Stepping up preparations, Ukraine wants to fight a "national war"?

On January 29, when the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border was tense, some US media reported that Ukraine was training "weekend troops" as the "last line of defense" against Russian "invasion". The so-called "weekend force" refers to the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Force (TDF), which is mainly composed of Ukrainian militias, most of whom have jobs and families, live normally in peacetime, and conduct military training on weekends. Observing the recent situation in Ukraine, it is clear that Ukraine, which was on the weak side of the Confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, was once engaged in a nationwide mobilization for war preparations and wanted to raise the banner of "all-out war."

On February 10, 2022, a shipment of U.S.-aided military materiel arrived at Kiev-Boryspil International Airport in Ukraine.

The "paper tiger" is useless

The reason why the Ukrainian authorities have extensively mobilized the people to guard against a possible "Russian invasion" is directly related to the inability of the Ukrainian government army to be used. In the past, the Ukrainian army was not a weak brigade. On August 24, 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union, the Then Ministry of Defense declared that a large number of Soviet officers and soldiers had remained to pledge allegiance to Ukraine, including a large number of Ukrainian officers and soldiers serving in other republics and Ukrainian officers and soldiers in the Soviet Army withdrawn from Eastern Europe. According to the official historical data of Ukraine, this group of officers and soldiers became the backbone of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at that time, with a total number of 780,000, of which the army exceeded 300,000. In terms of equipment, Ukraine inherited a large number of weapons and equipment and strategic reserves of the Soviet Union, including 6500 tanks, 3026 infantry fighting vehicles, 3830 armored transport vehicles, 120 paratrooper fighting vehicles, 1500 aircraft, 350 warships, 1272 intercontinental missile nuclear warheads, and 2500 tactical nuclear weapons (ukraine later destroyed all nuclear weapons with the help of the United States and Russia). Therefore, the total strength of the Ukrainian army once briefly ranked third in the world, second only to the United States and Russia.

At present, the Ukrainian Army is equipped with 12 sets of "Dot" U tactical missile launchers, tanks and mechanized troops are equipped with 10 T-84 "Fortress" main battle tanks, and 1100 T-64 main battle tanks (76 are upgraded to T-64BM "Sword"). In addition, about 650 T-64 tanks, 500 T-72 tanks and 250 T-80 tanks were also sealed; about 3,800 infantry fighting vehicles, paratrooper fighting vehicles and armored transport vehicles; and about 3,100 artillery pieces were also sealed. Although the strength of the Ukrainian army on paper now seems remarkable, due to shortages of funds and other issues, compared with the early days after Ukraine's independence, it is estimated that the number of existing weapons and equipment has been reduced by one-third, and may even reach half. With the exception of the new 10 T-84 "fortresses", the Ukrainian Army has not received any new equipment in recent years.

The decline in the quality of Ukrainian combatants is also obvious. According to insiders, most of the service members of the Ukrainian army joined the army because they could not find a job in society to get a meager salary (the average monthly salary of ordinary Ukrainian soldiers is currently less than 2300 yuan), they lack training and management, and some people believe that they are not facing "the people's own war", but "the war of the Zelensky government in Kiev".

In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict that broke out in 2014, the weak side of the Ukrainian army was punctured. On August 20 of that year, the Russian army launched a deep offensive on the southern line of the eastern border of Ukraine, and by August 25, all the field forces of the South Ukrainian Road Cluster had been encircled in Ilivalsk, Komsomolsk, Saul-Moshira, and other places, and most of these forces had been annihilated by early September. At the same time, the Russian army entered Uzbekistan with a battle group along the Rostov-Mariupol Road, captured Novazovsk on August 27, and approached the city of Mariupol on September 4. By september, the Russian army had achieved complete victory on the front line, and the Ukrainian army retreated to the line of North Donetsk-Tebalizevo-Kramatorsk-Donetsk International Airport-Mariupol, basically returning to the place of departure at the beginning of the Offensive in August, suffering heavy losses.

