This invasion has been going on for a month and so far Ukraine has defied all odds. Outmatched in almost every way – in tanks, troops, planes – the forces ukrainianreinforced by civilian volunteers, have in many places held back the Russian army.
They have lost territory, especially around Crimea, which had already been occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014. But Moscow’s original goal of quickly seizing the capital kyiv and other major cities, forcing the government to resign, has clearly failed.
The course of the war could still go against Ukraine. His forces are running dangerously short of vital Western-supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles needed to contain the Russian advance.
Many of the most battle-hardened Ukrainian regular forces in the east of the country are at risk of being surrounded, isolated and annihilated.
And with a quarter of the population having fled their homes, those who remain risk seeing their cities turned into dystopian wastelands by relentless Russian artillery fire and bombs.
But despite these factors, Ukraine’s forces are outperforming Russia’s in this war on many levels. This week, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby praised them for defending parts of their territory “very cleverly, very cleverly, very creatively.”
So what exactly have been the secrets to its success?
1. High motivation
There is a huge difference between the morale of both armies. Ukrainians are fighting for the very survival of their country as a sovereign nation, horrified by President Putin’s speech, on the eve of the invasion, when he said that Ukraine was basically an artificial invention of Russia.
Ukrainians have given their collective support to the government and its president. As a result, citizens without any military experience are willingly taking up arms to defend their towns and cities, despite the overwhelming Russian military force they face.
“This is how a people fights for its very existence,” says Brigadier Tom Foulkes, who served 35 years as a British Army officer in Germany during the Cold War. “This is how they defend their homeland and their families. His bravery is both shocking and splendid.”
In practice, this has freed up Ukrainian soldiers to go to fight on the front lines, knowing that their cities are well defended.
In contrast, many Russian soldiers who were sent to fight in Ukraine are conscripts, fresh out of school, perplexed and confused to find themselves in a war zone when they thought they were just going on a military exercise.
Most had little to no preparation for the ferocity of the fighting they have faced. Desertions, food shortages and looting have been reported.
2. Command and control
Initial predictions of a devastating Russian cyber attack, which would disable Ukrainian communications, did not materialize. Instead, Ukraine has somehow managed to maintain effective coordination on various battlefronts, even where it has given ground.
The government has held on to kyiv and remained highly visible, with the deputy prime minister wearing a functional khaki T-shirt as she addressed the nation with a government insignia in the background.
The Russian military, by contrast, does not appear to have any kind of unified leadership, with little coordination between the different battlefronts.
That has most likely had a negative effect on Russian military morale. It has been suggested that the reported deaths of at least five Russian generals are due in part to their need to get closer to the front lines to mobilize troops and prevent them from getting bogged down.
At the noncommissioned officer level, in other words corporals and sergeants, Russian military doctrine allows almost no initiative, with those lower-ranking ranks always awaiting orders from their superiors.
Professor Michael Clarke, a military expert at King’s College London, says Russian non-commissioned officers are riddled with corruption and inefficiency and are highly frowned upon by their subordinates.
3. Good tactics
The Ukrainian forces are heavily outnumbered, yet they have made better use of the terrain and their weapons than the Russian invaders.
While the Russians have tended to concentrate their forces in heavy, slow-moving armored columns, with vehicles often stacked close together, the Ukrainians have successfully executed carefully timed blitzkriegs, sneaking up to fire an anti-tank missile and then scattering. before the Russians can respond.
Prior to the invasion, NATO trainers from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada spent extended periods in Ukraine, bringing forces up to speed with defensive fighting and instructing them on how to make the best use of technology-enabled missile systems. like the javelin or the NLAW – an anti-tank weapon designed in Sweden – or the most recent version of the Stinger anti-aircraft missile.
“The Ukrainians have been much smarter than the Russians,” says Professor Clarke, “because they have done something much closer to a combined arms operation that the Russians have not done.”
What it means is that they have made full use of all the military tools at their disposal, such as drones, artillery, infantry, tanks, and electronic warfare.
When combined, all of these different aspects of combat can create an effect greater than the sum of its parts.
Another military strategist, Justin Crump, who heads the intelligence adviser Sibylline, points out that the Ukrainians have been particularly adept at finding the vulnerable spots in the Russian ranks and hitting them hard.
“Ukraine has implemented highly effective tactics,” he says, including attacking Russian weak points like supply convoys, using NATO-supplied weapons systems to great effect against pinpoint targets and improvising when required.
Although it is difficult to get an accurate picture of casualties, even the most conservative Pentagon estimates put Russian deaths at more than 7,000. That’s almost half the casualties the Soviets sustained in 10 years of war in Afghanistan, and we’re barely a month into the war.
Brigadier Tom Foulkes also has an explanation for why so many Russian generals are falling on the front lines: “This sounds to me like a very successful and deliberate sniper campaign that could undermine Russian command structures.”
4. The information war
And then there is the information war. Ukraine is winning it hands down in most of the world – though not in Russia, where the Kremlin still controls access to almost all media.
“Ukraine has mobilized the information sphere in such a way that it has given it a tremendous internal and external advantage,” says Justin Crump.
“That has happened from top to bottom, aided by President Zelensky’s formidable media prowess.”
It’s a view shared by Dr. Ruth Deyermond, professor of post-Soviet security at King’s College London.
“Clearly the Ukrainian government has been very successful in controlling the narrative of the war, certainly for the world at large,” he says. “What the conflict has achieved for Ukraine’s international reputation is absolutely extraordinary.”
But right now, a month into this desperate life-and-death struggle on Europe’s eastern borders, that might not be enough to save Ukraine.
The numerical power of the Russian army, despite all its flaws, does not favor Ukraine. If the West’s defensive weapons somehow run out, the beleaguered nation will only be able to hold out for a limited time.