what we see on the battlefield in Ukraine is that the will to win of Ukrainian forces, aided by their reservists and volunteers, may be considerably greater than that of the Russian recruits who oppose them.
Moreover, in this era of fake news, propaganda and faceless lies, one wonders what exactly they told the Russian military about the operation they launched.
We know that the Russian forces conducted large-scale combat exercises on their part of the Ukrainian borders for several weeks before the real invasion began.
But what was said to their soldiers before they began their attacks across the border?
Did they know who they would fight and why? Did they expect to advance as liberators or as peacekeepers? Did they expect the Ukrainian forces to welcome them as Slavic brothers or did they expect their advance to be repulsed?
Evidence from the first few days seems that young Russian servicemen, who are dying in large numbers, seem sadly unaware of the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Verified reports are available of Russian soldiers abandoning their tanks and fleeing for safety in nearby forests, others of tanks running out of fuel, and even a report of Ukrainians proposing to withdraw their tanks back to Russia.
Even if the latest report is apocryphal, it suggests a dialogue on the battlefield between Russian soldiers and Russian-speaking Ukrainian soldiers.
Confusion in the minds of young recruits must be completely confusing and completely demotivating. There is also a well-documented report of a Russian soldier exclaiming, “We don’t know who to shoot at – everyone looks like us!”
All this points to an invading army that is insecure, asks questions and lacks focus.
And in contrast, of course, the Ukrainian forces know exactly what they are fighting for – the freedom of their country and their chosen way of life, and they are fighting with resolute devotion.
Reports of popular demonstrations against the war in Russia’s cities must be equally worrying for Putin, who is being bunkers in the Kremlin.
“Not in my name” is an extremely powerful slogan that points the finger of guilt for war directly at Putin himself and away from the Russian people.
The fact that 3,000 people have been arrested for demonstrations against the war shows the strength of the opposition on the internal front.
More repression and more arrests are inevitable.
In addition, reports are now arriving in the United States of immigration lawyers who are overwhelmed with requests from Russian men and their families asking if the United States will provide them with political protection amid fears of military service.
Predictions of the outcome of this tragic episode in European history are in themselves hostages to wealth.
However, according to the evidence presented so far, the morale of the Ukrainian forces and their commitment to the justice of their cause place them as heroes of the hour.
Whether their heroism will eventually triumph or be brutally crushed, only time will tell. But the nuclear shadow remains. If you face a humiliating defeat, one shudders to think about what Putin can do.
- General Lord Danat is a former Chief of Staff and author of Boots On The Ground: Britain and its Army since 1945.