The world has been shocked by the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Army over the last few days. President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has been almost universally condemned. Most, including myself, did not give the Ukrainian forces much of a chance due to the overwhelming advantage in size of the Russian forces versus the relatively small in number Ukrainian forces. Upon reflection over these last couple of days, and a mental review of the history of the Russian military, perhaps we shouldn’t have expected such an easy Russian victory after all.
Many in the West seem not to know, but the Ukrainians certainly remember, that the Ukrainian people suffered one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the 20th Century while dominated by the Russians as a member of the Soviet Union. In the winter of 1932-1933, Soviet forces confiscated vast amounts of grain from unarmed Ukrainian farmers in the fall of 1932 and then imposed a travel ban on Ukrainians leaving their villages to look for food as inevitably people began to starve during the winter months. Estimates vary, but most responsible estimates are that 4-7 million Ukrainians died by starvation during that winter. The following fall, in November of 1933, President Roosevelt recognized Joseph Stalin’s Communist Party as the legitimate rulers of the Soviet Union.
Most people with a passing history of World War II remember that it began in earnest with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany from the west on September 1, 1939. Some seem to forget that by secret agreement the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939, after the Polish forces already where engaged defending against the German Blitzkrieg and largely defeated.
In November of 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland in the so-called Winter War. The Soviet forces had about a 2 to 1 advantage in men, as much as 30 to 1 in aircraft, and astounding 100 to 1 in tanks. Despite these incredible advantages the Finns fought the Soviets to a standstill, with the Russians sustaining casualties five times as great as the Finns.
The end of World War II came largely due to the defeat of Nazi Germany by Soviet forces on the Eastern Front. Although the Russians soldiers undoubtedly fought with extreme bravery, the Soviet victory only came after the much smaller German nation had inflicted huge military loses thousands of miles into Russian territory while the Germans where also fighting the combined forces of the English, United States, and others on the Western Front. The Soviet Union was also receiving substantial material support from the United States through the Lend Lease Program.
After World War II, the Russian army is most notable for occupying and then installing puppet Communist governments in the Eastern European States devastated by World War II. Part of this domination included rolling tanks in to suppress ill equipped and untrained civilian uprisings in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. Of course, the final debacle for the Russian dominated Soviet Army was the invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979, which ended in defeat 10 years later.
It is still way too early to predict an outcome for the invading Russian forces this time, and there is still much cause for concern for the devastation being wrought upon the already relatively poor Ukrainian population, but perhaps in 2022 the myth of the vaunted Russian military prowess will finally be put to rest and Eastern Europe and the rest of the World will no longer live in fear of the ravings of Russian dictators. Ironic that the poor Ukrainians, fellow Orthodox Slavs like the Russians, could be the ones to once again beat back Russian aggression after literally trillions of dollars have been spent by the Western Powers on deterrence.