These assumptions by Putin turned out to be wrong
- Kiev falls in four days, Russian troops are greeted as liberators
- The EU and NATO can be pitted against each other
- The EU can be blackmailed with energy
- The Russian army is advanced and effective
Wishful thinking, one of Putin’s many miscalculations and mistakes. Perhaps Putin’s greatest handicap: he is misinformed. Surrounded by yes-men, Putin has a reality of his own that colors his decisions and always gets the opposite of what he wants.
Tunnel vision
“The fact that Russian-speaking Ukrainians see the invasion as ‘liberation’ is a symptom of Russia’s tunnel vision towards Ukraine,” says defense specialist Peter Wijninga of the Center for Strategic Studies in The Hague. ‘Now Western Ukrainian soldiers are fighting in the east and Russian-speaking Eastern Ukrainians are fleeing to the west. More and more of them don’t want to speak Russian anymore.’
“The fact that Russian-speaking Ukrainians see the invasion as ‘liberation’ is a symptom of Russia’s tunnel vision towards Ukraine.”
Boomerang
According to Wijninga, Putin’s invasion achieved the opposite of what he intended. Putin denies Ukraine the right to exist, but thanks to him Ukrainian nationalism is stronger than ever. “Thanks to the leadership of Putin and Zelensky, Ukraine has become more of a nation-state than it was before. National unity has been enormously strengthened.”
Underestimation of Ukrainians
Also underestimated: the determination of the Ukrainians. “Ukrainians are like Russians in one way: they have tremendous resilience. The resilience of Ukrainians towards Russians also stems from four centuries of resistance against Russian oppression of the Ukrainian language and culture. Putin grossly underestimated him.’
Self-overestimation
Another: Putin thought his army was in the vanguard. According to Wijninga, he invested years in modernizing it, but he was blind to the “kleptomaniac corruption of politicians, army chiefs and arms manufacturers”. However, he was constantly told that everything was going well. “Then you will believe in the supremacy of the Russian army. Linked to the myth of the patriotic struggle against the Nazis in World War II, the Russian army assumes invincible proportions in his dreams.
“In one respect the Ukrainians are like the Russians; they have enormous resilience
Corruption destroys the effectiveness of the military; for example, military personnel have outdated Soviet-era equipment. ‘The vast corruption in and around the Russian military makes it very inefficient and ineffective. This manifests itself in all sorts of fundamental problems, such as communication, education, training and equipment.’
From top to bottom
It also doesn’t help the military’s rigid top-down structure that doesn’t work in what experts sayfog of war‘, chaos on the battlefield. ‘In a highly autocratic system like Putin’s, orders must be followed to the letter, with changing circumstances first having to be consulted with higher levels before continuing. This is completely different in the Ukrainian military and powers are vested in a much lower level in the organization. You can determine the best way to do it within the scope of the assignment. It’s about the “what”, not the “how”.
Bad coordination
A serious mistake was the poor coordination between units of the Russian army and the air force (noticeable by its absence). ‘There was almost no coordination between the different army groups, each unit fought its own war. As Ukrainian resistance was thought to collapse within three days, no air superiority campaign was waged. Ukraine’s air defenses have remained largely intact and therefore pose a threat to Russian aircraft.
Mobilization
The illusion that Kiev would soon fall (and the lack of a plan B) led Russia to deploy insufficient manpower. Putin hesitated for a long time before mobilizing (after all there was no war, but a ‘special military operation’), Ukraine immediately did so en masse.
“What was a three-day ‘special military operation’ for Russia was immediately a war to the death of the Ukrainian state for Ukraine.”
A matter of perspective, says Wijninga. What was a three-day “special military operation” for Russia was immediately a war to the death of the Ukrainian state for Ukraine. Putin thought about washing the pig with ready troops, Zelensky immediately understood that a national mobilization was needed. what ifgreat communicator‘he managed to convince civilians and soldiers of this too.’
‘How do you mobilize without declaring ‘war’? This was and is Putin’s challenge. We have seen the result. The timid attempt to mobilize three hundred thousand men was not enough to win the war. Even the thug-filled armies of Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner Prison carry little weight. The mobilization continues in secret.” Wijninga wonders if Putin is going “to the next failure”.
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