In Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece "War and Peace," the two most important battles in the book are Russia’s disastrous defeat at Austerlitz (1805) and the moral victory at Borodino (1812).
At Austerlitz, one of the main characters in book, Andrei Bolkonsky, fought for personal glory. At Borodino, Bolkonsky fought for the survival of the country and not his own vanity.
In the book, and in real life, there was a surge of patriotism after the French invaded Russia. The Russians fought for their country’s survival and proved that Napoleon was not unbeatable.
At the tactical level, the French won the battle and occupied Moscow. At the strategic level, the Russian army was able to slowly destroy most of Napoleon’s forces through attrition.
Will this conflict be seen by the Russian public as a battle for national survival like Borodino or as Putin’s disastrous vanity project?
To the Ukrainians, it would certainly be their Borodino.
In December, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) asked Ukrainians if they would resist. Not surprisingly the results varied by region.
The percentage of Ukrainians who said that they would join an armed resistance against a Russian invasion was higher in Western (39.7%) and Central (33.7%) Ukraine than Southern (29.7%) and Eastern Ukraine (25.6%). The West has threatened crippling economic sanctions, but that’s the least of Putin’s problems.
There are many families in Russia and Ukraine that have relatives with both Russians and Ukrainians in them. When the Russians took Crimea, it was reported that relationships between friends and family members were strained.
The United States experienced a similar phenomenon with the election of Donald Trump.
Shortly after Trump was elected president, 16 percent of Americans said they stopped speaking to a friend, or family member, due to political differences.
It's childish to end relationships with family and friends over politics.
Plus, if two people really love each other, disagreements over public policy should be irrelevant.
The only exception is when people start to kill each other. A major war in Ukraine could kill lots of people and that has the potential to breakup lots of Russian and Ukrainian families.
When Russian President Vladmir Putin published an article describing the fraternal ties between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded with a joke that Russia and Ukraine were more "like Cain and Abel."
While President Biden correctly concluded that there is no military option, the Ukrainians see no diplomatic solution to the current stalemate.
The Ukrainian military cannot win back Crimea. The Russians will not give it back.
This writer recently spoke with retired Col. Douglas Macgregor. Macgregor is a decorated combat veteran, senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense during the Trump administration, and an author.
In December, Macgregor co-wrote an article on the military situation with George Beebe, who was the former director of Russia Analysis at the CIA. These two experts believe that Russia could occupy the eastern half of Ukraine very quickly:
"The Russian maneuver units consist of approximately 100 battalion tactical groups (BTGs): reinforced armored and armored infantry battalions of roughly 750 to 1,000 soldiers including artillery, engineers, and support elements.
"The vast majority of this force is positioned in southern Russia, capable of striking west across the border with Ukraine along multiple axes with operational objectives south of Kiev along the Dnieper River. . . . Under these circumstances, it is not unreasonable to assume that Russian ground forces would reach their operational objectives along the Dnieper River in as little as seventy-two to ninety-six hours."
As long as the Russians believe that Ukraine will join NATO, Putin can justify this war as a necessary fight like Borodino. The greatest threat to Putin is not NATO expansion, but the mere existence of countries that are both free and prosperous.
Dr. Stephen Kotkin, a professor of Russian history at Princeton, said recently that the real long-term threat to Putin is the appeal of democracy:
"We think democracy promotion is how we lead. Well, at least some of us think that.
"In fact, it's just the very existence of our system that threatens both the Russian regime and the Chinese regime today.
"We are an example of how freedom operates in practice, imperfectly with all sorts of the chaos and cacophony that we know is America, as well as other democracies. And that's ipso facto a threat to them.
"Hong Kong was a threat. Taiwan is a threat. The United States by its very existence is a threat to them because it's a different kind of system that could interest their people."
In the interest of full disclosure, this writer has family and friends in both countries, and hopes the current Russia-Ukraine conflict will be resolved peacefully.
Robert Zapesochny is a researcher and writer whose work focuses on foreign affairs, national security and presidential history. He has been published in numerous outlets, including The American Spectator, the Washington Times, and The American Conservative. When he's not writing, Robert works for a medical research company in New York. Read Robert Zapesochny's Reports — More Here.
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