Russian Power: More Image than Reality

 

If we have learned one thing from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is that we grossly underestimated Ukraine and grossly overestimated Russia.  In fact, what we have seen is that the Russian army is crap, its navy (at least the Black Sea Fleet) isn’t much better, and the air force is afraid of direct confrontation (remember how Turkey shot down that Russian fighter jet in 2015—and nothing happened?).  Right now, it is taking 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops to try to expel 15,000 Ukranians from Kursk.  Let that sink in.

 

Yes, Russia is making slow progress here and there, but at a cost that has led to more casualties in three years of war than the US sustained in all wars since 1945.  For Russia, their only effective conventional weapons are mass assaults (over a thousand casualties a day for a few meters of land), missile and drone attacks on civilian targets, and old-fashioned artillery (which they are running out of).  “Mighty” Russia has had to turn its entire economy on a war footing to even have a chance at defeating a country with less than a third of its population and a tenth of its economic output.

 

It all says that Russia is a sad, sad contender for world power.  In fact, Russia’s only truly effective weapons are nuclear sabre rattling and its highly effective security and intelligence services.  It is the latter that has been so successful in sowing the many PR messages among western media and politicians.  “Russia is great and eternal and will always be there,” “Ukraine is weak and corrupt and not really a country,” “Russia is the champion of traditional values,” “Ukraine is run by Nazis”, etc.  If you have ever heard any of these, or perhaps you even believe one or more, you have had the honour of encountering Russian propaganda.

 

The truth is that Russia has become a mafia state that is increasingly mortgaging its future to China. Ukraine has quickly become a very western style country with a strong sense of nationhood, working hard to get on top of the old corruption (by contrast, Russia is rotten to the core).  Putin’s weaponization of Orthodox Christian ideas is a disingenuous ploy to have an exportable ideology.  Only about a third of Russians are religious; most are atheists or agnostics.  If the words of Jesus are correct, that one knows a tree by its fruit, then the only Nazis are Russian nationalists.

 

It is also that global security service (probably the most extensive in the world) that has been able to place sympathisers into the highest offices in its main rival, the United States.  If they are not active agents, then they are certainly converts to the cult of Putin.  That is the scariest part of this whole affair.

 

So, it is time to shed the illusions and delusions and see clearly.  If Russia were a great and powerful as it has convinced so many people that it is, then it would indeed have been able to overrun Ukraine, if not in days, then certainly in a matter weeks.  If Russia is as great as it says, it would not have had to turn to the likes of Iran and North Korea for help.  Western support for Ukraine has been halting, stingy, slow, poorly targeted, everything that could easily have led to Ukraine’s defeat.  But the determination, courage, and resourcefulness of the Ukrainian people has given “mighty” Russia a run for its money.  Just imagine if Ukraine got what it needed.

 

And if Russia were just another country you can do business with, they wouldn’t need such a sophisticated spy and disinformation machine to stay afloat.  Just imagine if we shut down the lies and saw Russia for the mafia state that it is.  Then we might make policies appropriate to the circumstances.