Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
With a Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict becoming increasingly more likely, due to the escalation of tensions and Ukrainian provocations, some analysts are already reflecting on the possible outcomes of such a conflict. In this scenario, what chances do the Ukrainian armed forces have?
The Ukrainian military is notoriously outdated, corrupt, low-tech, focused on trench warfare, low-skilled, and poorly paid. In addition, it lacks discipline and it is not very experienced. One could argue it has "hardened" itself since 2014, as it has been fighting rebel forces in Donbas but by Kiev's own estimates, the vast majority of the rebels are locals, contrary to Western discourses about "Russian occupants", and possess mainly light weapons and Soviet-age armor. The Russian armed forces are something very different. Moreover, Ukrainian bombers and jet fighters are quite dated and could play only a supporting role in a war against Russia. Kiev has Soviet-era surface-to-air missile batteries and most of its systems are dependent on Russia for upgrades. Of course, it could modernize its air force, but it would take at least a decade and would cost some billions of dollars.
It is true the Ukrainian army now has some Main Battle Tank and Light Anti-tank Weapons (MBT LAWs, also known as NLAWs). Around 2,000 units of these "fire-and-forget" anti-tank missile systems have been provided to Kiev by the UK, hundreds of those were delivered last month, apparently in a hurry.
According to Sebastien Roblin, an international security expert, who has served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China and holds a Georgetown University Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution, these missiles might only be useful in "desperate circumstances''. They were chosen mainly due to the fact that they are easy to use, thus allowing the Ukrainian forces to be quickly trained in their use by British paratroopers. The MBT LAWs do not possess as much long-distance accuracy as the US anti-tank missile TOW (tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided), for instance.
They could of course destroy some Russian tanks in an urban warfare context, but, as Roblin argues, in his Forbes piece, Moscow's military doctrine today (known as "non-contact warfare"), focuses mainly on destroying the enemy forces from a great distance, employing all kinds of artillery aided by drone surveillance technology. Moscow has learned much from Chechnya urban battles of the 1990s, after all. This means Russian tanks and infantry would only come after massive artillery fire. In this case, Ukraine's mostly plain geography does not help much. Russian ballistic and cruise missile platforms, simply put, have the power to devastate Ukrainian power plants, radars, commander centers and armored vehicles' columns, not to mention hit and destroy several major Ukrainian cities.
Kiev also possesses some Javelin missiles now, delivered by Washington - albeit in a very limited amount (about 540 missiles and 77 launchers). They too are no match for Moscow's airpower and could merely deter the Russian army for a while, as they are mostly ambush weapons.
Last month, the Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov addressed Washington humbly requesting Patriot PAC-3 missiles. It is quite unlikely the US would authorize supplying a non-NATO member with Patriots missiles in any case, as Ukraine defense expert Mikhail Zhirikov argues. The thing is the kind of longer-range missiles Kiev would need are tremendously costly and complex and, moreover, Ukraine would need years to properly train its forces in using such systems and to fully integrate them.
Since the 2014 so-called Maidan revolution, Ukraine's economy, one of Europe's poorest, has been in a very bad shape and recent Western alarmism has hurt it even more, according to Ukrainian President Zelensky himself. This too, would not help much in a hypothetical situation of war.
Samuel Charap and Scott Boston, two Rand Corporation analysts, argue that any military assistance or weapons Ukraine receives will be simply irrelevant considering Russian advantages in geography, capability and capacity. They go as far as to say that the best help Washington could provide Kiev would be finding a diplomatic solution.
In any case, according to Ukraine's own generals, Kiev could not repel Russian forces without major Western military help. Such help however might never come. The US-led NATO, as expected, has already made it abundantly clear it will not send any troops should a war ensue. Western help would be limited to sending mercenaries disguised as advisors to train sabotage units and terrorists.
Contrary to Western narratives, Moscow does not desire to occupy Eastern Ukraine and never intended to do so. What Moscow wants is very simple: it wants NATO to cease expanding towards Russian borders, as the Alliance has persistently done since the end of the Cold War, and the end of the so-called Iron Curtain.
One should also keep in mind that Eastern Ukraine is mostly pro-Russian and that Ukraine has a very high rate of bilingualism and mixed Russian-Ukrainian marriages. The two countries' history is intertwined. This greatly limits Ukrainian nationalism's potential for growth outside parts of Western Ukraine.
The most likely outcome of a war would be a quickly defeated Ukraine forced to compromise by granting some limited autonomy to the Donbas region instead of pushing its current genocidal and chauvinistic policies there. In such a scenario, the presence of a Russian peace-keeping mission in Donbas for some years would also be a possibility, amid a possible frozen conflict in the region (involving rogue ultra-nationalist Ukrainian factions), with occasional acts of sabotage and terrorism commited by far-right Ukrainian groups funded or aided by Western powers and their networks of proxies, and also possibly by Turkey's own networks (considering ultra-nationalist Turkish-Ukranian cooperation).
In this case, one could expect a potentially long counter-insurgency conflict in a context of irregular warfare. This would further fuel Europe's own migration crisis, with an increase in criminality, terrorism and all the usual negative economic and political outcomes, thus impacting the EU very badly.
To sum it up, in the event of a Russian-Ukrainian war, everyone loses, as is the case with any armed conflict, but some lose more: Ukraine as a whole would suffer the most, followed by Europe.