In the following years, it was reported that more than 30,000 people of the Ukrainian Army left, and a large amount of military equipment was also taken with them. On January 27 this year, a Ukrainian National Guard soldier opened fire on his companions with a rifle, killing five soldiers on the spot and injuring five others. At present, the specific cause of the incident is still under investigation, and some analysts believe that it may be related to the despair of the people involved in the future of the country.

The "vast ocean" is difficult to reach the Russian army

It is not difficult to see that once the conflict between Russia and Ukraine breaks out again, it is difficult to expect the Ukrainian government army to have an amazing performance in the face of the superior Russian army. In desperation, Ukraine had no choice but to mobilize its people. Now the Ukrainian government is encouraging civilians to receive military training and join the Territorial Defence Force (TDF), whose main task is to support the Ukrainian army in defending critical infrastructure and to maintain order in the town in times of war. The TDF, which is regarded as an important part of Ukraine's current national defense strategy, is being organized and mobilized nationwide, and thousands of Ukrainians, including women, have registered to join. According to a poll released in January by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, 56 percent of respondents said they would "definitely" or "probably" join the TDF. Ukrainian officials said their recruitment goal was to build a reserve force of about 130,000 people in total.

At this critical moment, the military assistance provided by the United States and the West to Ukraine has boosted the "confidence" of the Ukrainian government in preparing for a "people's war." By mid-February, Ukraine had received more than $1.5 billion worth of aid from Western countries, as well as more than 1,000 tons of weapons and armaments. Among the equipment obtained by the Ukrainian side, many of them are single-soldier anti-tank weapons. According to incomplete statistics from the Ukrainian side, the United States and britain have provided Ukraine with about 3,000 anti-tank missiles ("Javelin" and NLAW) and a large number of M141 rocket launchers. These weapons are not very powerful, but they are lightweight, flexible, and easy to use, and even untrained civilians can quickly get started. In combat, such weapons can provide additional anti-armor fire to guerrilla groups of militias, especially in urban warfare, or when ambushing enemy supply convoys without armor support.

But it is difficult to rely on this assistance to substantially resist the strong Russian army. On the one hand, the level of equipment and training of Ukrainian militias is questionable. Looking at photos of some militia training in Uzbekistan, it can be found that many of the reservists use fake guns made of cardboard. TDF Commander Yuri Kharushkin recently said the Ukrainian military had prepared weapons for the volunteers and that they would be stored near residential communities. However, a video circulating online at the same time shows a volunteer instructing members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces on how to use and maintain the DP-27 light machine gun, which was designed by the former Soviet Union in World War II and will be used in modern warfare to see the rarity of military equipment. Many civilians are equally unsteady in their will to fight, with some saying that busy lives, the COVID-19 pandemic and other social issues have exhausted Ukrainians and that they do not want to be involved in a war unless absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, once a large-scale war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine's "man-sea tactics" may not be of much use. According to the design of modern Russia's "non-contact warfare" military doctrine, which emphasizes the long-range destruction of enemy forces with drone-powered artillery, most enemies will be killed and wounded before they see their opponents, and the fact that Ukraine's territory is mainly composed of open plains that lack natural shelter, so even if Ukrainian soldiers and civilians hate each other, the effect is limited.

Dispersing weapons among the people is not necessarily a good thing for the stability of the political situation in Ukraine. On February 8, Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov publicly stated that "the scene of armed invasion from the Kremlin is unrealistic" and that Russia may not use force to "change the political system of Ukraine" by taking advantage of ukrainian citizens' dissatisfaction with the current government. Under the clamor of the outside world's war panic and public opinion, the normal life of the vast number of ukrainian people who were already under great pressure was disrupted, and now they have been arranged to take up rudimentary weapons and throw themselves into war preparations, and their dissatisfaction has accelerated, and once the threshold is broken, the muzzle of the gun may not refer to the Russian army.

Source: World Knowledge

Author: Lan Shunzheng, Special Researcher of Yuanwang Think Tank, Researcher of Chahar Society, and Member of China Command and Control Society

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