Six myths about Putin’s invasion
by Thomas C. Theiner
Last fall the Five Eyes intelligence alliance intercepted Putin’s order to his generals to assemble the forces for an invasion of Ukraine. In November the Americans briefed their NATO allies about Putin’s plans. (You can find the details of Putin’s plans here). Since then Russian military preparations have accelerated and currently ground forces are moving to their staging areas along the Ukrainian border. By tomorrow (9 February 2022) the last three of the six Russian amphibious landing ships of the Northern and Baltic fleets will pass the Bosporus and enter the Black Sea. In a few days Putin’s military will be ready and the first peer-to-peer war in Europe since 1945 will commence at a moment of his choosing.
As always when history unfolds a multitude of commentators, who have little to no clue about the people, geography, history, culture, and matter feel the urge to confidently express their beliefs. Beliefs, which are often based on unrelated but similar historic events, of which these commentators know equally as little as of the current events. Because of social media such beliefs then spread and quickly become “truths” for many people… truly the “Death of Expertise” as Professor Tom Nichols has called it.
Over the last weeks I saw many such “truths” about Ukraine, Russia, Putin’s demands, NATO, and the upcoming invasion. While other writers have pushed back about political myths like “Putin will be satisfied if we promise to never let Ukraine join NATO” or ludicrous myths like “Ukrainians and Russians are one people”; I will focus on the six most common myths I encountered about the military aspects of an invasion of Ukraine:
- Putin can’t invade during the rasputitsa.
- Putin doesn’t have enough troops to invade Ukraine.
- Putin doesn’t have enough troops to occupy Ukraine.
- Putin will not attack during the Olympics.
- Putin will invade in steps.
- Stingers will be a game changer.
Myth 1: Putin can’t invade during the rasputitsa.
Yes he can. The photos you saw of Wehrmacht trucks, cars, motorcycles and horse carts stuck in the mud during the rasputitsa — the muddy season — in October 1941 have no relevance to modern warfare.
Back then a mere 6,000 km of asphalt road existed in the entire Soviet Union, and most of these were in the countries and territories Stalin had invaded and annexed in 1939: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Eastern Poland. To the East of the former Polish territories there were just two asphalted highways: the Minsk-Moscow and Kyiv-Moscow highways. In short: the Germans’ logistics got stuck in the mud because there were no roads at all.
But in fall 1941 only wheeled vehicles got stuck — tracked and half-tracked vehicles actually performed well and the Germans began to drag 3–4 supply trucks with one half-tracked artillery tractor through the mud. After studying the tracks of the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks with their 56 cm respectively 70 cm wide tracks, the Germans realized that their tanks’ tracks were too narrow for the Soviet terrain. To improve the performance of their Panzer III (36 cm tracks) and Panzer IV (38 cm tracks) the German introducing the screw-on Winterkette which added 15 cm to the tank’s tracks, and by widening the tracks of the in development Panther tank to 66 cm. The Germans also put the fully tracked Raupenschlepper Ost into production and used Jews and Soviet POWs as slave labor to build roads in the occupied territories. Alone for the construction of the Durchgangsstrasse IV from Lviv to Donetsk the SS worked 40,000 Jews and Soviet POWs to death.
A year after first encountering the rasputitsa the Germans had overcome the problem and the Russians won’t have any problems with the rasputitsa in 2022. Russian tanks like the T-72 and T-80 use 58 cm wide tracks, the BMP and BMD families of tracked infantry fighting vehicles use 30–38 cm wide tracks and can mount 48 cm wide swamp tracks if needed. Russia’s primary tracked-self-propelled howitzers, the 2S3 Akatsiya and 2S19 Msta, use 49 cm respectively 58 cm wide tracks. None of Russia’s tracked vehicles will be affected by the rasputitsa.
The only Russian armored combat vehicles that need to be careful when moving off-road are the wheeled 8x8 armored personnel carriers of the BTR family. Equipped with all wheel drive, independent all-wheel torsion suspension, a transfer case with a locking center differential, limited slip differentials, central tire inflation system, etc. etc. they have excellent off-road capabilities, but knee-deep mud will affect their mobility. Alas there is no need for them to be off-road, as Ukraine nowadays has 156,000 km of exurban asphalt roads and highways.
No matter where you wish to go in Ukraine, there is an asphalt road to drive on. This will allow the Russian wheeled vehicles, especially its logistics trucks, to avoid driving on muddy roads or in swampy field. Yes, Ukraine can damage these roads, but in a flat country like Ukraine you can at best destroy 50–100 meters of road here and there and Russia’s five engineer brigades and 16 engineer regiments have the equipment and personnel to rapidly repair such damage. And if there is a pressing need to advance more quickly then Russian engineering troops have KRVD vehicles, which can just roll down 50 meter of temporary road in minutes.
In short, the rasputitsa will have little to no effect on Russian operations.
Myth 2: Putin doesn’t have enough troops to invade Ukraine.
