Ten days into the war, despite gaining territory in the east, north and south of the country, Russian forces are a long way from victory. Why is that so? And is the war comparable to events in the 20th century? ETH security expert Mauro Mantovani classifies – and advises against using the term “Blitzkrieg”.
SRF News: Are Putin’s soldiers in Ukraine really not marching forward as quickly as planned?
Mauro Mantovani: Based on the months of deployment and the initially high pace of operations, we can assume that the Russians expected a quicker victory.
Did Putin underestimate the strength of the Ukrainian armed forces?
Obviously he has. Ukrainians have had many negative experiences with Russia since the 1930s. They feel belittled by Russian rhetoric about Ukraine as “Russia’s little brother” and their sovereignty threatened since the annexation of Crimea and the de facto separation of Donbass in 2014. Therefore, now that the survival of their state is in question, they are vigorously defending themselves.
Legend:
On March 3, the Russian Defense Ministry published a video showing Russian army vehicles cruising in the Kyiv region.
Reuters
Can the Russian invasion still succeed?
Militarily, Russia could still be successful in Ukraine – in terms of regime change in Kyiv, which I expect to continue. A guerrilla war then threatens, in which the Ukrainian population will continue to fight with veterans of their army and western support, and which could drag on for years. This is likely to drain the Russian armed forces in a way that the Afghan war did in the 1980s.
In the long term, the Ukraine war will massively weaken Russia. What will remain as a threat to Western Europe is Russia’s nuclear potential.
I also expect that the Russian army will also suffer from the economic consequences of Western sanctions. It should not be able to carry out any more space-consuming operations for years to come. In the long term, the Ukraine war will massively weaken Russia. What will remain as a threat to Western Europe is Russia’s nuclear potential.
So the Ukraine crisis could last longer. Then you can’t compare the Russian invasion with a blitzkrieg?
Each war party wants to keep the war as short as possible. The concept of “Blitzkrieg” is a wishful thinking of a quick, bloodless victory that rarely became a reality. The term is most likely to apply to the 1967 Six-Day War, the US campaigns in Iraq in 1991 and in Afghanistan in 2001. Even the “Blitzkrieg” of the German Wehrmacht against France in 1940 is described in research as propaganda.
So the conflict in Ukraine is likely to smolder for years to come before the Russians withdraw – and lose out at that.
Are wars in the 21st century progressing faster than they used to with modern weapons?
That depends on the balance of power and the conflict constellation. The digital revolution has enabled much faster networking of sensors, decision-making processes and weapons. However, this did not always lead to a shortening of the war. In the 20th century there were several conflicts that dragged on for years, despite the massive technological superiority of one side.
In Ukraine, too, the war could last for years.
I’m thinking of the Vietnam War or the one in Afghanistan after the Taliban were expelled from 2001 to 2021. Those were decades of irregular wars, i.e. wars in which states and non-state actors opposed each other. I expect the same in Ukraine.
Russia has not yet deployed its full military capabilities. What do we have to adjust to?
The use of rocket artillery, canister ammunition and thermobaric weapons, i.e. aerosol bombs, can be expected in the next few weeks. The next phase of the war, the guerrilla war, will be particularly costly for the Russians. I rate the risk of a nuclear escalation as very low. Using nuclear weapons in Ukraine makes no military sense. And I also don’t think that the Ukrainian side could be deterred by that.
The interview was conducted by Laura Sibold.