Especially since NATO and the West would wage war very differently, thinks Wijninga. And this is largely due to the absence of manned aerial weapons. “The fact that such a war could still exist surprised me,” he explains. “And this is one of the great dramas of this war.”
“I was surprised that such a war could still exist”
Also because many civilian deaths have fallen, and are still being done. For example, the Russia-Ukraine war is already in the top 10 bloodiest wars of the 21st century. “The only means of maneuver that both forces consistently use is the tank,” continues Wijninga. “And in the air, they don’t actually have anything, or they don’t use it. And so it remains only to shell each other with 155-millimeter shells, which cause enormous destruction. Thousands of civilian victims, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers”.
Not taken into consideration
But it is precisely this course of events that has hardly been considered by any expert, says war studies professor Frans Osinga of Leiden University. “It actually started in March of last year,” Osinga adds. Russia’s failure to achieve air superiority has become a major strategic factor. So you effectively end up in a war of attrition.’
He points out that Russia had over 1,500 aircraft at the start of the war, and still at least 400 on the Donbass side. “And yet they don’t make more than 250 flights a day,” he says. ‘This is less than NATO flew over Kosovo in 1999, and that was a peacekeeping operation. This is a big war, in an area the size of France. So it’s very strange that Russia doesn’t do this, and it also indicates that the Russians are really not in a position to mount a coordinated campaign, where the military and the air force cooperate on a large scale.’
Winter Offensive
According to Osinga, however, this had been known for some time, but admits that he expected a change after the then Russian winter offensive. “Since January onwards, the Russians have again mobilized 150,000 soldiers, so maybe by that time they had started fighting seriously for air superiority,” Osinga concludes. With this they could have supported their own winter offensive. But we didn’t see any of that.”
Indeed, Osinga even dares to speak of a Russian defeat in the winter offensive. “They failed. The Russians gained about 800 square kilometres, a strip of 20 by 40 kilometres. But this was at a cost of 60,000 to 100,000 casualties. Nobody really expected it.’