THE agony of Ukraine continues to be the only story in the news.
It now seems clear that although the Russians possess an overwhelming superiority of numbers of men and quantity of materiel, Putin has not succeeded in his initial plan. Military experts observing the situation believe that Putin's original plan was to swoop in quickly, reach Kyiv and install a puppet regime, while riding out the inevitable international condemnations and sanctions.
This is not a war that was supposed to have lasted a week, yet it now appears that this tragedy will continue for some time to come, at a terrible cost to ordinary people in Ukraine.
It seems that Putin came to believe his own propaganda, and thought that Ukrainians – particularly those in majority Russian speaking areas – might not welcome the Russian troops with open arms, but at the very least would not mount much in the way of resistance.
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The fierce and desperate defence of Ukraine's eastern cities has proven how wrong he was. Had things gone to plan, cities close to the border or the 2014 line of control, like Kharkiv and Mariupol, should have been taken by the Russians within a day or two of the offensive being launched.
The Kremlin also appears to have greatly overestimated the abilities of its armed forces and not to have appreciated the extent to which the Russian army has been weakened by the corruption which is rampant in Russia.
There have been widespread reports of logistical issues and military convoys running out of fuel. This should not be happening to a well-provisioned army where the vast amounts spent by the Kremlin on defence are actually going towards the supplies that they are supposed to be purchasing, and not diverted into the pockets of corrupt officers and officials who are merely taking their lead from the kleptocratic Putin and his equally corrupt inner circle.
However, given the vast size of the Russian forces, it is hard to believe that they will not eventually overwhelm the Ukrainian defences. The tragedy is that this will come at immense human cost, both to the Ukrainians – civilians and military – and also to the Russian conscripts who comprise around one third of the Russian forces and who in many cases don't seem to understand where they are or what they are doing there. They too are victims of Putin's aggression.
Although Russia may well be able to defeat the Ukrainians in the short term, they will then be left with the impossible task of occupying a vast country of millions of people who are determined to resist in any way they can.
Russia was able to defeat the Chechens who had declared independence from Moscow in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but only at the price of razing the Chechen capital of Grozny (Sölzha-G'ala in Chechen) to the ground during the Second Chechen war of 1999-2000.
Russia continued to face a major insurgency in Chechnya and the pro-Russian government installed by Putin was only able to maintain control thanks to the presence of a large number of Russian troops, most of whom remained in Chechnya until 2009.
Chechnya has a population of 1.4 million and an area of just 6700 square miles, about the combined size of the old Grampian and Tayside regions. However, Ukraine has an area of 233,000 square miles and a population in excess of 40 million. The military occupation of a hostile Ukrainian population by Russia is going to be far more costly in terms of manpower and resources than the Russian occupation of Chechnya, an occupation that took 10 years to defeat resistance.
It is too early to see how this war can end. The number of refugees mounts every day and now exceeds 800,000 – a number which is only going to grow. Our priority in the short term must be to offer humanitarian and material support to the Ukrainians, and to prevent this appalling war from escalating even further into everyone's worst nightmare.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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