By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Russian president began his speech by telling Russian troops they are defending their country in Ukraine, and that the West was "preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea," he says.

Victory Day has become "like a religion today", says Oleg Kobtzeff, professor of international politics at the American University of Paris.

"What's wiped out from memory is that among the 20 million killed [during World War II], it's pretty much Belarussian and Ukrainian civilians that paid a high price," he says.

Russia's defense ministry said its invasion of Ukraine would form a key part of this year's event, with eight MiG-29SMT fighters flying over Moscow's Red Square "in a flight formation resembling the letter Z in support of Russian troops."

Thus, following Putin's May 9 speech the war now is likely to be entering an attritional phase, where each side will try to wear the other down with no clear advantage by either. The war on which he staked his tough-man reputation, as well as his country’s economy, fails to meet any of its objectives.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted in a Sunday night address denouncing Russian shelling that the words "peace" and "never again" were typically associated with Victory in Europe Day on May 8 and Russia's May 9 Victory Day, "which are repeated all over the free world every year on the days of remembrance of the victims of World War II. "Russia has forgotten everything that was important to the victors of World War II," Zelensky added, according to a transcript posted to the presidential website.

Another irony is that more people died in Ukraine at 4.5 million civilian deaths compared to a total that is much lower in Russia were 1,781,000 civilians died.

Tuff talk came from another corner, already before Putin was delivering today's May 9 Victory Day speech the head of  Ukraine’s military intelligence predicted that the only way Russia’s war in Ukraine ends is with Russian President Vladimir Putin dead, Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s top military spy, said Monday. Leaving him away to retreat is one of the strategies, but it is almost unrealistic, Budanov said when asked if Putin could end this war alive.

Going forward Russia will no doubt defend the positions it already holds, in defense of breakaway territories in Moldova, Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. If the war in Ukraine continues, there will be an increasing danger that Georgia and Azerbaijan will again seek to recover their lost territory by force. The result would be a much wider and even more dangerous conflict.

Ensuring that Ukraine wins the war means recovering the territory, including seaports, lost since the outset of the invasion.

Ukraine has several advantages, it can move weaponry to the front lines faster than the Russians, even though what they need is coming from outside the country on the western flank. They have the benefit of internal supply lines and, with the help of Western backers, can gather good intel to avoid, prevent and retaliate against attacks.

Additionally, Russia thus far has suffered from a regimented top-down style of command that does not allow leadership on the ground to be flexible. The Ukrainians strike as the situation unfolds on the ground as opposed to what they expect it to be.

Yet it would be a tremendous challenge to push Russian forces completely out of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it has occupied since 2014, and the separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia has airpower and favorable positions in the east. It also has math on its side: 900,000 active personnel and two million reservists. In contrast, Ukraine’s entire standing army, consisting of active-duty troops and reservists, numbers less than 300,000 (not counting the civilians who have joined the war effort). Russian forces will expand even more if Putin declares a mass mobilization, although newcomers will need time to become combat-ready.

Winning might not be possible without Ukraine being able to strike its enemy’s encampments beyond Ukraine’s border. When the war ends, the timing of which is entirely in  Putin’s hands because time is on his side, another cost would be the breathtaking effort required to rebuild Ukraine’s cities, towns, villages, and infrastructure and relocate a quarter of its people back to their homes.

While Ukraine is receiving weaponry that gives them the ability to attack tanks and supply lines, like howitzers and drones with intelligence gathering radar systems, the survivability of equipment is important, too. “It’s not clear if they have enough parts and skills to maintain them as they wear down.

But six months from now, who knows where we will be, we’ve continued to be surprised by the incompetence of the Russian military and the defenses of the Ukrainians.

The calculation is that Putin will manage to cling to power, even as sanctions begin to bite in a few months and if he calls an unpopular mass military mobilization to plump up depleting forces. Putin has surrounded himself with loyalists who fear him and are as paranoid about threats to both him as a leader and to the regime more broadly. They buy into his conviction that a demonic West wants to break up the country, which makes a palace coup unlikely,  Putin is aware, if you look back at Soviet imperial history, that there’s a long history of leaders dying in office.

But after initially receiving poor intelligence, Putin is finally cognisant that his forces are overstretched. He now knows that all in all, there is only so much his military can achieve. But he cannot be seen to be looking desperate.

Looking at earlier behavioral patterns Putin will not admit defeat. The Kremlin will not compromise. 

Going forward, the current war of attrition might last as long as Putin is in place. As a sided note a neurologist claimed it is clear that there might be something that we don’t know about his mental or physical health.

In the end, Russia needs to be made to pay for that by the international banking system, and not in rubles.

 

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