It was supposed to be a three-day affair, a tiny little incursion conducted by a superpower against a much smaller neighboring state. But despite all the planning, all the expectation for a quick ‘get-in, get-out,’ things worked out dramatically different and here we are today marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s ill-conceived and poorly executed attack on Ukraine.
On February 24th 2022, Russia began its land and air assault on Ukraine’s eastern border. While an opening salvo of armor and missile attacks did not take the world by surprise—the invasion was a poorly held secret since Russia had been building forces near the two countries common border for weeks—its clumsily handled execution surely has. Of course, Ukraine’s extraordinary resolve to protect its sovereignty has only magnified Vladimir Putin’s decision.
The war has been a modern-day lesson in carnage and destruction, human and brick and mortar. It is estimated that as many as 300,000 Russians, Ukrainians and others have been killed or wounded since the war’s beginning. There has also been a devastating toll on Ukraine’s infrastructure. Damage or destruction to everyday life has been almost indefinable. Russian ground and aerial attacks have destroyed housing, infrastructure, environment, education, energy, agriculture, utilities, transportation and more. Damage has been estimated as high as $350 billion as of December 2022.
There has also been an exodus of Ukrainians into neighboring countries, including Poland where an estimated eight million Ukrainians have fled. Others have made their path to Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and even Russia. Many are beginning to trickle back to Ukraine. Others will never return. It is the largest exodus since World War II.
The war, while clearly being waged on Ukrainian soil, has also spawned an international flavor. The West, including the United States and its NATO allies, has aligned solidly with Ukraine. To date, the United States has given more than $32 billion in military assets to Ukraine, from high tech drones to tanks. While it has so far been reticent in providing the ask, it is considering adding F-16 jets that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has requested.
For their part, European nations have chipped in with their own military contributions and Ukrainian fighters have been exhausting those munitions almost as soon as they’re received. A NATO commander said Ukraine is ‘firing these munitions faster than the U.S. and European partners can produce them.’ But Western resolve appears to be long term.
“We’re all in,” said Dutch member of Parliament, Sjerd Sjerdema. “Showing weakness to President Putin, show no response to his atrocities only invites him to go further and further.”
Russia’s military acumen has shocked military analysts on both sides of the Atlantic who had expected far more finesse than has so far been shown. Russia has waged a war in an alarmingly inept manner from its earliest days to today. But what it has not shown in finesse it has more than made up in blunder.
In the war’s earliest days, Russian forces aiming for Kyiv got bogged down in mud, run out of gas to supply tip-of-the-spear forces, lost commanding generals to rocket attacks and have been forced to conscript men thought too old to fight along with calling up others considered too young for military service. It has also drafted Wagner forces, a group that includes prison inmates and is characterized by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as a “transactional criminal organization,” a euphemistic way of describing mercenary forces.
As it licks its wounds and tries to camouflage its battlefield ineptitude, Russia is also dealing with sanctions placed upon it by both the U.S. and NATO allies. The sanctions, aimed at crippling its economy, have resulted in a plunge in the value of the ruble, travel bans, property seizures including everything from priceless yachts to real estate. The impact has been severe on everyday Russians and the country’s elite. Even Switzerland, a nation that boasts of centuries of neutrality, has frozen both Putin’s and Russian oligarchs’ assets.
Russia’s only national enablers have been countries considered rogue states like North Korea or others often more pragmatic about international conflicts. China is said to be considering supplying Russia with high tech military assets, India continues to buy large quantities of Russian oil. China, though, has been warned by the West that it needs to tread very carefully about any involvement in the conflict.
But the reality is that this war, like so many others in the recent past, has become a proxy battle between superpowers. In this case, China is watching and noting exactly what allies are supplying and, not only how it is being used, but how each battle is being executed. It is a modern-day lesson in the art of war.
But lately Russia has found a new corner of, if not sympathy than, at least, understanding in the American Congress. Over the last several weeks, a number of Republican voices, including Colorado House member, Lauren Boebert, have spoken up about U.S. policy. “This (U.S. aide) is not a priority for American citizens,” said the far-right Rifle Republican. Boebert joins others in her party, including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Kentucky’s Rand Paul in opposing arms to fight Russia. Russia has also found an ally in Fox News most popular talking head, Tucker Carlson. Carlson has openly lauded Russia’s Putin but lately has somewhat toned down his dalliance with the Russian leader.
This group, however, is joined by a growing number of Americans who feel similarly. In a recent poll conducted by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 48 percent of Americans remain in favor of continuing aid to Ukraine. However, 29 percent were opposed, and 22 percent had no opinion.
This war has exposed the truly grotesque side of this centuries-long solution to disagreement. Atrocities, many almost unimaginable, have become every day news items. Mass graves have become ubiquitous so great is the carnage. Depraved human to human behavior has become a real time nightmare.
