The military campaign in Ukraine is proceeding as planned in its third week, according to official Russian sources. Many observers had predicted the war would be over quickly. The government statement appears pitched to deny that impression and assert that military planners in Moscow were aware of the challenges from the outset. In fact, the actual nature of the Russian plan remains a mystery. Before the war, Russia had prepared a large theatre of operations, amassing forces and staging exercises in Russia, Belarus, Donbas and Crimea. It even conducted strategic deterrent manoeuvres in Syria. As we now know, all this activity was a warm-up for the campaign as the Russian claim that there was no intention of invading Ukraine turned out to be a form of political camouflage.

The purpose of this campaign appears to be to turn the Ukrainian clock back to before 2014 and the overthrow of the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in February that year. On a higher level, the aim is to turn the global geopolitical clock back to before the end of the Cold War in 1991 and enter into competition with NATO’s “open door” policy towards Eastern European nations which now form the Western alliance’s eastern flank. Moscow is saying that it can regain former Soviet republics that lie within its vital sphere, especially Ukraine which is a strategic cornerstone in this concept. Any chance of mutual trust in this rivalry is non-existent. While Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to neutralise Ukraine militarily, NATO is determined to reinforce its front lines in the east. So even if Russia gains control over Ukraine, this will not end the confrontation. On the contrary, the two sides will be standing face to face while arms races, which the Cold War had quelled somewhat, will resume, especially in the nuclear sphere.

The outbreak of hostilities was a wakeup call to European powers which had never foreseen that normalisation with Russia after the Cold War would have led to a deterioration in the European security structure and left defence almost entirely up to NATO. This meant relying on the US to draw up defence policies which, in turn, proved to fluctuate with every new administration in Washington and in accordance with the US’s national security priorities and world outlook which lumped China and Russia in the same basket as the biggest threat to the US outside its borders. In all events, the exposure of European security vulnerability with NATO’s hands tied by its article five, in accordance with which the alliance can only come to the defence of its own members, while the sight of the Russian military bulldozer in the middle of Ukraine has galvanised many European countries into re-evaluating their defence policies. A prime example is Germany, which has decided to up its defence spending and totally overhaul its armed forces.

On the ground in Ukraine, there is no comparison between the relative strengths of Russian and Ukrainian military capacities. Russia has the second largest conventional army in the world and it is one of the foremost nuclear powers. Ukraine, according to international defence reports, ranks in the third decile of military forces. It has a fourth of the personnel of Russian forces (255,000 in service as opposed to a million in the Russian service). Indeed, the number of Russian reserve personnel is as large as the entire Ukrainian army. Russia possesses more than 13,000 tanks and 27,000 armoured vehicles compared to Ukraine’s 2,430 tanks and 11,000 armoured vehicles. The Russian fleet strength is 603 plus one aircraft carrier compared the Ukraine’s fleet strength of 316. In like manner, there is no comparison in artillery strength: Russia has 6,540 Self-Propelled Artillery, Ukraine 785; Russia has 4,465 field artillery, Ukraine 2,040; Russia has 3,860 rocket projectors, Ukraine 550.

Two other critical factors come into play. First, Russia is more prepared to take a military initiative to attain its goals than the West, which is hampered by NATO rules such as the above-mentioned Article 5 and by the US which, just a couple of months before this war, was withdrawing its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. The training that Ukrainian forces have received during the past seven years was not tactically focussed on repelling a Russian offensive of a conventional or modern combined nature. That is why Western powers rushed in reinforcements such as antitank artillery and Stinger missiles (of which Germany announced it would send 1,000 and 500 respectively) and other types of antitank weaponry (of which the US sent in 10,700).

