2023-06-19 12:57:13
Photo: NTV
The Russian army, on which the Kremlin has spent 20 trillion rubles over the past 10 years and which it has positioned as the “second strongest” in the world, turned out to be much weaker than expected. This assessment, according to The Wall Street Journal, was given by Zhou Bo, a colonel in the People’s Liberation Army of China, who recently retired.
“Russia’s military image and credibility have collapsed,” said Zhou Bo, who is currently a senior fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Instead of a victorious blitzkrieg, which the Kremlin was counting on, the army thrown to conquer Ukraine was forced to first retreat from Kiev, then surrender the Kharkov region and Kherson, and by the beginning of the second year of the invasion, it had lost more than half of the territories captured in the first months. Losses of personnel, including those killed and wounded, according to Western estimates, exceeded 200,000 people, including 100,000 in the last six months.
According to Zhou, Russian military plans turned out to be far from reality. “It turned into a war they didn’t expect,” he said, adding that the situation for Russia was “difficult.”
“Putin cannot afford to lose the war. How else can he explain why all these people died. He needs something to justify all this, ”says Zhou.
But despite the problems, in his opinion, the situation for the Russian forces at the front is not hopeless. Putin, Zhou believes, still has more manpower and national support, while the West’s willingness to supply Kyiv with weapons may not be endless. “How will Western support continue if the war drags on?” he asks.
The Chinese military is closely studying Russia’s experience in Ukraine, given Xi Jinping’s ambition to annex Taiwan and the historical proximity of the two countries’ military doctrines, senior Western officials tell The Wall Street Journal.
One of the strategic lessons Beijing may have learned is that Putin doomed himself to defeat by launching an invasion with too few forces, officials say: The Russian president expected immediate surrender, but received fierce resistance.
This means that if China decides on a military operation against Taiwan, it will start it with a massive shock strike, prepare much larger forces and possibly use nuclear threats, WSJ sources believe.
According to Zhou, the Chinese military has learned from Russian failures in Ukraine. At the tactical level, they are that the PLA needs to improve the level and security of communications, have more precision-guided missiles and drones. However, Beijing already has these types of weapons in quantities significantly exceeding those of the Russian Federation, the WSJ notes.
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