Russia has already assembled enough troops to invade Ukraine, and more are coming. The total invasion force, according to leaked U.S. intelligence reports will be somewhere around 114 Battalion Task Groups (BTGs). This is approximately 135,000 soldiers, with tens of thousands of Rosgvardiya and support staff coming behind them.
With today’s real time battlefield surveillance through drones, signal intelligence, electronic intelligence, etc. the fog of war has lifted. Nowadays the army with air supremacy, long range rocket and artillery fires, and real time battle space surveillance can strike opponents at distance and at will, and thus multiply its firepower exponentially.
Whereas once an invading army had to advance on a broad front with enough manpower along the entire front to be able to quickly generate infantry, armor and artillery concentrations whenever enemy formations were encountered, today’s invading armies will advance along paths, where they know no enemy presence exists. This will force defenders to either let the invader pass unchallenged or compel them to move towards the invader and thus making themselves targets for aerial bombardment and concentrated artillery, missile, and rocket fire.
In 2003 the United States marched on Baghdad with just the 3rd Infantry and 1st Marine divisions. Both divisions sped through the undefended desert and bypassed Iraqi positions in and near urban settlements, which American reconnaissance units had identified in advance. This forced Iraqi units to leave their positions and move into the desert, where American artillery and aircraft annihilated them.
Once Putin’s invasion of Ukraine gets underway Russia will strike every Ukrainian troop concentration from afar, will bypass Ukrainian positions, and head for Kyiv, Dnipro and Odessa. As Putin chose winter for his invasion, Ukrainian forces will find it difficult to hide in the leafless, flat countryside, where Russian firepower will hit them every time they move. Safety can only be found in built-up areas, but unlike the U.S. military Russian forces will have no qualms about shelling civilian population centers if Ukrainian troops hide there.
In short: Putin has amassed more than enough forces for an invasion of Ukraine, but does he have enough forces to occupy Ukraine?
Myth 3: Putin doesn’t have enough troops to occupy Ukraine
While the invasion force itself falls short of the needed personnel to occupy Ukraine, Putin seems to be confident that he can find enough traitors, quislings, and opportunists among Ukrainians to make up for the lack of Russian troops.
The two occupation administrations created by Russia in Donbas have raised approximately 40,000 troops, police, and death squads out of the more or less 4 million people under their thumb. That’s roughly 1% of the population. Keep that number in mind.
Once Putin’s invasion gets underway he will occupy all of Ukraine (except for Western Ukraine) because it is actually safer for Russia to occupy as much of Ukraine as possible. Let me explain:
Let’s assume a scenario in which Putin only occupies a land bridge to Crimea, and Kharkiv. This would add 3–4 million people to the Russian occupied territories and leave 35 million free Ukrainians. 35 million people, who hate Russia with the fire of a thousand suns and who are ready to fight Russia to the death. If Ukraine then conscripts the same percentage of its population as Croatia did during its war of independence, then Ukraine’s military would field 1.5 million troops. That’s half a million more troops than the current Russian military. And these 1.5 million Ukrainians would be armed, trained and supported by the U.S. military in a lend-lease arrangement, making them more numerous, better equipped, better trained, and more motivated than the Russian military. And herein lies the impossibility for Putin to just occupy a small part of Ukraine: leaving too much of Ukraine free will create a formidable military opponent, while at the same time Western sanctions will degrade Russia’s economy and thus Putin’s ability to maintain, equip and modernize his military.
Therefore, Putin has no other option than to occupy most of Ukraine to secure his conquest. According to the Russian war plans leaked by NATO, Putin does not plan to occupy Western Ukraine: he will stop his advance at the borders of the oblasts, which until the Hitler-Stalin pact were not under Soviet control:
- Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Volyn, which were part of Poland
- Chernivtsi, which was part of Romania
- Zakarpattia, which was part of Czechoslovakia
He will also not occupy Khmelnytskyi Oblast. These eight oblasts are the most Western-orientated and the most hostile towards Russia. They are also the oblasts most suited for guerrilla warfare. Occupying these oblasts would require an immense amount of troops, especially also because Russian forces would have to cover more than 1,200 km of forested border with NATO members Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, which would all serve as bases for NATO’s and the US’s support for Ukrainian insurgents.
Occupying Ukraine up to a line between Belarus and Moldova that runs West of Korosten, Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia gives Putin control of all major Ukrainian cities, key industries, prime agricultural land, and control of around 31 million people. It also gives Putin a buffer with NATO as Moldova would cover the occupied territories’ south-western flank.
Now remember the number I told you to keep in mind? 1% of 31 million people is 310,000 traitors, quislings, and opportunists. Add these to the perhaps 170,000 Russian troops Putin would ultimately move into Ukraine and you have an occupation and suppression force of 480,000 men. That is enough to control Ukraine, enough to suppress an insurgency, and more troops than unoccupied Western Ukraine could raise.
Maybe Putin is wrong and he won’t find as many quislings has he hopes; but Western analysts, who insist Putin will need 500,000 Russian troops to occupy Ukraine, because he won’t find any quislings in Ukraine at all are certainly very wrong.
