Ukraine is Turning Russia’s Greatest Strength into a Weakness

Key Points – Russia’s vast geographic size, historically a defensive asset against invaders like Napoleon and Hitler, has become a strategic liability in its war against Ukraine.

-As demonstrated by Ukraine’s recent “Operation Spider’s Web” drone strikes, which hit targets across multiple time zones, Russia’s defenses are spread too thin to protect all of its critical military and industrial sites.

-This vulnerability is compounded by staggering troop losses, which are reportedly near one million, and an overheating economy strained by massive military spending. While Russia’s size allows it to absorb losses, it also provides Ukraine with a vast territory to target with asymmetric attacks.

Russia’s Size Problem in the Ukraine War 

There’s an old joke from the Cold War: If it’s the West that’s imperialist, then how did Russia get so big?

And now, long after the Cold War but with Russia immersed in another lengthy war, the question has been raised of whether Russia’s size is a liability.

A piece in Al-Jazeera this week asks, “In its war on Ukraine, is Russia’s vast size becoming a liability?” This is especially in light of Ukraine’s drone attacks earlier this month, which struck numerous sites across several time zones throughout Russia.

In the piece, Mansur Mirovalev argues that while Russia’s vast size was long an asset, especially when it came to repelling foreign invasions. But now, Russia’s size may be hurting it.

“Even though two-thirds of it is permafrost, the sheer vastness used to save Russia from invasions, be it Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812 or the 3.8 million soldiers of Nazi Germany and its allies in 1941,” Mirovalev writes. “However, as the war with Ukraine, a former province whose Cossack armies once spearheaded czarist conquests, grinds into its fourth year, Russia’s size has become a liability.”

Too Big, and Failing?

Ukraine is even joking about that.

“Russia’s territory offers maximal capabilities for strikes,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera, although he said so in jest.

But it’s not a joke that Russia’s defenses are now spread thin. The Russians have a lot of ground to defend, and have been having trouble defending all of it.

Listens of the Spider Webs 

“If a group of people is professional and motivated enough, it’ll always find a way to achieve a goal, and that’s something the SBU proved,” Romanenko said of the Ukrainian Security Service. And one example of that is Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web attack, which struck all across Russia.

That attack represents “a lesson that military bases, in warzones and at home, are now more vulnerable than ever to cheap, easily hidden and quickly deployed weapons that can appear with little notice,” Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general, wrote recently for the Lowy Institute.

Ryan, in his piece, argued that while Ukraine’s drone attacks were successful, they shouldn’t necessarily get their hopes up.

“Despite the spectacular nature of the Ukrainian attacks, we should temper our expectations of the strategic outcomes from the attacks. Russia has been under these sorts of attacks for some time, and Putin is yet to step away from his maximalist goals for the war.”

Where Things Stand With the War Now 

According to a Kyiv Independent report on Thursday, a Russian official has accidentally admitted to “staggering troop losses” in the war. Ukraine’s military said last week that Russia’s casualty count has crossed the one million mark since the war started in early 2022.

The Independent cited an interview with CNN, in which the Russian Ambassador to the U.K. Andrey Kelin denied the 1 million casualty figure, and claimed  “about 600,000” Russian soldiers are currently fighting in Ukraine.

“I’m not a specialist in this area, but as I understand it we have 50-60,000 a month, those volunteers who are coming, recruiting, posting, and they would like to get engaged in this thing (in Ukraine),” the ambassador said.

Per The Independent, this indicates that Russia has been losing a lot of soldiers.

“If you look at the current Russian economic indicators, for example their inflation rate, their overnight lending interest rates, Russian monetary constraints… government spending is out of control — it’s a very loose fiscal policy and so the economy is at risk of overheating,” George Barros, Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told the Independent.

About the Author: 

Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.

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