Russian Invincibility

A 200-year-old myth tested in Kursk

Parade of the Black Sea Fleet by Ivan Aivazovsky (1886; PD-RU).

The line “never invade Russia in the winter” is so often repeated that it’s nearly a maxim. I agree with the statement, but valid reasons not to invade don’t make a myth true.

Napoleon didn’t invade during winter and Russia isn’t invincible. That second lesson is being learned only too well by Putin after Ukraine’s ongoing Kursk operation.

Before the recent invasion of Ukraine it was a popular notion that Russia was ‘unattackable’; that the Russian Bear was a peer to the NATO alliance. Everyone feared a swift Russian victory over Ukraine as a result.

Obviously, none of the predictions of a rapid Russian victory came to be. Ukraine held their own despite having only limited military aid (compared to the large arsenal at Russia’s disposal). It took a week into the war for the world to realize that Ukraine was here to stay.

But the purpose of this article isn’t to micro-analyze the failures of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s to discuss the myth of Russian invincibility that goes back at least to Napoleon’s disastrous campaign of 1812, but perhaps further back than that.

The often cited explanations for its invincibility are its quantitative superiority in land, resources, and population (by European standards), but these advantages are overshadowed by instability and local nationalism. It’s the myth of invincibility itself that, when revealed to be false, contributes most to Russia’s demise.

Timeline of modern invasions of Russia

In recent history, we have seven cases where Russia has been invaded, of which four were victories and two were defeats. The seventh is ongoing.

• Great Northern War (1700–1721): Victory — King Charles XII of Sweden leads his empire to ruin against Tsar Peter the Great, causing Sweden to fall into being a second-rate nation and Russia to cement itself as a Great Power.
• Napoleon’s Russian Campaign of 1812: Victory — Napoleon assembles an army of French and allied forces to strike into the heart of Russia. Russia’s refusal to meet Napoleon head-on proves disastrous for the French.
• Crimean War (1853–1856): Defeat — Russia contrives a war against the Ottomans to protect Christians in the Balkans, but the British-French alliance with Italian support intervenes and defeats the Russians at Sevastapol.
• Great War (1914–1917): Defeat — Russia is defeated by the Central Powers following the Bolshevik Revolution. An unfavorable treaty breaks off the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and Ukraine from the Russian Empire.
• Siberian Intervention (1918–1922): Victory — Bolsheviks fight to establish socialism in the Russian Empire. Western nations and Japan intervene to protect the Russian Whites, but fail to stem the tide.
• Eastern Front, World War Two (1941–1945): Victory — Hitler launches the largest invasion in history against the Soviet Union. This invasion cemented the myth that Napoleon’s started.
• Kursk Front, Russo-Ukrainian War (2022–2024): Less than a month old, but Ukraine is preparing defensive positions in Kursk Oblast to hold on to its gains. It’s either the start of something larger or a distraction.

In fairness to proponents, Russia was never fully conquered in any of the wars that it lost. Its defeat in the Crimean War was inconsequential in terms of Russian territory (albeit it was a huge blow to prestige). Even at the end of the First World War, Russia kept most historically Russian lands. Meanwhile, the Siberian Intervention was too far to the east to have a real influence on the outcome of the Russian Civil War.

As for the wars it won, there was the problem of Russia’s aforementioned immense territory, population, and natural resources. And in all wars, none of the invaders have ever held superiority over Russia in all three categories. The only exception was Britain during the Crimean War. Britain had more of all three if we count its possessions like India, but the goal of the war was only to reverse Russia’s gains against the Ottomans.

Of the wars waged with the intent to dismantle or otherwise take land from the Russian state, we’re left with: the Great Northern War, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and the World Wars.

Ukraine’s Kursk operation is probably a distraction or a bartering chip for its own land. I find it unlikely that Ukraine has long-term ambitions to rule Kursk, but who knows.

Saint Petersburg — Galleons on the Docks by Ivan Aivazovsky (1850; PD-RU).

Nationalism

When Charles XII led Swedish forces into Narva, the Russian garrison was a disorganized mess. Charles was a Russophobe who thought so little of Russian might by the end of the Battle of Narva in 1700 that he simply allowed the Russian force to re-cross the river into Russia. This proved to be a mistake as it allowed Peter I to reconstitute his army.