Myth 4: Putin will not attack during the Olympics.
Of course not. Putin has not attacked anyone ever… says the Russian propaganda: in 2000 Putin “was forced to rescue” Russians from “genocidal Chechen terrorists”, in 2008 Putin “was forced to rescue” South Ossetians from “genocidal Georgian fascists”, in 2014 Putin “ was forced to rescue” Crimeans from “genocidal Ukrainian nazi-putschists”, in 2015 Putin “was forced” to rescue Syrians from “genocidal Arab terrorists”. I think you get the idea.
So of course Putin will not “attack” Ukraine, he will claim that he “was forced to” respond to whatever false flag attack his regime will try to pin on Ukraine. If this false flag attack happens during the Olympics, that will be — according to his propaganda – “Ukraine’s fault”. China’s state propaganda will not fault their close ally, but instead copy/paste Russia’s propaganda and blame Ukraine for ruining China’s Olympics.
Putin will attack when his troops and ships are in position regardless of the Olympics.
Myth 5: Putin will invade in steps.
Escalating in incremental steps or attacking slowly gives Ukraine time to call up reservists, allows Western nations to rush in more military materiel, gives the U.S. time to reconnoiter and analyze Russian deployments, gives Ukraine time to mine the Russian invasion routes, allows the U.S. guide Ukrainian forces to the best defensive positions. When Putin attacks it will be with overwhelming force, on all fronts, at the same time, with no mercy.
Myth 6: Stingers will be a game changer.
The Stinger man-portable air-defense system will not be a game changer. Stingers have — depending on the target — a flight ceiling of 3–4 km and a range of 5–6 km. This makes Stingers ideal to shoot down low flying drones and helicopters, but Ukraine’s army is most threatened by Russian fighter, bomber, and attack aircraft, which, since the introduction of precision-guided munitions, have no reason to descend below 6km. This makes Putin’s air force invulnerable to Stinger missiles
Stingers were a game changer during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, as the mountainous terrain made helicopters the preferred vehicle to establish, supply and support outposts. The mountainous terrain also forced Soviet attack aircraft carrying unguided munitions to descend into the valleys for their bombing and strafing runs, which allowed the Mujahedeen to fire at passing aircraft from positions on the same level.
The supply of stingers or the similar Polish made Piorun will make Russian helicopter operations risky and help degrade Russian drone capabilities, but they will not change the fact that Russia will have total air supremacy. True game changers would be:
- Patriot air-defense systems with PAC-2 GEM+ missiles to take out Russian aircraft in a radius of 160 km and up to a height of 25 km, and with PAC-3 MSE missiles to intercept Russian ballistic missiles.
- F-35A stealth fighters to shoot down Russian aircraft and strike ground targets inside Russian air-defense bubbles.
- HIMARS multiple rocket launchers with M30/M31 guided missiles and MGM-140 tactical missiles to strike Russian troop concentrations, command centers, logistic hubs, air defense sites, etc. deep behind Russian lines.
- Truck-mounted coastal defense systems with Naval Strike Missiles to sink Russia’s Black Sea Fleet before it can reach Ukraine’s coast.
If you do not believe me that these systems are game changers — then believe Poland, which is buying every single one of them: Patriot, F-35A, HIMARS, Naval Strike Missile.
Make Russia bleed
Putin’s military machine is almost ready. When it is unleashed it will cause death and destruction far worse than anyone alive has seen. And nothing in Putin’s history suggests that he will be attempt to “win the hearts and minds” of Ukrainians. In fact his history suggests the opposite: that he will seek complete and total submission using violence.
Putin’s choice is now between peace or war, while for our Ukrainian friends the choice is between fight or surrender. And fight they will.
Ukrainians rose up twice to overthrow satraps installed and controlled by Putin. Ukrainians have been fighting Putin’s army for 8 years and we, in the West, cannot commit an immorality so great as telling them to, “Give up your dreams of freedom.” We in the West have an obligation, a sacred duty to stand with the people of Ukraine, who want nothing but freedom and peace.
Putin can win the Battle of Ukraine, but he cannot win the war against democracy. So let’s fight him. Let us fight him in every field of human endeavour: economically, culturally, politically, financially, morally, militarily. Let us make Russia bleed, figuratively and very literally. The greater, swifter and more numerous Russian losses are, especially in Russian battlefield deads in Ukraine, the sooner Russia will rid itself of Putin.
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
About the author:
Theiner is a former member of the Italian Army, who has lived and worked in Kyiv since 2009. Theiner is an expert on NATO Cold War land forces and NATO Cold War defense strategy. An early contributor to Euromaidan Press and Euromaidan PR during Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution and the following Donbas war Theiner currently resides in Austria and works on Cold War documentaries. Theiner has been analyzing and reporting on open source intelligence and conflicts in the former Soviet Union since the Russian takeover of Crimea. You can follow me on Twitter, where I regularly posts Ukraine war updates and Cold War facts.
