Ukrainian heroism cannot guarantee victory

It makes you proud to be British. When Boris Johnson used Churchillian language about the lions of the Ukraine, and paid tribute to the way in which their President has provided the lion’s roar, he was speaking for the British lion. Even many of those with profound doubts about the man could not remain unmoved.

There are more reasons for pride. Up and down the country, the British people are rising to the challenge of living up to their heritage. A lot of people are arranging to house refugees, while schools – especially in the private sector – are happy to educate them. Other people, such as my friend Lord (Nicholas) Monson are sending ambulances and organising rosters of drivers. There is a further group who seek no publicity, for obvious reasons. Brave men are slipping out of the country to fight for Ukraine. It has been suggested that this might be against the law. If so, the Beadle was right. “The law is a ass.”

The likelihood of their being prosecuted on their return is on a par with the Home Office displaying some efficiency. If Priti Patel’s ministry had been a horse in Saturday’s Grand National, it might now be approaching the winning post. When it comes to a humanitarian response, the Home office is the one blot on the escutcheon.

Unfortunately however, there is another difficulty which cannot be solved just by rolled-up sleeves and volunteering. Where is this war going and how will it end?

Up to now, the Russian forces have conducted themselves with extraordinary ineptitude, at all levels. It appears that each separate offensive had a different commander. None of them was an heir to Tukhachevsy or Zhukov. Equally, while hardly anyone in the West was paying much attention to Ukraine, the Ukrainians themselves had been training hard for some years and they were also dealing with low-intensity warfare in the Donbass. In a way, that was helpful. As we found in Northern Ireland, there is nothing better than the threat of incoming live ammunition for sharpening up the command skills of young officers and NCOs.

The UK has assisted the Ukrainians, which has given the morale of our forces a necessary boost after the difficulties in Basra and Helmand. Although the Ukrainians were willing learners, they need no assistance when it came to morale.

The Russians were another matter. The troops do not appear to have been briefed about the mission, and they face another problem. Military historians use a term which is ugly, but also indispensable: “species pseudo-differentiation.” It is easier to kill your enemy if you can regard him as belonging to a sub-species: Huns, Krauts and Gooks are obvious examples. But in the Ukraine? Does Private Ivan Ivanovitch regard those people who look just like him as untermenschen? When they start shooting at him, he probably would, but it is obvious why Putin is constantly referring to Ukrainian Nazis. This is little brother’s version of Big Brother’s “two minutes’ hate.” Let us hope that it will be less effective.

So what next? The military experts I have spoken to agree on one point. Assuming that he wants to stay in power, Putin cannot afford to lose and he appears to be planning an offensive in the Donbass. This will include the heavy use of artillery and air-power in an attempt to break Ukrainian resistance, whatever the cost in civilian casualties. But the Ukrainians have 40,000 troops to counter a Russian thrust. They are well-dug in, with strong defensive positions. They seem fired up with determination and patriotism and Nato is rushing supplies to them. Britain has provided sophisticated kit which has worked well in action (perhaps the designers should be put in charge of sorting out the Type-45 destroyers). The Ukrainians have an army of heroes who will not yield easily.

Yet we should not be carried away. Heroism cannot guarantee victory. The Donbass operation will be commanded by General Alexander Dvornikov. The man who flattened Syrian cities without compunction, he does not have a humanitarian molecule in his body. Dornikov will order his troops to pound and blast and bomb, to prepare the way for an inexorable offensive.

But what if this fails? Some Russian armoured personnel characters appear to have a defect in that they are vulnerable to armour-piercing rifle bullets. But there is a reason for this. The assumption is that if they go into combat, there will be nothing to fear from enemy snipers. They would all have been killed by a tactical nuclear weapon, and the vehicles’ armour would protect their occupants from radiation.

By all accounts, General Dornikov would be happy to go down in history as the butcher of the Donbass. Could he earn that accolade without using a nuclear weapon, and could that risk an escalation after which there would be no history to commemorate him?

May 9th is a crucial date. The Russians regard it as the anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War. Putin would like to celebrate a victory on that day, but that would not give Dornikov time to butcher the Donbass by normal methods. Although it seems unlikely, might there be scope for a compromise: something that Putin could call a victory but which would end Ukraine’s agony? Probably not.

That said, there is no point in banging on about the fantasy of war crimes trials. If Putin falls, he would probably be dealt with at home: lead poisoning would do. In any short order, his successor is unlikely to be a liberal humanitarian. We can only hope that he would have learned one lesson: that it is not a good idea to invade other countries. If that were so, we might look forward to a cautious rapprochement. But that now seems a long way off.

At present, Kremlinologists probably lack reliable sources. Yet the probability is that this hideous conflict will continue and that if the Russians wished to break out of stalemate, they would have to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the Ukrainian army of the Donbass.

It is a terrible thought, especially at the beginning of the Western Churches’ Holy Week. But the Ukraine seems condemned to Golgotha. Its Resurrection will take a lot longer than three days.