Feb 13

Feb 13 Can Russia Win This War? By James Bruno

The 1939-1940 Soviet-Finnish War demonstrated that a floundering Russian military can turn the tide and attain victory.

The Russo-Ukraine War is about to enter its second year, with victory eluding both sides. A clear victory, in fact, may be unlikely judging from historical precedent, notably that of the 1939-1940 Soviet-Finnish War. While the similarities are striking, it’s the differences that will determine which side comes out ahead in the end, and by what margin.

Russia is now launching another multifront attack against Ukrainian positions, with the Putin-mandated aim of seizing the entire Donbas region, likely to be followed by a call for peace negotiations. The motivation for this hastily assembled offensive is to achieve major advances on the ground before massive supplies of modern Western weapons systems arrive in Ukraine in the coming months. Unable to achieve their objectives through competent strategy, leadership, logistics and trained manpower, however, the Russians appear to be reverting to a tried and true, though primitive, approach: mass assaults — i.e., hurling wave after wave of troops at their enemy, World War I-style, in a war of attrition that presumably advantages a nation of 145 million over one of 44 million. Call it pursuit of victory via cannon fodder. Or graveyard.

Here’s one recent eyewitness account by a Russian combatant of poorly trained reservists being mown down by Ukrainian forces in the southern Luhansk region:

“They have no armor, no communication, no normal artillery support, and they die. They are ordered to go forward. And they die. Without significant results in their area… the only result of these absolutely monstrous losses, which has lowered the combat value of our infantry below the threshold, is that the Ukrainians can’t… move troops for counterattacks… nobody learns anything, nobody wants to learn anything, I am so f*cking sick of it.”

There are echoes of the Soviet-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940 in today’s Russo-Ukraine conflict: Giant Russia aggresses a smaller neighbor. Plagued by incompetent leadership, low supplies, poor coordination, inferior logistics and low morale, the Russians fail in their initial objectives. Conversely, the plucky defenders out-maneuver and outsmart the invader, inflicting massive casualties and material losses.

The similarities are indeed striking. But the differences are as well. Ukraine is not doomed in the end, as was Finland, which was forced to cede 20 percent of its territory to Russia. But nor is victory guaranteed for Kyiv. Military experts are largely saying it’s a toss-up. According to the think tank, Institute for the Study of War (ISW), “Russian forces are gradually beginning an offensive, but its success is not inherent or predetermined.” “Victory” will be defined by which side has attained most of its objectives when both sides inevitably reach the point of utter exhaustion. I draw on and update a previous analysis I wrote last year in comparing the two conflicts.

Just after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Joseph Stalin demanded that Finland agree to territorial exchanges that would cede 10 percent of its territory, including the entire Karelian peninsula. When Helsinki refused, Stalin invaded. Just as Putin thought he could cake-walk into Kyiv and install his stooges in power, Stalin was sure he would march easily to Helsinki and set up a puppet government.

But a Red Army officer corps decimated by purges and plagued by poor training and logistics, low troop morale and an exceptionally harsh winter turned the Russian offensive into a bloody rout. Finland’s small army with only 32 tanks and barely 100 aircraft soundly turned back an invasion force of 450,000 with thousands of tanks and planes, more than four times its size.

Though greatly outnumbered in terms of men and materiel, the Finns, employing speed, mobility and economy of force, successfully deterred the Soviets. The latter regrouped, made improvements and launched a second multifront attack. Through sheer preponderance of force and manpower, the Russians finally wore out the Finns, who had exhausted their supplies of weapons and munitions. Moscow suffered nearly 168,000 KIA and MIA vs Finland’s almost 26,000.

The key difference, however, is that Finland did not receive the kind of massive assistance that Ukraine is receiving. Committed aid from the French and British Allies never reached the Finns. And America was still ensconced in its delusional isolationism. Technically neutral Sweden did provide a large amount of military assistance, including artillery, ammunition, anti-tank guns and some aircraft from its depleted stocks; nearly 10,000 Swedes, furthermore, became volunteer fighters. But, in the end, it was not enough to save Finland from the overwhelming Soviet onslaught. The unified European and NATO stance to provide massive aid to Ukraine, by contrast — some $120 billion worth so far — tilts the scales in Ukraine’s favor that Finland lacked.

While the Russians displayed staggering incompetence in the early stages of both conflicts, a closer look actually reveals a more mixed picture.

Franz Stefan-Gady, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), posits that “Perhaps the most important parallel between the two wars pertaining to this analysis is that both the Red Army in Finland and Russian forces in Ukraine have shown an ability to strategically, organizationally, and tactically adapt, underpinned by a determination to fight on.”

In other words, the Russian military over time actually proved itself to be not quite the irredeemably lumbering Frankenstein force as shown in its initial debacles. Organizationally, Stalin appointed two highly competent generals, Timoshenko and Zhukov, to take command. Strategically, these military leaders abandoned trying to make deep thrusts for quick results in favor of stepping up the operations tempo in the form of constant attacks with the goal of attritting Finnish ground forces to the point of exhaustion. They additionally increased training for Red Army troops, improved supplies and ensured morale-building leave away from the front. Tactically, the commanders adopted a plan of attack that entailed “a massive but well-coordinated artillery barrage that would precede a combined arms attack of armor, supported by infantry, with close air support,” according to Stefan-Gady. This improved combined arms approach enabled the Russians to wear down enemy troops and breach the Finns’ defensive Mannerheim Line.

Stefan-Gady warns us not to count the Russians out quite yet:

“Looking for potential lessons from the Winter War for Ukraine today, a major takeaway is that a relatively untrained, tactically badly led, and ill-equipped conscript force can indeed strategically, organizationally, and tactically adapt under the right leadership. Such a force can achieve a level of proficiency at all three levels sufficient enough to ultimately militarily prevail against a more highly motivated, tactically superior if outnumbered and poorly equipped adversary.”

Two key factors thus far mitigate against the Russians’ ability to get their act together as they ultimately did against the Finns: the revolving-door appointments and dismissals of a top commander shows Putin has yet to find his Timoshenko-Zhukov dream team; and, again, the ongoing and oncoming surge of superior Western arms may turn the tide decisively in Kyiv’s favor.

And then there is the intangible element cited by Napoleon: “The moral is to the physical as three is to one.” In other words, troops’ fighting spirit is key to the outcome of a battle. With motivated soldiers a commander can defeat a force three times the size of his own. Conversely, if your troops don’t believe in the mission and suffer from low morale, your chance of success on the battlefield is greatly reduced, if not doomed. The Ukrainians clearly beat the Russians in the fighting spirit category. The previous battlefield quote by a demoralized Russian soldier bears this out.

I believe 2023 will be the make-or-break year for this struggle. Don’t rule out the Russians finally landing on competent military leadership combined with reformed strategy and tactics, in which case — as with the Finns — Ukrainian fighting spirit and improved arms won’t be enough to win this war. But if current trends hold, high Ukrainian morale and superior command and control buttressed by Western arms should guarantee a favorable peace if not a sound trouncing of Ukraine’s nemesis.

James Bruno (@JamesLBruno) served as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department for 23 years and is currently a member of the Diplomatic Readiness Reserve. An author and journalist, Bruno has been featured on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, Fox News, Sirius XM Radio, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, and other national and international media.