Peter went on to defeat the Swedes, becoming Peter the Great, and the first Tsar to inspire Russian nationalism. Despite having the advantage of resources, he knew that Russia would need ports to truly exploit them. That’s why he built St. Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva River. He made it Russia’s capital so as to make it a matter of national importance.

It was a war that forged Russia’s national identity at the beginning of its imperial history. When the Russian people unite behind a cause, the factors of Russia’s quantitative superiority comes into play as occurred in the case of Charles XII, but also in the cases of Napoleon and Hitler.

It’s in other cases — especially when Russia goes on the attack — that these numbers really only exist on paper.

Narrative

Which leads us to the present. It’s harder to inspire national sentiment when you are the aggressor. Putin’s speech at the beginning of the so-called “special military operation” was aimed at framing the conflict as a preemptive war that NATO and the United States really started.

If he didn’t attack when he did, he contends, Ukraine would have become a member of NATO that would use its membership to launch World War Three to take back Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk.

The arguments for the necessity of the war that will be three years old in February, were pretty flimsy. But that wouldn’t have mattered if he could wrap it up quickly. People can tolerate tomfoolery if results are fast and the losses few. But what happens if it bogs down?

Instability

Internal instability has long plagued the Russian nation, a country that was built on centuries of aggressive expansion to achieve better borders with more accessible trade routes and more easily defensible positions.

The various religious and ethnic minorities that populate the large nation add to this sense of disunity. In Putin’s speech at the start of his invasion of Ukraine, he specifically credits the minorities alongside the ethnic Russians in order to foster a sense of unity.

It’s no surprise, then, that Putin puts a great deal of effort into these small regions like Dagestan and Chechnya in an effort to ensure their loyalty. He must actively placate regional leaders like Kadyrov by throwing money their way. This is why the Chechen Republic’s capital is so grossly over-funded. Look up construction projects in Grozny if you don’t believe me.

Negative invincibility

The shattering of the myth has disastrous consequences for Russia. Predatory neighbors such as Germany under Hitler can be inspired by Russian failure, sure, but it’s not just foreign nations that are influenced by the myth.

To see how flimsy Russian unity really is, you have only to look at the Soviet-Afghan War in the ’80s. The invasion in 1979 was quick enough, but the long occupation was costly in terms of lives and money (the USSR made significantly less than the US). The Soviets pulled out in 1989, but the damage was done.

The image of the Red Army’s invincibility was broken, encouraging uprisings across the Warsaw Pact which eventually affected Russia itself. The collapse of the Soviet Union only two years after the war’s end is a testament to the myth’s influence on public perception and the people’s consequent willingness to challenge the regime.

Positive invincibility

Just as in the Soviet Union there’s a chance that disasters on the battlefield could see real change in Russia. For what a victory by Ukraine inside of Russia could do, we have only to look at the Wagner Incident where the PMC drove on Moscow in protest to repeated incidents of friendly fire by the Russian military.

The rebellion was met by a supportive public and with weak resistance from the Russian military. There were even some defectors. Of course, Prigozhin made the mistake of negotiating with the Kremlin, for which he paid with his life, but his point was made all the same: Putin is not unassailable.

And that’s a big deal in an authoritarian regime where your position is dependent on power projection. Without the moral high ground to inspire your people, your only alternative is nationalism and greed. Greed works for the upper echelon, who have so far remained by his side, but nationalism only goes so far if it’s a war your people know is contrived.

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Sources

• Burrows, Emma (21 Aug, 2024). Putin’s slow response to the Kursk attack could test the patience of some of his backers in Russia. AP News.
• Stahel, David (2011), Operation Barbarossa and Germany’s Defeat in the East, ISBN 978–0521170154, Cambridge University Press.
• Foord, Edward A. (1914), Napoleon’s Russian Campaign of 1812, Hutchinson.
• Lidell Hart, B. H. (1955), Strategy, LCCN 54–9111, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc.
• Murphy, Matt (23 Jun, 2024). A year after mutiny, Kremlin controls Wagner remnants. BBC News.
• Polityuk, Pavel (2024, Aug 14). Ukraine says growing advance into Russia creates buffer zone. Reuters.