Russian dictators have always needed victorious wars to justify their cruelty.
Russia is not winning the war with Ukraine . She may even lose. But no scenario is in Vladimir Putin's favor, as he knows for sure as a Cold War veteran.
The last time Moscow was defeated in the war was in the 1980s in Afghanistan. After a quick victory at the beginning of the 1979 invasion, the Soviet army faced guerrilla resistance throughout the country. At first, this resistance was not effective because Soviet troops completely controlled the airspace, writes CNN. Like the Joe Biden administration today, Ronald Reagan's team at the time feared a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. Initially, Washington did not want to give Afghan troops air defenses.
But in 1986 the situation changed. The CIA armed the Afghans with Stinger missiles, which ended Soviet airspace domination and increased Afghan capabilities to inflict significant losses on the Soviet army on the battlefield. Realizing that the war was lost, Moscow withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in February 1989, establishing a puppet communist government that was overthrown three years after the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist.
Official figures for casualties in the Afghan war, which lasted more than nine years, say 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. That is why it is very significant that in one month of the war against Ukraine, Russia lost exactly the same number of soldiers. When the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the countries and peoples of Eastern Europe that were under the Soviet yoke at the time drew conclusions. If the formidable army of the USSR failed to win the war against the Afghan guerrillas, can it control the fate of the people in East Germany, Hungary and Poland?
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The failure of the Soviet war in Afghanistan drove a huge nail into the coffin of the communist empire. It is no coincidence that the Berlin Wall was torn down a few months after East Germany was opened to the West. And this, apparently, was a turning point for the time of the young Putin. He was a KGB officer in East Germany. When Putin asked the Red Army for instructions on what to do, he was told: Moscow is silent. Since then, Putin has tried to break Moscow's “silence” in an effort to restore as many elements of Russia's former glory as possible.
But the devastating consequences of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan are not a unique phenomenon in Russian history. The Romanov monarchy was overthrown after military defeats in the early 20th century. These defeats put an end to the dynasty's 300-year rule. Under the helpless leadership of Tsar Nicholas II, Russia's catastrophic defeat in the war with Japan in 1905 was the first time that an Asian state had defeated a European one. The effect of failure in that war was very quickly aggravated by the Russian defeat in the First World War. All this, in addition to a number of other factors, led to the overthrow of the regime of Nicholas II in 1917 and the further establishment of the Soviet dictatorship.
It should be noted that Joseph Stalin emerged victorious from World War II, despite catastrophic losses of 25 million citizens. This victory allowed Stalin to remain in power, despite the fact that he was a bloody dictator. Earlier this month, The Economist announced the “Stalinization of Russia.”
“It simply came to our notice then. But it is difficult to be a neo-Stanist if you are a loser and Putin's defeat in Ukraine is not ruled out, “the article reads.
Of course, the threat that the United States warns remains is that Putin, who is pinned to a wall, could use chemical or biological weapons. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not rule out a nuclear strike during a CNN interview. Putin's war could push him to the point where he would decide to use weapons of mass destruction. But even after that, he can still lose the war against Ukraine. Putin did not so much dream of reviving “Russian glory.” These dreams of his turn to ashes very quickly.
Watch the special topic: “Ukrainians have the core and courage” – Biden The US President spoke about the Ukrainian people during his visit to Poland. Internally displaced people will be able to receive 2-3 thousand hryvnias a month – Ministry of Social Policy The state is also preparing financial support for people who accept migrants for free. Five thousand posthumous awards were given in Russia during the first week of the war. These figures coincide with the Ukrainian data on the losses of the Russian Federation at that time. Putin recalled the culture of abolition and compared Russia to Joan Rowling, the writer has already told him Criticism of Western culture is better not to deal with those who kill civilians, Rowling said. The military of the Russian Federation is given antidotes for chemical poisoning – the Center for Counteracting Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council Specialists report on the possibility of using the Russian nerve agent “sarin”.