Russia, on the other hand, has disabled the Ukrainian aerial defence system, much of which was from the Soviet era and may not have been upgraded much. Russia also has a large naval intervention force which had been deployed in Crimea since 2014 and ready to act as tensions mounted. It was therefore relatively easy for it to dominate the air and seize control of the ports of Mariupol and Odessa. In general, despite such obstacles as blown-up bridges and bombardment of Russian tank columns, the massive Russian advance appears to have overcome Ukrainian resistance in many areas and gained control over strategic locations. For example, its capture of Antonov International Airport, a few kilometres outside of Kyiv, enabled Russia to double its build-up before laying siege to the capital. By the third week of fighting, Russia had taken control of much of the Donbas and the entire southern coastal region. Its forces have destroyed 3,296 military facilities so far, penetrating deep into the north, laying siege to the capital, Kyiv. In the process, Russia has displayed its new air force capacities, including the hypersonic “MiG-31BM”, the 3M22 Tsirkon anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile “Tsirkon” and other advanced missilery. Thus, the military balance and the nature of the engagement, so far, are such that the Russian military operation may well succeed, albeit at a considerable cost. However, if so, how would Russia henceforth manage Ukraine politically? It is believed that this is why Russia has opened six “humanitarian corridors” to allow civilians out of the country, after which it will deal with those who remain as military targets.

The second factor relates to the future of NATO defence policies on Ukraine’s borders. Without a doubt, the massive reinforcements NATO sent to Europe’s eastern borders are to the alliance’s advantage in any engagement beyond Ukraine. For example, Denmark has deployed a frigate in the Baltic Sea and will send four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania to support the long-term NATO air policing mission in the region. Spain has sent ships to join the NATO naval forces and is considering sending fighter planes to Bulgaria. The Netherlands will send two F-35 fighters to Bulgaria in April to support NATO air policing in that region, and it is putting naval and ground force units on standby for the NATO Response Force. France has offered to send troops to Romania under the command of NATO and the US is also considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the alliance territory.

Already, four multinational battle groups have been deployed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and are led by Britain, Canada, Germany and the United States respectively. Another multinational brigade has been deployed to the southeast in Romania. These forces, drawn from 20 NATO members, work with the national armies of those countries. Albania, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain have contributed to the Canadian-led fighting group in Latvia. Belgium, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway have contributed to the German-led battle group in Lithuania. Denmark, France and Iceland contribute to the UK-led battle group in Estonia, and Croatia, Romania and the UK are part of the US-led battle group in Poland. The four battle groups in the Baltic states are under the command of NATO’s Multinational Corps Northeast which is headquartered in Szczecin, Poland.

An air reconnaissance force, operating out of Ramstein Air Base in Germany, has also been deployed in the northern area of ​​the eastern flank. Britain has sent a 1,000-strong logistical and humanitarian relief support force to support Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Poland. Germany and France are jointly leading the Very High Joint Readiness Task Force (VJTF), known as the “NATO spearhead”, which can be operational on very short notice. It includes 5000 soldiers from the army, air force, navy and special forces which need to be at the ready. This is in addition to the main deterrent force that can reach up to 40,000 troops. Four permanent multinational naval forces patrol allied and international waters, including the Baltic Sea. In this regard, 120 ships have been added to the main NATO force which has 34 operations command centres, two naval deployment ports, five naval facilities, six bases, six armoured brigades, 30 training centres, 57 air bases, five multinational battalions and six missile shield and air defence battalions.

To the foregoing we should add the capacities of the American Sixth Fleet, which has enhanced its presence in the European theatre and works in coordination with NATO. The fleet currently includes 40 warships, 175 aircraft and 21,000 personnel. In particular, it boasts the command ship the USS Mount Whitney and the nuclear powered aircraft carrier the USS Harry Truman, 175 aircraft, four nuclear submarines including the USS Georgia which is equipped with 154 Tomahawk missiles. In February the fleet was bolstered with four more destroyers, The Sullivans (DDG-68), USS Gonzalez (DDG-66), USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) and USS Mitscher (DDG-57), that have joined the US Navy’s four Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMD) destroyers in Spain (USS  Ross  (DDG-71), USS  Roosevelt  (DDG-80), USS  Porter  (DDG-78) and USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51).

This is not to mention the host of logistical support ships (fuel tankers and rescue, maintenance and food supply ships) and other logistical and command facilities. At the start of the war, the US deployed an additional force of 2,000 troops (the 18th Airborne Corps) as an emergency backup force for NATO. The US currently has an estimated 90,000 military personnel in Europe.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 10 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.