The protracted war in Ukraine shatters the myth of Russian military supremacy

January 11 marked a new historical milestone for the war in Ukraine: 1,418 days. That's how long the Soviet army fought against Germany from June 22, 1941, until Victory Day on May 9, 1945. 

To separate this victory from its complicity in the Nazi rampage across Europe in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Soviet — and later Russian — historiographers introduced the concept of the Great Patriotic War, focusing on Moscow's actions after Operation Barbarossa.

Since the early 2000s, Kremlin propagandists have equated Ukrainian democratic forces with nationalists and Nazis, while using practices – mass deportations , cultural erasure and systematic violence against civilians – which reflect the very crimes they claim to be fighting against.

The lesson to be learned from 1418 days of genocide against Ukrainians is that the myth of Russia’s strength and invincibility has already been shattered. Even with the support of China, Iran, North Korea, and enablers like Cuba and Venezuela, Russia – by far the largest military spender in Europe – cannot completely defeat Ukraine. 

Russia's total war spending is projected to be approximately $540 billion since the full-scale invasion, taking into account broader defense and security spending, compensation for soldiers' families, etc. Meanwhile, total Western support of all kinds is around $380 billion.

The contrast with 1941-45 is stark. The Soviet Army in World War II pushed Nazi forces back approximately 1,500-1,800 kilometers west, from the outskirts of Moscow to the streets of Berlin. 

Russia's deepest and most stable positions in Ukraine as of 2022, by contrast, extend only a few dozen kilometers from its border to the east and south, and Moscow has yet to fully occupy the Donbas region it has claimed and annexed since 2014. 

Western misconceptions about the extent of Russia’s gains in Ukraine are reinforced by a persistent USSR-centric lens that still shapes the way many observers conceive of World War II and the Red Army as a primarily Russian force. In reality, the Ukrainian SSR was a crucial labor and industrial base for the war effort, and Ukrainians formed one of the largest national contingents within the Red Army. 

This legacy is often obscured in contemporary narratives that implicitly equate the achievements of the USSR with those of Russia, erasing Ukrainian agency and distorting the historical standards used to judge today’s battlefield performance. Restating Ukraine’s role in the Soviet victory helps explain why modern Ukrainian forces, drawing on a deep military tradition of their own, have proven capable of resisting and, in many sectors, stopping an army that still claims Soviet glory as exclusively Russian.

What Russia has achieved is the implementation of brutal invasion tactics in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

Moreover, its campaign of terror has shifted almost entirely to the civilian population in Ukrainian-controlled territory: indiscriminate ballistic missile and drone attacks on cities, repeated attacks on energy, water, and residential infrastructure, and the deliberate targeting of non-combatants have become defining features of this war. Just last week, Russia used its hypersonic missile Oresik in an attack near western Ukraine, close to NATO borders. As you read this article, more than 6,000 homes in Kiev are without heat, electricity and water after Russia's latest attack.

Some in Moscow still cling to the illusory belief in a Ukrainian uprising against President Volodymyr Zelensky, or the hope that diplomacy with some Western leaders might destroy the country’s unity. But Ukrainians understand that they cannot be distracted. Allowing the invasion to sneak in through the back door will create millions of victims whose stories will never be told, invisible to the wider world, whose suffering will deepen enmity for generations.

To abandon Ukraine now would be to return it to Moscow’s gravitational pull, alongside Belarus. Such a collapse would not isolate Europe, but would invite future aggression by an army of millions of soldiers, reinforced by manpower from occupied Belarus and Ukraine, with the support of the Axis of Subversion. 

If one thinks that such a war with NATO would be fundamentally different simply because the alliance – which is disintegrating before our eyes – has advanced weapons and air superiority, one might ask: where are Russia’s expensive main battle tanks now? Isn’t it lost? 30% of its strategic aviation in Operation "Spider's Web"? All those expensive wonder weapons were destroyed by unmanned aerial systems, which have taken a giant technological leap since 2022.

The main reason Russia failed in Ukraine is not a lack of weapons or manpower, but arrogance, strategic miscalculations, and a gross underestimation of its adversary. NATO should not make this mistake itself.

It is far wiser to help Ukraine now – to shore up its defenses, strengthen its institutions, and drown Russia economically and diplomatically – than to pay, later, the infinitely higher price of European refugees streaming westward and lamenting defenders of lands that might never have been attacked if Russia had been defeated on the fields of Ukraine rather than those of Europe.

Despite all this, there should be no illusion that Russia is exhausted or incompetent. What has happened is that the Ukrainians have shown themselves capable and willing to fight for their land with extraordinary effectiveness. This is not just a matter of Western generosity, although allied support has been crucial; it is a function of Ukrainian determination, internal resource mobilization, innovation, and strategic partnerships that have helped mitigate Russia’s numerical and material advantages./TheGeoPost.