The Math's A Problem For Russia, Strategic Expert Says
Russia is advertising for foreign fighters to join Putin's war in Ukraine, a journalist reports
When it comes to Russian leader Vladimir Putin's lawless and brutal invasion of Ukraine, it all comes down to math.
And that math is not necessarily great news for the Russians, according to an academic strategic expert.
The Russian military has been met by a much stiffer, and more capable, resistance to its incursion into the sovereign and democratic Ukraine than many might have expected, now more than two weeks since Putin first ordered the all-out invasion.
Ukraine has suffered terribly since the war began, with the Russian military bombing civilian targets, seemingly indiscriminately — including a maternity hospital.
Still, Ukraine and its government under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have not fallen.
And every time the Russians experience heavy losses in combat, it's potentially that much closer to forcing an end to the bloody war.
Russia now has 100 percent of the forces it assembled prior to invading committed to the fight. It has under 90 percent of those forces available to them, after taking losses, a senior U.S. defense official says, according to a report by Washington Post correspondent Dan Lamothe.
From there, the math could steadily tilt things in Ukraine's favor, according to Phillips P. O’Brien, an author and professor of strategic studies at the University St Andrews, who used Lamothe's report as a jumping-off point.
“The basic mathematics of Russia’s strategic dilemma. 100 %committed , Already below 90% of force left, once they get below 75% their overall effectiveness should plummet. Unless a new army appears,” O'Brien tweeted.
And journalist Jack Detsch provided further evidence of the limitations Russia's increasingly weakened force are facing.
“Russia is ‘advertising for foreign fighters' to join Putin's war in Ukraine: senior U.S. defense official. There are NO signs that Russia has is moving reserve forces into the fight beyond the 190,000 troops that were already arrayed on Ukraine's border,” he tweeted.
This is simple — and quantitative — evidence that Ukraine's continued struggle to hold out is not merely symbolic, or at all in vain.
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