The image has everything to strike people’s minds: that of an agricultural tractor towing a Russian assault tank apparently seized on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“After 12 days of stealing Putin’s tanks, Ukrainian farmers are now, unofficially, the fifth largest army in Europe,” the magazine quipped this week. Business Ukraine on his Twitter account. A touch of humor launched in the midst of tragedy, but which certainly illustrates a reality that the Kremlin had not considered when declaring war on the former Soviet republic.
Two weeks after the start of this war, cynically described as a “special military operation” by Moscow, the Russian army is indeed coming up against obvious resistance on the ground from the Ukrainians who are thus tarnishing the image of this all-powerful force. which it was said would make short work of little Ukraine.
And the scenario, fueled in part by a misreading of the environment by Russian generals and strategists, ultimately does not bode well for the aftermath of the largest land invasion in Europe since the Second World War.
“The Ukrainian resistance is much greater than that anticipated by the Russians”, drops at the other end of the videoconference retired Colonel Pierre St-Cyr, former Canadian Defense Attaché in Ukraine during the 2014 conflict. Moscow then invaded Crimea, in addition to providing military support to pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country. “They thought they were coming as the savior of a Ukrainian people oppressed by their leaders”, according to the propaganda orchestrated by the Kremlin. “But that’s not what happened. »
According to a conservative estimate by the Pentagon, Ukraine has killed between 2,000 and 4,000 Russian soldiers to date. The Ukrainians speak of 10,000 to 12,000 victims made by the resistance in the enemy ranks, without however being able to confirm any of these figures.
Moral issues
Faced with this unjustified invasion, the Ukrainian army and civilian militias also allegedly shot down Russian paratrooper transport planes and helicopter gunships, in addition to undermining the advance of Russian convoys towards the capital, Kiev, using US anti-tank missiles and armed drones provided by Turkey.
On Wednesday, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Ukraine’s air defense force had had “considerable success against Russia’s modern combat aircraft, likely preventing them from achieving any degree of control.” tunes. “. The Kremlin has been aiming for this objective since the start of the war to facilitate its hold on Ukrainian land space.
“The Russian army does not operate as efficiently as expected”, analyzes Mr. St-Cyr, while evoking the deficient level of professionalization of this military corps, more than two thirds of which are made up of conscripts, “trained quickly and overwhelmed by the ongoing conflict. “There is also a moral problem in the Kremlin troops” confronted with an enemy built from scratch by Moscow and who turns out to be above all a close cousin whose cultural and social history is intimately linked to that of Russia . “Several soldiers have deserted, others have sabotaged their vehicles so as not to go any further”, thus giving, for the moment, an advantage to Ukraine in this characterized aggression.
A sign of this discouragement in the Russian ranks: “We increasingly see high-level officers among the victims: generals, unit commanders, says the retired colonel. And this indicates that leadership is sent to the front to motivate the soldier in the field. A field invaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin and who, despite the turn of events, risks doing everything to avoid losing face, including the worst.
A will to crush
In a hearing before the US Congress on Tuesday, CIA Director William Burns said he believed “Putin is angry and frustrated right now” about the unfolding situation on the ground in Ukraine. “It is likely that he will redouble his efforts and try to crush the Ukrainian army without worrying about civilian casualties. »
That’s a prescient statement made just hours before a pediatric hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol was attacked by an airstrike on Wednesday.
“He has the impression that this is a war he cannot afford to lose,” said Avril Haines, head of the American intelligence services, to the same elected officials.
“Putin is not ready to stop until he emerges from a negotiation to his advantage, in order to preserve the image of a strongman that he has been trying to project for decades with its people,” says Pierre St-Cyr, who was special adviser to Canada’s ambassador to the UN. This is a very important image, which has a lot of value in Russian culture. And it is always on her that he will rely to ensure his political survival. »
On Tuesday evening, the influential Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, reported that Russian forces were now concentrated “in the eastern, northwest and western outskirts of Kiev” with a view to an “assault on the capital” which could occur within “24 to 96 hours”. This is a perspective confirmed during the day by the Pentagon, which estimates that Moscow is in the process of reinforcing its positions to encircle and take Kiev, after having faced resistance which blocked its armed forces about twenty kilometers from the capital of 3 million inhabitants to the northwest and 150 km to the north, in Chernihiv.
“The Ukrainians are in a defensive position and will thus be more difficult to dislodge,” said Mr. St-Cyr. What is not reassuring, however, is that the Russians are beginning to call on Syrian mercenaries, whom they bring into this conflict to facilitate the capture of cities. Unlike Russian soldiers, these foreign soldiers have less cultural attachment to the environment, and therefore fewer obstacles to destroying places, a strategy aimed at cutting short urban guerrilla warfare. “In all the conflicts for 50 years, the big armies have not managed to get out of these hornet’s nests”, he continues.
“The only way not to be at risk in an urban conflict is to completely destroy the city,” said the retired colonel. Putin did it in Chechnya, he can do it in Kiev, even if it was a gesture of desperation to take control. And I hope he will have the intelligence not to go that far. »
On Wednesday, the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, wanted to be reassuring when she said during a press conference that Russia’s objectives “do not include the occupation of Ukraine, nor the destruction of his state, nor the overthrow of the current government” and reiterating that civilians were not targets.
A statement to be taken with a grain of salt, as the conflict has put more than 2 million Ukrainians on the road to exile and, in the days leading up to Russia’s declaration of war against Ukraine, on February 24, the Kremlin insisted relentlessly that it had no intention of sending its army to the former Soviet republic.
With Agence France-Presse